The deaths of Palestinians and destruction in Gaza and the West Bank have received less empathy than the destruction of a Jesus statue by an Israeli soldier in southern Lebanon, Haaretz newspaper said, Anadolu reports.
Video footage circulating on Sunday showed an Israeli soldier smashing a statue of Jesus with a pickaxe in the town of Debel in southern Lebanon.
Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, were quick to condemn the destruction of the statue, in a move Haaretz said reflects heightened international scrutiny of the Israeli government’s relationship with Christians.
Netanyahu said that he was “stunned and saddened” by the incident, while Foreign Minister Gideon Saar called the soldier’s conduct “grave and disgraceful.”
The Israeli army also said the soldier who destroyed the statue and the one who photographed it were removed from combat duty and sentenced to 30 days of military detention.
Those same officials, however, showed indifference to the soldiers’ misconduct during military operations in Gaza and the West Bank, Haaretz said.
During Israel’s two-year war in Gaza, where more than 72,000 people have been killed, soldiers frequently took photos and videos of themselves and posted them on TikTok, Instagram and Telegram. The clips showed soldiers inside Gaza homes, trying on residents’ underwear; celebrating bombings; and posing beside revenge graffiti or next to the bodies of dead Palestinians.
While the army spoke out against such posts, officials failed to condemn them, Haaretz said.
– Less empathy
In one instance, a video showed Israeli soldiers sexually abusing a Palestinian detainee in the Sde Teiman prison in southern Israel. Netanyahu, however, called the video a “propaganda attack against Israel” and a “terrible libel” against the soldiers involved.
And on April 16, Israeli Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir approved the return to service of the soldiers accused of sexually assaulting the detainee at the facility.
On March 15, four members of the Bani Odeh family were killed when Israeli forces opened fire on their car in Tammun in the West Bank. The Israeli Justice Ministry unit responsible for investigating police misconduct, however, did not even question the officers involved in the killing.
Haaretz said misconduct by Israeli security forces in the West Bank only draws serious consideration when it is directed against American Journalists – not against Palestinians.
“Netanyahu’s politics – and he has this in common with autocrats around the world and throughout history – rely on outside enemies for blind domestic support,” Haaretz commented.
“Israeli leaders this week scrutinized behavior by a soldier that they themselves helped shape, conduct that would go unpunished if directed at the “right enemies”. Those “enemies” – flesh and blood, victims of abuse – receive less empathy than a piece of wood.”
