For a country that values law and order, the photos, videos, and commentary coming from the Sde Teiman and Beit Lid army bases on Monday were very disturbing.
Early in the day, the Military Police arrived at Sde Teiman to question nine reservists over alleged extreme physical – and rumored sexual – abuse of a Hamas Nukhba terrorist being held at the center.
The news that military police were questioning the soldiers spread like wildfire. Protesters, including coalition MKs, arrived at the scene and pushed their way into the base. They then followed the reservists to the Beit Lid base near Netanya, where the soldiers were taken for further questioning. Riots broke out at both places.
The public rage boiled down to this: Our soldiers have put their lives on hold for 10 months now, nearly 700 have lost their lives, and this is the treatment they get? This is their thanks? This was the sentiment that drove dozens of people, including the MKs, to protest at the bases and show their support for the reservists.
If things were that simple, this argument might even be convincing. The anger over investigating soldiers, as though they were the enemy, and with the investigators coming to Sde Teiman with their faces covered, is understandable. But the understanding and tolerance should end there – long before people take it upon themselves to breach a security facility and act in ways that break the law and put people’s lives in danger.
What separates Israel as a democratic state from the regimes that surround it in this region is the built-in trust and respect for law and order – and for the institutions that uphold it. That this respect both for the law and for the country’s institutions is steadily eroding is deeply troubling and something that needs to be corrected – once this war ends – and made a top priority.
The sight of MKs and a cabinet minister protesting and even breaking into the bases – and using their parliamentary immunity as an excuse to do so – sends a message of fundamental lack of respect for the law. Unfortunately, and unfathomably in a time of war, the rioters forced the IDF to have to call in three battalions to guard the Beit Lid base not from an enemy but from angry Israeli citizens – three battalions with much more pressing things to do in Gaza, in Judea and Samaria, and along the northern border against a real enemy.
One question that needs to be answered is: Where were the police during all of this? Why did the police not go to Sde Teiman immediately when the protesters arrived, and why were they not at Bet Lid anticipating problems when the reservists were taken there? Why are soldiers being called upon to do a job that they are not trained to do and which the police should be carrying out.
Allegations of severe abuse at Sde Teiman, the army base that has doubled for the last 10 months as a detention center for Palestinians arrested in Gaza, were unveiled by CNN in May. It is not clear whether Monday’s questioning of the reservists is connected with the CNN allegations, but it points to the possibility of a problem that needs to be dealt with.
Keeping the allegations from fading away
The way to deal with it is not – as some have chosen to do – by attacking the judiciary or IDF Military Advocate-General Maj.-Gen. Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi for taking action against the reservists rather than just turning a blind eye. Instead, Israel needs to investigate the allegations – despite the protests and pressure from politicians – and if they are found to be true, hold those responsible accountable.
By the same token, Israel need not engage in self-flagellation and say the allegations and the riots are a sign of the country going into a moral tailspin.
Israel is now in the 10th month of a war for its existence, and the justice of this war need not be questioned, as some of its detractors will surely do now because of allegations of wrongdoing on the part of a few soldiers.