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Immunity and impunity to brutality

The occupation of Palestine by Israel continues unabated - with no prospect to it coming to an end. As part of the now 40 year occupation there have countless reports of deaths and physical brutality meted out to the Palestinians. Needless to say the Israeli military are the focus of their actions.

Now, a storm has erupted in Israel about a report in Haaretz detailing the brutality of Israeli soldiers and their approach to their duties. As The Guardian reports:

"A study by an Israeli psychologist into the violent behaviour of the country's soldiers is provoking bitter controversy and has awakened urgent questions about the way the army conducts itself in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

Nufar Yishai-Karin, a clinical psychologist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, interviewed 21 Israeli soldiers and heard confessions of frequent brutal assaults against Palestinians, aggravated by poor training and discipline. In her recently published report, co-authored by Professor Yoel Elizur, Yishai-Karin details a series of violent incidents, including the beating of a four-year-old boy by an officer."

And, more than frighteningly:

"Another explained: 'The most important thing is that it removes the burden of the law from you. You feel that you are the law. You are the law. You are the one who decides... As though from the moment you leave the place that is called Eretz Yisrael [the Land of Israel] and go through the Erez checkpoint into the Gaza Strip, you are the law. You are God.'"

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