Opinion | Israeli Soldiers Who Document Their Crimes Know They're Safe From Prosecution

 Yoana Gonen

A video of a combat soldier, which was distributed on Sunday, shows an Israeli in uniform, kippah and flip-flops, giving an amusing "sermon" about Temple vessels to three handcuffed and blindfolded detainees who are lying on the ground in front of him.

Just another casual record of abuse of Palestinians, this time using a Torah lesson, and the substantial pleasure of the photographer and the subject humiliating helpless people, truly reminiscent of the famous "dark times" we are always reminded of.

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These videos seem to be everywhere in the past year: soldiers abusing, looting and smashing, all with big smiles. On Friday, Al Jazeera aired a comprehensive investigative report about war crimes committed by the IDF in Gaza, which is full of material posted by the soldiers themselves.

Most of the report deals with more horrific crimes, from mass starvation to the shooting of children, but these videos are especially shocking: the visible faces make the violence more intimate, and the giggles testify to a sadistic pleasure that is hard to deny.

Many of the videos take place in private homes, whose residents fled in the violence of the fighting. One soldier is shattering plates to the sounds of Greek music and a background text stating, "From the time that reminds you that you weren't just wearing a uniform for months in the smelly homes of these 'uninvolved' Arabs."

Others smash televisions and cabinets, destroy refrigerators and products in stores. A woman soldier mocks a handcuffed detainee who urinated in his pants. Combat soldiers are filmed wearing bras of women who have become refugees, or maybe killed.

One of them films nightgowns that he found, saying, "I always said, the Arab women are the worst rags." The Al Jazeera investigative reporters give the names of the soldiers and their units in some of the incidents. They are ordinary men, your neighbors, your children.

In view of the harsh scenes, Tamir Morag of Channel 14 immediately identified the problem that must be addressed: imaginary informers. "Instead of obsessively investigating the combat soldiers, it would be refreshing if the Military Advocate General ordered the Military Police … to check who sent the combat soldiers' names to the scum of Al Jazeera," she tweeted "You said that you're their flak jacket, right?"

Channel 14 is apparently used to "investigations" being leaked in messages, but in this case, the people who provided the names are the combat soldiers themselves, who proudly posted their misdeeds on social media. It's rather ironic that if the Military Advocate General adopts the recommendation, that is the only chance that these soldiers will be investigated for something. Like Morag, the army is not particularly bothered by the acts themselves either.

That is precisely why the combat soldiers are not only unafraid of committing the revolting deeds, but also of documenting and distributing them. The interviewees in the Al Jazeera investigation are astonished by this, because they do not understand that these soldiers are perfectly well aware that they will not be punished.

The commanders are indifferent or encouraging, the general public is warmly supportive (even in the case of a suspected rape of a prisoner), and the military authorities are turning a blind eye, or at best issuing drivel in response about "IDF values" and "reinforcing protocols."

Morag's remarks reveal deep voids, not only on subjects such as the role of the media and morality, but also about international law. The international courts are not required to act when the state investigates war crimes and indicts the suspects. In the case of Israel, the criminals are personally posting the evidence, and instead of punishing them, the state pats them on the back or laughs aloud.

Israel has closed Al Jazeera and the local media are eager collaborators with the army, but who needs investigative journalism when the soldiers themselves are so proud of their actions and let the whole world see what is happening in Gaza?

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