- "'I remember how we humiliated a dwarf who came
to the checkpoint every day on his wagon...'"
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- OCCUPIED JERUSALEM
- A former Israeli soldier who served three years in the Gaza Strip has
described Israeli treatment of Palestinian civilians as befitting 'animals,
criminals, and thieves'.
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- Staff Sergeant Liaran Ron Furer has written a book on
his experience as an Israeli soldier manning roadblocks throughout the
Gaza Strip.
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- The book, titled "Checkpoints-Twilight Zone"
contains personal testimonies and often-brash accounts of the daily harassment
and humiliation inflicted by young Israeli soldiers on Palestinian civilians.
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- Major publishers in Israel, including the famous Steimatzky
bookstore chain refused to publish the book apparently because of its scathing
criticism of Israeli army behavior.
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- "You can adopt the most hard-line political positions,
but no parent would agree to his son becoming a thief, a criminal or a
violent person. The boy himself doesn't portray himself this way to his
family when he returns from the territories. On the contrary, he is received
as a hero, as someone who is doing the important work of being a soldier,"
says Furer in his book.
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- Furer describes several types of 'sadistic' behaviors
by Israeli soldiers including beating Palestinians and then taking souvenir
pictures with them. "I remember how we humiliated a dwarf who came
to the checkpoint every day on his wagon. They forced him to have his picture
taken on the horse, hit him and degraded for a good half hour."
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- Among the accounts narrated by Furer are stories of soldiers
having souvenir pictures with Palestinians they had beaten up, soldiers
urinating on the head of a Palestinian because the man had the nerve to
smile at a soldier and how one soldier, nicknamed Dado, forced a Palestinian
to stand on four legs and bark like a dog.
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- One of Furer`s most chilling confessions related to his
abuse of a 16-year old mentally retarded boy.
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- Furer stresses that behaviors as such are by no means
isolated but rampant in the Israeli army.
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- An Israeli army spokesperson refused to comment on the
book saying "sorry, I haven't read the book yet."
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- http://www.palestinechronicle.com/printstory.php?sid=20031130164606231
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