IDF chief’s Azaria sentence decision met with invective
Dissatisfied with IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot's decision to shorten, rather than annul, Elor Azaria's jail term, many express outrage on social media, branding him 'despicable,' 'evil,' and a 'son of Nazis.'
Despite the decision to reduce the prison sentence by four months of Elor Azaria, who was convicted of killing a neutralized Palestinian terrorist, the vitriol against IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot on social networks has been renewed with even greater vigor—for not scrapping his sentence entirely.
The chief of staff's decision was made contrary to the opinion of Chief Military Advocate General Sharon Afek who argued that Azaria's sentence should not be commuted, in light of Azaria's apparent lack of regret and the unequivocal ruling made by eight judges in two courts that convicted him of manslaughter after he shot dead the neutralized terrorist in Hebron about a year and a half ago.
Eisenkot consulted with other senior IDF officers and despite denouncing Azaria's action, and despite Azaria's lack of remorse, he noted that his decision to trim his prison term stemmed from considerations of "kindness and mercy."
A few hours later, reproach of Eisenkot on social media was renewed. "A disgraceful chief of staff. Gave him four months (less) instead of releasing him," wrote one. "The family of the terrorist and Hamas would like to thank the chief of staff for making a terrorist into a saint and a soldier into a criminal," wrote another.
Others focused on derogatory epithets for Eisenkot, who lashed out at him as they called him a "garbage," "despicable," "evil," "court jester," "villain," "wet rag" and even a "son of Nazis."
A black-and-white photograph of Eisenkot was widely circulated on social media, accompanied by the caption: "The life of the enemy is more important to him than the freedom of his soldiers."
A significant portion of the responses were written on the Facebook page of former MK Sharon Gal, one of Azaria's most prominent and outspoken supporters.
"I did not go over the responses to the post, and when you brought my attention to the heated discussion, I read and deleted what I thought was inappropriate and goes beyond the limits of reasonable and legitimate criticism," Gal wrote back after being contacted by Ynet reporters.
"We must preserve the dignity of our military and the person who heads it, despite the understandable criticism of the system for the manner in which Elor was treated," he continued. "It should be remembered that the chief of staff devotes his life to Israel's security and that the (justified) criticism should, in my opinion, be topical and not inflammatory."
Azaria may reques amnesty from the president in the next few days. He is also likely to receive another shortening of his jail term in a few months, subject to good behavior. If so, Azaria's prison term will be reduced by one third, and he will be released in May 2018.
