Israeli Soldier Jailed for Slamming IOF Treatment of Palestinians: Report

Wednesday, 27 May 2015

Israeli Soldier Jailed for Slamming IOF Treatment of Palestinians: Report

An Israeli soldier has been sentenced to one week’s incarceration after he criticized the army's treatment of Palestinians in a TV debate in Jerusalem, a report said on Tuesday.

Cpl. Shachar Berrin, 19, who serves as a combat soldier in the Jordan Valley, made the comments in a Q&A session of Deutsche Welle’s “The New Arab Debates” series, chaired by the former BBC HardTalk presenter Tim Sebastian, The Telegraph reported.

Israeli Soldier Jailed for Slamming IOF Treatment of Palestinians

In the show that was broadcast last week,
Berrin commented in favor of the tabled motion that 'The occupation is destroying Israel'.

“I personally serve in the Jordan Valley, and we can see it every day how soldiers talk about what they’re doing, how they act, how they look at these people not as other human beings, not as someone who is equal, but as someone who is less than them”, said the Israeli soldier.
When asked to give a personal example, Berrin cited the comments of a colleague.

“Just the other week, when some border police soldiers were rough with some Christian tourists, another soldier of mine, a colleague, said she couldn’t believe what they were doing: 'Come on, they are people, not Palestinians.'

And that, I think, resonates throughout much of the soldiers in the occupied territories.”
Berrin warned that these attitudes affect Israeli society, citing the recent scandal over a policeman caught on camera beating up an Ethiopian Israeli soldier in uniform - an event which caused violent mass riots in Tel Aviv only a few weeks ago.

“I think that once you are conditioned to think something, you bring it back with you and that it deeply affects Israeli society and causes it, as our president says, to be more racist”, said Berrin.
Less than 12 hours after he made the statement, Berrin was summoned back to his military base, where he faced a military trial and conviction - even before the program went on air, Israeli daily Haaretz reported.

The Israeli occupation Forces said that “the soldier was tried for expressing himself in the media without authority or permission, as called for by army orders.”