Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 2004, pages 15, 68

Special Report

 

Israeli Soldiers Kill Three Internationals, But Shooting of a Jew Shocks the Nation

 

By Richard H. Curtiss

	International Solidarity Movement volunteer Tom Hurndall being treated in a Rafah hospital after he was shot in the head by an IDF sniper while trying to shepherd children to safety. Declared brain dead, he remained in a coma until he died Jan. 13, 2004 in a London hospital (AFP photo/Mohammed Abed).

TOM HURNDALL, 22, died in a hospital in England on Jan. 13, 2004. He was mortally wounded the previous April while volunteering in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, as a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), the pro-Palestinian peace group that serves as a buffer between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians. Although he already had been declared brain dead because of his wounds, he died of pneumonia, without, apparently, ever having recovered consciousness.

Just weeks before the British volunteer was shot by an IDF sniper, Hurndall’s American colleague in the ISM, Rachel Corrie, of Olympia, WA, was killed in Rafah, on March 16, 2003. She was trying to prevent an Israel Defense Forces Caterpillar tractor from demolishing the home of a Palestinian. Eyewitnesses vary on the details, but everyone agrees that the soldier driving the bulldozer refused to desist from his mission. The Israeli operator later said he did not know that Corrie was standing in the way as he moved forward. Photographs taken of her murder, however, make that story hard to believe.

Corrie was unable to step out of the way when it was clear the IDF bulldozer operator was not going to stop. He drove over Corrie, then backed up over her body, burying her completely. Eyewitnesses all agree that, after Corrie’s body was removed from the scene, the bulldozer operator completed demolishing the home.

On May 2, 2003, a third Westerner, British cameraman James Miller, was killed in Rafah. This time, all of the circumstances of Miller’s death were recorded on film by a colleague from the Associated Press Television News (APTN). Miller had completed filming in Rafah and was ready to leave—but he wanted to be sure he and his crew would not be shot at by the Israeli military unit nearby.

Shining a flashlight on a white flag he was carrying in front of him, Miller advanced very carefully toward the Israeli unit, until he was only 500 feet away. At that point one of the Israelis fired at Miller, but missed. Just 13 seconds later, the Israeli fired again—and this time killed Miller instantly.

The soldier knew exactly what he was doing—and there was no way to challenge the timing of the event because all of the evidence remained in the camera of Miller’s colleague. Obviously the Israeli soldier who shot Miller did not realize that a second person was there in the dark, recording the entire incident.

John Sweeney of BBC London, a long-time colleague of Miller, said, “It seemed incredible that he had been killed in some stupid accident of war.” In fact, said Sweeney, “the evidence suggests that this did not happen. The Israeli army, thanks to the United States, has some of the best night vision technology in the world. Their kit turns nights into day.”

When the APTN film was shown to a serving Israeli soldier, he said, “That’s murder!”

For updated developments and complete information on Miller’s murder, visit the Web site <http://www.justice4jamesmiller.com>.

Internationals are in grave danger when they work in the Israeli-occupied territories. There is no question, however, that by their very presence they have saved the lives of many Palestinians over the years. When international volunteers, who often include Israelis, are not around, a large number of Palestinians are killed, often quite deliberately. The Israelis frequently attribute their deaths to “accidental fire”—or even at times claim that they fired only when Palestinians fired first.

From Sept. 28, 2000 to Jan. 5, 2004, Israeli troops have killed 2,782 Palestinians. There were far fewer deaths—1,283—during the six years of the first Palestinian intifada which lasted from December 1987 to 1993.

Despite the tragic deaths of their coworkers, Israelis, Americans and other volunteers of different nationalities continue to try to save the lives of Palestinians in Rafah. Having learned that Palestinians are shot quite casually when seen in the vicinity of the so-called “Security Fence,” the volunteers have shifted tactics.

On Dec. 26, 2003 demonstrators put Israeli protesters in front of Palestinians to try to halt the construction of the apartheid wall. Israeli troops requested permission from their commander to fire live ammunition, instead of rubber-coated bullets, “at the legs of the protesters.” The Israeli commander gave his authorization and one person was shot and badly injured. The protester, Gil Na’aman, however, was an off-duty Israeli soldier in civilian clothes. Two other demonstrators—including an American woman hit by shrapnel—also were shot as they cut some wires of the apartheid wall. It was only when they stopped shooting, supposedly, that the Israeli troops realized that the demonstrator they had badly wounded was an Israeli.

For reasons which are unclear, even though Israeli troops were nearby Na’aman was not allowed to get aid for his injuries, which included three bullets in his legs. Palestinians demonstrators were able to take Na’aman to a hospital.

Eventually a high-ranking Israeli official visited Na’aman in the hospital—only after Israeli newspapers picked up the story, however. Again, it is not clear whether the officials thought Na’aman had been hit accidentally, and therefore were apologizing, or whether it was a matter of public relations damage control. The Israeli public was shocked that Israeli soldiers had shot an Israeli Jew.

One wonders why Israelis reacted so differently to Na’aman’s serious injuries. Rachel Corrie was killed, after all, and there was virtually no interest or follow-up on her death. Hurndall’s shooting and death received more coverage in Britain than Corrie’s killing did in the United States, even though both families have worked hard to keep their stories alive.

Miller’s father, a London attorney, has written a great deal about the circumstances of his son’s death. The Israelis have been decidedly uncooperative, having promised, then refused to follow through on any investigation.

In Na’aman’s case, however, it’s almost as if an invisible line has been crossed. Killing foreigners is something Israelis can live with, as were the shooting deaths in October 2000 of 13 Arab Israelis. To have a fellow Jew shot, however, seems to have shaken Israelis to the core.

Killing a Jew just isn’t done unless it is on behalf of the Jewish people. In that case a rabbinical sanction must be applied—as was the case when Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was killed as he left a crowd of supporters. The assassin, Yigal Amir, an Orthodox Jew, maintained that Rabin had become an enemy of the Jewish people and that the killing therefore was justified. Amir is still incarcerated in Israel, and his request to marry in prison recently was denied.

This writer recalls conversations with the late Dr. Israel Shahak, a Holocaust survivor and professor of chemistry at Hebrew University. When the subject of his vociferous support for human rights arose, I expressed my concern that he might be in physical danger because of his stands.

Dr. Shahak said, astonishingly, “I do not have to worry because I am Jewish.” Then he added, ”But you should worry, because you are not Jewish.”

That conversation was interrupted because I was taking him from one lecture to another during his visit to Washington, DC. I subsequently raised the subject again, but he reiterated that he was not in danger and that I was. I could not understand this until I read Shahak’s book, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, and a second book, Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, he wrote with Norton Mezvinsky, a professor at Central Connecticut State University. (Both books are available from the AET Book Club.)

Only then did I finally comprehend why Dr. Shahak thought he would not be killed, but that others who were not Jewish might be in harm’s way. His books describe how the murder of 29 Muslims at prayer by Jewish fundamentalist Baruch Goldstein is justified by Jewish fundamentalists, and why Yigal Amir justified his assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in accordance with rabbinical sanction.

In short, according to Shahak and Mezvinsky: “The Talmud states that two contrary types of souls exist, a non-Jewish soul comes from the Satanic spheres, while the Jewish soul stems from holiness.” Rabbi Kouk, “the Elder, the revered father of the messianic tendency of Jewish fundamentalism said, ‘The difference between a Jewish soul and the souls of non-Jews’ is greater and deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle.”

Shahak’s books explains why the Gush Emunim movement exists, why Israeli settlers and soldiers will not back down, and why they continue provoking bloodshed with Jews and non-Jews alike. At some point Americans will have to take heed.

In the meantime, non-Jews who seek to safeguard or document Palestinian lives—however nonviolently—should not assume that their lives are worth the same as that of one Jewish Israeli.

Richard H. Curtiss is executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

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