Moshe Yallon Israel Defense Minister |
by Caroline Glick
It's been along timing in coming, but it finally happened.
The IDF General Staff has lost the public trust.
This is terrible for the General Staff. But it is more terrible for the country, because the public is right not to trust our military leaders. They have earned our distrust fair and square.
The IDF General Staff has lost the public trust.
This is terrible for the General Staff. But it is more terrible for the country, because the public is right not to trust our military leaders. They have earned our distrust fair and square.
But such is life. Things are never cut and dry. On Purim, Sgt. Elor Azaria killed a terrorist in Hebron as he lay on the ground, shot, following his attempted murder of one of Azaria’s comrades.
Still today, we don’t know whether Azaria acted properly or improperly. He claims that he believed the terrorist had a bomb beneath the heavy jacket he was wearing in the middle of a heat wave.
Azaria claims that he shot him because he feared that the terrorist – who was moving – was trying to detonate the bomb. This view was shared by emergency personnel at the scene caring for the wounded soldier.
But even before he had a chance to tell his story, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon had already declared Azaria guilty of murder. Based on an initial field investigation and a snuff film produced by the European-funded anti-Israel group B’Tselem, Eisenkot and Ya’alon excoriated Azaria and pronounced the soldier, who was decorated for his service just last year, a rotten apple.