Soccer Dad

Report on idf raises questions about reporter's impartiality

The Washington Post's Joel Greenberg reports Killing of Hamas operative raises questions about conduct of elite Israeli units in pursuing militants. When you see a headline like that you realize that the reporter is looking to manufacture said questions. If Greenberg, for example, had witnessed the soldiers going into a pizza store, buying a soda and getting change, you'd see the headline, "Purchase of soda raises questions about spending habits of Israeli soldiers."

The Israeli version is that Iyad Abu Shilbaya made threatening moves against the soldiers, so they shot him. The Israelis acknowledge that no weapon was found on Shilbaya. To bolster his case that there are questions about the conduct of the soldiers, Greenberg gets statements from Shilbaya's brother, widow and members of "Breaking the silence" and B'tselem. In other words Greenberg based his story on relatives of the slain man and people who raise questions about the conduct of IDF in nearly all circumstances.

Still I think what the former solidier who's now associated with Breaking the silence says is important.

But a former soldier in Cherry who spoke on condition of anonymity said in an interview that the rules were "very fluid" and changed according to circumstances. The veteran, a member of the group Breaking the Silence, which publishes accounts by discharged soldiers who served in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, said that in close encounters with militants, members of the unit were given broad discretion to open fire.

In one operation, he recalled, soldiers were told that their objective was an armed militant, and that "if you see a weapon near him, you shoot. If he makes any strange or sudden move, you shoot. Don't take a risk. If you shoot, you'll have backing."

"The culture of the unit was to arrest, but also not to take risks," the veteran said. In some cases, soldiers were given the message that "killing the terrorist was best," he added.

These seem like perfectly reasonable guidelines. And since the IDF claims that the soldiers acted in exactly this fashion when they went to apprehend Shilbaya, it's hard to see what questions the arrest raise; unless one is questioning operations of the IDF in general.

There was one more detail in the article that, I think, might explain why the soldiers shot Shilbaya.

In the militant's cramped bedroom two days after the shooting,

If the shooting occurred in close quarters, the soldiers had less room and time to maneuver, and probaby were forced to make a decision faster than usual. They had less margin for error.

And though Greenberg doesn't report it; Shilbaya wasn't just any member of Hamas:

Hamas vowed to avenge the death of Iyad Abu Shilbaya, 37, who the Islamist group said was a local leader of its armed wing in the northern West Bank town of Tulkarm.

Maybe something did go wrong when the IDF went to apprehend Shilbaya. The only question that arises from what's been reported is why the Washington Post's reporter thought to frame the story in a way to imply that the IDF acted improperly when they went to apprehend a terrorist who was quite possibly armed.