A grassroots group in Shomron (Samaria) has mounted a campaign intended to shame the Israel Defense Forces’ Chief Prosecutor, Brig.-Gen. Avichai Mandelblit, for his decision to imprison an IDF officer and another soldier for supposedly slapping Arabs during a counter-terror operation.
The group, called the Residents' Council of Shomron, published messages criticizing Mandelblit and put them up on synagogue bulletin boards in Shomron. Mandelblit is religious, and lives in a suburb of Tel Aviv.
“Every Jewish mother should know that she has placed her son in the hands of Chief Military Prosecutor Brig.-Gen. Avichai Mandelblit who throws an excellent officer and a combat medic into jail on the suspicion that they hit an Arab while conducting a search for terrorists who fired at the community of Kedumim,” the notice said.
The text paraphrases a famous quote from former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, who said “Every Jewish mother should know that she has placed her son in the hands of commanders who are worthy of this.” The quote has appeared for decades on signs at numerous IDF bases country-wide.
62 days in jail
Lt. Adam Maloul is now under house arrest, after spending 62 days in military jail. He is on trial for allegedly roughing up an Arab during a military operation in Shomron. A senior commander testified that roughing up uninvolved people is part of a standard counter-terror procedure known as “disruption.”
Maloul’s mother, Ruthi, wrote a letter to the Defense Minister detailing the events for which her son – a Deputy Company Commander, is being tried. On September 27, 2008, she said, Lt. Maloul received a report that shots were fired from the Arab village of Kadoum towards the Jewish community of Kedumim. He was instructed to lead a force of eight soldiers and head toward Kadoum. “When the force began entering the center of Kadoum at 23:30, my son identified a group of about 30 Palestinians around the grocery store, at a vantage point that overlooks Kedumim.”
“My son wanted to question the group of youths. One of the youths got riled up, shouted and began making threatening gestures at the force. My son gave this youth a ‘kaffah’ [slang for slap] because he was concerned that if he did not rein him in, the force would come under more serious threat.”
On March 4, 2009, Ruthi Maloul continues, “my son and another fighter in the force were arrested, based on the testimony of a soldier who was with them that night, who claims that my son gave two slaps to two Palestinians. The degree of reliability of this soldier can be inferred from the opinion of Battalion Commander Shimon Haroush, who says the soldier has ‘reliability problems’ and was responsible for various operational malfunctions.”
Diaspora libels
Lt. Maloul’s mother praises Haroush and Brigade Commander Itai Virov for their “courageous” testimony in his defense, but blasts Maj.-Gen Gadi Shamni for reprimanding Virov and thus interfering (she says) in her son’s trial.
The army and country that her son loves are repaying his good deeds with unkindness, she says. “In the Diaspora, Jewish soldiers were charged by gentiles with sundry libels of treason. In our own country, Jewish soldiers inform on their comrades and a Jewish army tries its officers and soldiers unjustly.”
She asks the Members of Knesset and the heads of the military if they are not worthy of the Talmudic phrase – “the face of the generation is that of a dog.” The phrase is part of the description of the morally warped generation before the Redemption of Israel.