The letter was delivered weeks after Operation Protective Edge killed more than 2,200 people [Reuters]
Forty-three reserve soldiers and former members of an elite Israeli army intelligence unit have condemned, in an open letter addressed to Israel's prime minister, armed forces chief, head of military intelligence and distributed to media on Thursday, alleged "abuses" of Palestinians in the occupied territories.
"We veterans of Unit 8200, reservists past and present, declare that we refuse to take part in activity against Palestinians and refuse to be tools to deepen the military control in the occupied territories,"
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"There's no distinction between Palestinians who are, and are not, involved in violence, we cannot continue to serve this system in good conscience, denying the rights of millions of people" the soldiers wrote
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"We call for all soldiers serving in the Intelligence Corps, present and future, along with all the citizens of Israel, to speak out against these injustices and to take action to bring them to an end."
This view is not shared by the former commander of unit 8200:
"If this is true and if I were the current unit commander, I would put them all on trial and would demand prison sentences for them, and I would remove them from the unit," General Hanan Gefen said on Friday
The report went on to describe the soldiers concern for human rights abuses and the hardship to everyday Palestinian people. Soldiers unwilling to continue with acts that harm innocents.
This report of calls for not fighting, updated today (September 13, 2014), is something we haven't heard nearly often enough lately - imo
So just a quick post to share this report I stumbled over while poking around trying to understand the goings on concerning the ISIS situation.