Mandelblit: Issue must be clear
Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Office
Military advocate general prohibits IDF use of violent means
Brig.-Gen. Mandelblit supports reprimand of officer who claimed limited violence against Palestinians is sometimes necessary
Military Advocate General Brigadier-General Avi Mandelblit warned IDF soldiers Thursday against employing any kind of violence against Palestinians during their operations in the Palestinian territories.
Mandelblit said he supported GOC Central Command Gadi Shamni, who has reprimanded Kfir Brigade Commander Col. Itai Virob for stating the opinion that violence was at times inevitable.
Point of Contention
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Meanwhile IDF officers have said that Mandelblit's position was divorced from reality.
"We don't support violence, we thoroughly condemn it, but sometimes there are impossible situations during which power is employed. Our combat troops need to know that if something like this happens they have our support, otherwise we have a big problem here," one of the officers told Ynet.
But Mandelblit has mentioned in several letters supporting the reprimanded officer that Shamni's approach expresses the army's position on the issue, and that the IDF would have to be clear on this in order to prevent serious moral errors by soldiers and officers.
The military advocate general has notified attorneys representing the Kfir Brigade officer and soldier currently on trial for violence that he would not lift the charges against them or decrease them, and that the trial would continue as planned.
But senior officers continue to claim that the demand to operate in the Palestinian territories without the use of violence at all is simply impossible.
"The combat soldiers receive missions and are well aware of the importance of their success because this is prevention of terror. Sometimes there is no choice and in order to protect the citizens of Israel a certain amount of limited violence is employed," one officer said.
