Israeli soldiers' T-shirts depict shooting Arabs
By MATTI FRIEDMAN
Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM -- Israel's military condemned soldiers for wearing T-shirts
of a pregnant woman in a rifle's cross-hairs with the slogan "1 Shot 2
Kills," and another of a gun-toting child with the words, "The smaller
they are, the harder it is."
The T-shirts were worn by some Israeli Defense Force soldiers to mark
the end of basic training and other military courses, the newspaper
Haaretz said.
The appearance of the T-shirts followed allegations of misconduct by
Israeli troops during the three-week Gaza war. Palestinian officials
say about 1,400 Palestinians were killed, most of them civilians.
Thirteen Israelis died, three of them civilians.
The army said it would not tolerate the T-shirts and would take
disciplinary action against the soldiers involved, although it was not
clear how many wore the shirts or how widely they were distributed.
The military sought to portray the T-shirts as "tasteless" humor and
condemned the soldiers involved, saying in a statement that the shirts
"are not in accordance with IDF values."
They were not manufactured or sanctioned by the military.
The shirts' existence was first reported Friday by Haaretz and later
on broadcasts by Israeli radio and television.
Haaretz showed pictures of five shirts and said they were made at the
unit level - indicating that they were made for small numbers of
troops, perhaps several dozen at a time. It said they were worn by an
unknown number of enlisted men in different units. The Tel Aviv
factory that made many of the shirts, Adiv, refused to comment.
Few in the Palestinian territories appeared to be aware of the
T-shirts. In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said it "reflects the
brutal mentality among the Zionist soldiers and the Zionist society."
Hamas-controlled media consistently glorify attacks on Israelis, and
cartoons in Palestinian newspapers frequently use anti-Semitic images
of Jews as hook-nosed, black-hatted characters.
Hamas also mocked Israeli suffering, staging a play about its capture
of an Israeli soldier in which it makes fun of the serviceman crying
for his mother and father.
Israel's military has come under increasing scrutiny after soldiers
alleged that some troops opened fire hastily and killed Palestinian
civilians during the Gaza war, including children, possibly because
they believed they would not be held accountable under relaxed
open-fire regulations. The military has ordered a criminal inquiry
into soldiers' accounts published in a military institute's
newsletter.
On Monday, the military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi,
defended his troops.
"I tell you that this is a moral and ideological army. I have no doubt
that exceptional events will be dealt with," Ashkenazi told new
recruits. Gaza "is a complex atmosphere that includes civilians, and
we took every measure possible to reduce harm to the innocent."
The Gaza offensive, launched to end years of rocket fire at Israeli
towns, ended Jan. 18.
Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups fire rockets from heavily
populated areas, and Israel says Hamas is to blame for the civilian
deaths because it leaves the military no choice but to attack them
there.
U.N. human rights experts said Monday that Israeli soldiers used an
11-year-old Palestinian as a human shield during the Gaza offensive.
The military ordered the boy on Jan. 15 to walk in front of soldiers
being fired on in a Gaza neighborhood and enter buildings before them,
said Radhika Coomaraswamy, the U.N. secretary-general's envoy for
protecting children in armed conflict.
Israeli army spokesman Capt. Elie Isaacson denied the military used
human shields, saying "morals and high ethical standards are
paramount" in the army.
Uzi Dayan, a former Israeli deputy chief of staff, said he was
"shocked but not surprised" by the T-shirts.
"I spent many years in the army and I know that if you don't pay
attention all the time, these things can happen. These are very young
people in a combat situation, so you need to have a finger on the
pulse," he said.
