My point was that assertions of ‘collective guilt’ on the part of soldiers simply makes the job of anybody attempting to restrain excessive reactions or reprisals by them (no matter whether they were targeted on the guilty or the innocent) that much harder. What’s the point if you’re going to be damned by association regardless of the individual restraint you try to observe?

As for AP’s in the crowd, no: any stranger joining the localised and sectarian tribal activity that was rioting in NI would be a subject of suspicion, and liable to assault if not abduction or murder. Although it should be said that the republican movement worshiped a totemistic informer cult which meant that anything from the deaths of bystanders in riots to the number 49 bus being late could be blamed on British securocrats.

Generally it worked in the other direction. It was a republican tactic resort to a spectrum of provocations in large-scale disorder, ranging from a hard core of rioters engaging in physical assault to sniping at troops on crowd control duties. The purpose of that was to elicit an excessive response by the security forces on the larger mass of rioters to justify republican cant about British brutality and oppression (once the Jeremy Bowens of the time had air-brushed any republican agency out of the equation). To be fair, sometimes they really didn’t have to work too hard to achieve that.

The IDF should be well aware of all that, and one of my criticisms of them is that they don’t appear to be willing to avoid responding to provocations and thereby deny their enemies easy propaganda. But that’s a different issue from imposing collective guilt by association on soldiers in a manner which most HP posters would rightly find exceptional and worthy of opposition if it was perpetrated on almost any other group.

I have some idea of what it is like to be in this kind of situation (…) in Northern Ireland (…) firing [plastic bullets] directly at particular individuals who liked to throw spikes, paving stones, petrol bombs and even acid bombs directly at us.

You forget the small detail that, as the footing clearly shows, not a single rock was thrown against the soldier who killed the protestor.

Also, the IDF engages in the despicable practice of sending soldiers disguised as Arabs (mistarvim) to mix into the protesting crowd and start throwing rocks so that a fully peaceful demonstration will artificially turn into a violent one. See here for a Maccabim Brigade commander, Colonel Gedj, admitting that the mistarvim indeed throw rocks.

Did you use mist-Irish in NI, too? What’s your experience in that field?

Thus, publishing an accusation on the internet, or in a newspaper indicting a faceless and nameless Israeli soldier with murder and every soldier in Israel, an accomplice to that murder, while simultaneously holding to an unstated presumption that any report investigating the incident at hand by Israel is most likely to be a whitewash, or “fig leaf” and therefore can be discounted a priori, helps to establish one’s credentials and authenticity in the subculture Alex esteems.

WRT reporting the killing of Bassem Abu Rahmeh, I would take an entirely different approach than Mr. Stein. I would refrain from assuming I possessed moral certitude about what actually transpired and instead first make sure I got hold of the IDF investigative report into the incident and then ask people far more knowledgeable than I about riot control situations as to what recommendations they would make to ensure as much as possible that no one , neither soldier, nor protester is killed or wounded in the future. I note that a conversation of this kind already appears in the comments of Gavin and Nick (ex South Africa) above.

Additionally, seeing as there have already been articles published reporting the testimony from protesters present at the scene at the time of the killing (including Bassem’s brother), I would do my best to speak with the soldier who fired the gas canister that hit Bassem Abu Rahmeh and report his recollection of the incident.

I would also suggest recommendations for the protesters themselves to heed, especially one demanding that they always bring along properly trained first aid staff equipped with first aid gear (including transportation) who can respond effectively in emergency situations.

Now if it turns out that the preponderance of evidence, including evidence accrued during the IDF investigation of the killing and at any subsequent trial showed the IDF soldier to have murdered and not just killed Bassem Abu Rahmeh, and the sentence meted out for the crime seemed to me unjust, I certainly would publicly protest the sentence and demand a just sentence for the crime.

But, even if in the end it turned out that the preponderance of evidence showed the IDF soldier who fired the gas canister which fatally wounded Bassem Abu Rahmeh did so in cold blood with an intent to murder and was not sentenced appropriately for the crime, and I protested the decision and sentence, I still wouldn’t have anything to do with the creepy narcissistic subculture and its warped notion of critical thinking and praxis that Mr. Stein esteems.

The post that prompted all this was transparently ridiculous and quickly shown as so, but the subsequent discussion has been very interesting indeed.

I should say that I’ve enjoyed some previous posts on Alex’s blog. Even though I think he’s played it horribly wrong on this issue, I believe his motivation is entirely honourable.

“No– Ha’aretz is to Israel what the The Guardian is to Israel.”

Stan

The responsibility for the use of unjustified or excessive force lies with the individual solder and those in the chain of command above him. ‘I was just obeying orders’ doesn’t cut it as a defence now any more than when it was tried at Nuremberg. Wait for the cover-up of individual criminality before asserting institutional misconduct.

As for the acceptance of collective guilt by the army, I can’t remember any leftie using that to justify reprisal murders of people in the IRA or indiscriminate collective punishment of republican communities in NI.

I’m not a fan of much IDF behaviour, but unlike some commentators I have some idea of what it is like to be in this kind of situation. As it happens, I have actually been in the position of arguing with fellow soldiers about the appropriate use of plastic bullets for riot control in Northern Ireland (over the inadvisibility of firing them directly at particular individuals who liked to throw spikes, paving stones, petrol bombs and even acid bombs directly at us); I can assure you that experience of attitudes towards our ‘collective guilt’ like these made in by some in this thread made my job then a lot more difficult. Thanks for that.

If you want soldiers to respect individual human rights, start respecting theirs. It is still perfectly possible to legitimately criticise the actions of soldiers without exerting institutional bigotry or collective discrimination against them.