 |
||
 |
PROPERTY JOBS
CARS
DATING |
|
|
|
||
 |
||
 |
||
|
|||||||||||||||
|
 Former Israeli soldier posts pictures of herself smiling near Palestinian prisoners 8/17/2010 - 9:24:07 AM  A former Israeli soldier has come under fire for posting photos on Facebook of herself smiling beside bound and blindfolded Palestinian prisoners. Israeli news websites and blogs showed two photographs of the woman, named by media as Eden Aberjil from the southern Israeli port town of Ashdod. In one, she is sitting legs crossed beside a blindfolded Palestinian man who is slumped against a concrete barrier. His face is turned downwards, while she leans toward him. Another shows her smiling at the camera with three Palestinian men behind her in blindfolds, their hands bound. Comments by Aberjil and her friend in an exchange below one photograph suggest how casually the picture was treated, including jokes and sexual innuendoes. "You're the sexiest like that," her friend wrote. Aberjil later acknowledged her actions had been thoughtless, and said she did not think through her decision to post the photos. She said she removed the photos after realising they offended many viewers, although she added that she does not understand why they caused outrage. The controversy is a reminder of the fraught relations between Israeli soldiers and the West Bank Palestinians under their control. Israeli soldiers have run into trouble on social media sites like Facebook and YouTube before. Most recently a group of combat soldiers were reprimanded for breaking into choreographed dance moves while on patrol in the West Bank town of Hebron. The dance featured prominently on YouTube. Palestinian Authority spokesman Ghassan Khatib condemned the photos and said they pointed to a deeper malaise - how Israel's 43-year-old occupation of Palestinians has affected the Israelis who enforce it. "This shows the mentality of the occupier," Khatib said, "to be proud of humiliating Palestinians. The occupation is unjust, immoral and, as these pictures show, corrupting." The Israeli military also criticised the young woman. "These are disgraceful photos," said Captain Barak Raz, an Israeli military spokesman. "Aside from matters of information security, we are talking about a serious violation of our morals and our ethical code and should this soldier be serving in active duty today, I would imagine that no doubt she would be court-martialed immediately," he said. The photographs were a reminder of snapshots taken in 2003 by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq that showed Iraqi detainees naked, humiliated and terrified. In that case, some soldiers went to prison. |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
