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by Staff Sergeant Liaran Ron Furer
A former Israeli soldier who served three years in the Gaza
Strip has described Israeli treatment of Palestinian civilians
as befitting ‘animals, criminals, and thieves’.
Staff Sergeant Liaran Ron Furer has written a book on his
experience as an Israeli soldier manning roadblocks throughout
the Gaza Strip.
The book, titled “Checkpoints-Twilight Zone” contains personal
testimonies and often-brash accounts of the daily harassment
and humiliation inflicted by young Israeli soldiers on
Palestinian civilians.
Major publishers in Israel, including the famous Steimatzky
bookstore chain refused to publish the book apparently because
of its scathing criticism of Israeli army behavior.
"You can adopt the most hard-line political positions, but no
parent would agree to his son becoming a thief, a criminal or
a violent person. The boy himself doesn’t portray himself this
way to his family when he returns from the territories. On the
contrary, he is received as a hero, as someone who is doing
the important work of being a soldier," says Furer in his
book.
Furer describes several types of ‘sadistic’ behaviors by
Israeli soldiers including beating Palestinians and then
taking souvenir pictures with them. "I remember how we
humiliated a dwarf who came to the checkpoint every day on his
wagon. They forced him to have his picture taken on the horse,
hit him and degraded for a good half hour."
Among the accounts narrated by Furer are stories of soldiers
having souvenir pictures with Palestinians they had beaten up,
soldiers urinating on the head of a Palestinian because the
man had the nerve to smile at a soldier and how one soldier,
nicknamed Dado, forced a Palestinian to stand on four legs and
bark like a dog.
One of Furer`s most chilling confessions related to his abuse
of a 16-year old mentally retarded boy.
Furer stresses that behaviors as such are by no means isolated
but rampant in the Israeli army.
An Israeli army spokesperson refused to comment on the book
saying “sorry, I haven’t read the book yet.”
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