27 Israeli pilots to refuse missions in West Bank, Gaza

Crisis of confidence in the IDF? Pilots refusing to bomb civilian targets with high-tech jets? It goes to show not every Israeli is as bloodthirsty as their government.

edition.cnn.com...

"Report: 27 Israeli pilots to refuse missions in West Bank, Gaza

(CNN) --Israel's air force chief has received a letter from pilots who are refusing to participate in activities targeting Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, an Israeli newspaper reported Wednesday.

Haaretz said 27 active and retired reserve duty pilots signed the letter to Maj. Gen. Dan Halutz, the Israeli air force chief, and it was reportedly sent Wednesday.

Israel Defense Forces did not have an immediate reaction.

Among those who signed the letter was reserve duty Brig. Gen. Yiftah Spector, a squadron leader during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, according to Haaretz.

Some of the signatories have previously raised objections to similar operations, the paper said."



jakomo

Well,

IDF/AF isnt the only one..

More than 1000 army officers have also declined from serving in occupied terrotories..

It is funny how in Israel the orthodox Jews are the most loud people talking about the destruction of the Palestinians.. but in the same time their 'orthodox Jew' beliefs prevent them from serving in Israels army..

It is good to talk if ones own neck isnt in the 'line'..

i agree fulcrum, i call them "men in black" everytime i see them i wanna spit them in the face

Originally posted by Jakomo
Crisis of confidence in the IDF? Pilots refusing to bomb civilian targets with high-tech jets? It goes to show not every Israeli is as bloodthirsty as their government.

edition.cnn.com...

"Report: 27 Israeli pilots to refuse missions in West Bank, Gaza

(CNN) --Israel's air force chief has received a letter from pilots who are refusing to participate in activities targeting Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, an Israeli newspaper reported Wednesday.

Haaretz said 27 active and retired reserve duty pilots signed the letter to Maj. Gen. Dan Halutz, the Israeli air force chief, and it was reportedly sent Wednesday.

Israel Defense Forces did not have an immediate reaction.

Among those who signed the letter was reserve duty Brig. Gen. Yiftah Spector, a squadron leader during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, according to Haaretz.

Some of the signatories have previously raised objections to similar operations, the paper said."



jakomo

Like I always said, most Israeli are great people, but their governement is criminal.

This makes me hopeful that maybe the Israeli people can take back control of their government and ACTIVELY pursue peace, because their government (especially their current one under Sharon) has been the biggest culprit in the ongoing violence since 2000...


j

Yeah!!! I hope more are to follow. That'll teach that bastard piece of $hit Sharon to stop murdering Palestinians and kicking them out of their homes. The current Israeli government is as criminal as they come.

Originally posted by SectorGaza
i agree fulcrum, i call them "men in black"

everytime i see them i wanna spit them in the face

I dont know about that.. but they do seem as very weird people with extreme views about Palestinias.. and yet they dont even serve in IDF.

They dont participate.. so in my mind they have no say in anything. (but they do have 20% of the seats in knesset.. dont they? and so they have been in most of the Israels goverments..)

So, they do have much 'political power'..

i am lucky that i didnt say what you said Gaza.. because if it was me that said so.. (the spit in the face thing..) i would be banned.. but as you are from Israel.. you can say it for me..

Here's Israel's reaction:

wireservice.wired.com...

"Israel Reels at Pilots' Refusal to Go on Missions




Thursday, September 25, 2003 10:27 a.m. ET

By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel reeled Thursday from the shock refusal of a group of air force pilots to carry out missions against Palestinian militants in which civilians could be killed.

"The pilots' mutiny" was how Israel's largest newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, described their action as commentators speculated whether other soldiers might follow suit in opposing the way the military confronts a Palestinian uprising.

But much of the emotive debate touched off by a letter released by 27 veteran airmen -- only nine of whom are still called to active duty as reservists -- largely veered away from the moral aspect of the deaths of innocents.

It focused instead on the embarrassing blow dealt to an air force Israel regards as one of its proudest achievements and whether members of what Israelis call a people's army can, in matters of conscience, take a stand against official policy.

"We, who were taught to love Israel and contribute to the Zionist enterprise, refuse to take part in attacks on civilian population centers," the pilots wrote in a letter to air force chief Dan Halutz.

It was the highest-profile act of defiance by members of the armed forces since the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, when a tank brigade commander resigned rather than invade Beirut after saying he saw children through his field glasses...


The norm we were taught was that we do not go to places where we known civilians are present," said Lieutenant-Colonel Zeev Rotem, a retired navigator who did not sign the letter.

"That norm has changed. Today (we) attack targets where there are civilians -- women and children -- knowing there's a good chance they will die," he told Israel Radio. Israel drew international condemnation last year when 16 civilians died after an F-16 warplane dropped a one-ton bomb on a residential neighborhood in Gaza City to kill Salah Shehade, a top commander in the militant Islamic group Hamas."

continued at the link

jakomo

Originally posted by FULCRUM

Originally posted by SectorGaza
i agree fulcrum, i call them "men in black"

everytime i see them i wanna spit them in the face

I dont know about that.. but they do seem as very weird people with extreme views about Palestinias.. and yet they dont even serve in IDF.

They dont participate.. so in my mind they have no say in anything. (but they do have 20% of the seats in knesset.. dont they? and so they have been in most of the Israels goverments..)

So, they do have much 'political power'..

i am lucky that i didnt say what you said Gaza.. because if it was me that said so.. (the spit in the face thing..) i would be banned.. but as you are from Israel.. you can say it for me..

I thought that every Israeli had to do his military service at the age of 18 ? Do they do their military service too ?

Originally posted by Salem

I thought that every Israeli had to do his military service at the age of 18 ? Do they do their military service too ?

Orthodox Jews dont do military service.

There is nothing more to it, they just dont do it.

Terribly difficult call here.
I have heard this argued as a hypothetical in ethics classes for years (typically, should we have assasinated Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, pick your favorite despot).
Now the changing rules of modern terror turn it into an openly state sanctioned instrument of war by a free country.
I would hope this can be resolved with as little damage, both to the pilots and the Israeli Military as possible. Clearly, their position can not be tolerated within a military that openly conducts this type of operation, but perhaps their immediate separation from service will satisfy the hardliners and still send a clear message that this is what we are doing, don't walk in the door if you can't live with it.


"Mofaz Rejects Pilots� Letter"
06:50 Sep 25, '03 / 28 Elul 5763


(IsraelNN.com) "Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz responded to the letter of the rebellious pilots, calling their actions �political� and �not an issue of morality�.

Mofaz added that a pre-emptive strike aimed at preventing an attack that would kill tens of persons including women, and children, is definitively a moral act.

The senior minister concurred with the air force commander, as well as IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya�alon, calling the act of the rebellious air force personnel a politically motivated action. The senior commanders indicated the pilots� actions will result in disciplinary action, perhaps even their dismissal from duty."


regards
seekerof

Originally posted by SectorGaza
everytime i see them i wanna spit them in the face

And me I would like to spit on Arafat face. And why not cheik Yassin too ?

Originally posted by Jakomo
This makes me hopeful that maybe the Israeli people can take back control of their government and ACTIVELY pursue peace, because their government (especially their current one under Sharon) has been the biggest culprit in the ongoing violence since 2000...

Sharon ? Well, I thought it was Arafat and the PLO who were responsible. And when you say " peace ", I guess you're speaking about the peace of the grave, right ?

Seeker: "I have heard this argued as a hypothetical in ethics classes for years (typically, should we have assasinated Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, pick your favorite despot). Now the changing rules of modern terror turn it into an openly state sanctioned instrument of war by a free country.

Israel is the only country in the world right now that rains down missiles on civilian targets to kill "suspected" terrorists, knowing that there will be civilian casualties (attacking cars in traffic is not a way to ensure no extra damage to innocents). No "changing rules of modern terror" to explain it away, sorry. It's been criticized by the whole rest of the world. Seeing as how I'm also a member of the world, I'm usually more apt to follow 99% of the rest of the world's opinion that it's state-sponsored mafia-style murder.

"I would hope this can be resolved with as little damage, both to the pilots and the Israeli Military as possible. Clearly, their position can not be tolerated within a military that openly conducts this type of operation, but perhaps their immediate separation from service will satisfy the hardliners and still send a clear message that this is what we are doing, don't walk in the door if you can't live with it.

Well, firstly, I couldn't care less what happens to the Israeli military because of this. Maybe there'll be thousands of deserters. Whatever. Boo frickin hoo.

As for your "their position can not be tolerated within a military that openly conducts this type of operation,", you seem to be justifying the acts that they are refusing to do. Justifying the bombing of residential areas to kill "suspected" militants.

I would say that YOUR position cannot be tolerated within a WORLD that needs peace more than it needs bloodshed. That you can even try to say that there's ANYTHING right with attack helicopters firing missiles into apartment buildings shows that you probably have no respect at all for human life.

These protestors deserve our respect and admiration.



jakomo

I was going to stay out of this thread. I�m getting tired of spending all my time here going over the Israeli/Palestinian-Arab thing, and I figured at least this time, Jakomo found a real news item instead of posting some slanderous lie made up by Electronic Intifada or WRMEA.

But this changed my mind:

Originally posted by Jakomo
Israel is the only country in the world right now that rains down missiles on civilian targets to kill "suspected" terrorists, knowing that there will be civilian casualties (attacking cars in traffic is not a way to ensure no extra damage to innocents). No "changing rules of modern terror" to explain it away, sorry.

Oh boo fukcing hoo! Terrorists don�t get due process. Let�s go call the ACLU!

Think about it:

In order for these terrorists to get due process, a governing authority has to arrest them and put them on trial. There are only two such authorities in the area that could do this. The Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government.

The Palestinian Authority refuses to do it. They promised to back in �93 as part of the Oslo agreement, but did nothing to fulfill that promise. Worse, they actively encourage terrorism.

The Israeli government could do it, but that means going in force and taking back the autonomy previously granted to the Palestinian-Arabs. Who would be the first to whine then? That�s right, the UN, followed closely by Jakomo.

Sure, in a perfect world, some policemen would arrest these guys, put them on trial, and they would get whatever punishment Islamic law has for murderers. The policemen would be representatives of the Palestinian-Authority, they would have started back in 1993 like they agreed to, and the second Palestinian-Arabic state would be celebrating its fifth anniversary this year. Of course, in that same perfect world, the Palestinian-Arabs who made all those promises at Oslo would have intended to keep them.

Here's a little lite reading to put the matter into perspective:

www.hrw.org...

This is not the first time that Palestinian armed groups have used suicide bombings to target Israeli civilians, although the scale and intensity of the current wave of attacks is unprecedented. Between September 1993 and the outbreak of the latest clashes between Palestinians and Israelis in late September 2000, Palestinian groups carried out fourteen suicide bombing attacks against Israeli civilians, mostly in 1996-97, killing more than 120 and wounding over 550. 12 Hamas said it committed most of the attacks; Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the others.

The PA responded by detaining hundreds of Hamas and Islamic Jihad members and supporters, but they were not charged or brought to trial in connection with the bombings. Following these detentions, the bombings ceased. Many of the detainees, however, were released from PA custody once the clashes between Palestinians and Israelis resumed in September 2000. Coincidentally or not, the new round of suicide bombings began within a few months, again under the auspices of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

....

For Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the stated goal is the creation of a Palestinian Islamist state comprising not only the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but also the entire territory over which Israel has held sovereignty since 1948. The PFLP also calls for a Palestinian state encompassing Israel, though not an Islamist one. By contrast, the nationalist agenda of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades calls for establishing Palestinian rule over the territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and for freeing those territories from Israeli military occupation.
...


Palestinian officials, while denouncing the attacks on Israeli civilians, implicitly sought to justify them by pointing to the provocative impact of incidents such as an alleged Israeli booby-trap bomb that killed five young boys in Khan Yunis on November 22, 2001. "Everyone should realize that atrocities lead to atrocities," said Nabil Sha'ath, the PA minister of planning and international cooperation. "This is the inevitable outcome of the accumulation of atrocities committed by the Israeli army against our civilians, the humiliation, the torment, the unmitigated persecution," Sha'ath said.51

...

Public officials, because of the political authority they embody, should never legitimize attacks on civilians. Yet political leaders have made statements that appear to endorse attacks against civilians, both within the Occupied Territories and externally. These span the range from ambiguity to outright support, and undermine other statements condemning attacks against civilians.85 Political leaders such as President Arafat have repeatedly praised "martyrs," without distinguishing between those who die as victims of attacks or while attacking military targets and those who intentionally die in the course of a deliberate attack against civilians.86 Yasir Abed Rabbo, the PA minister of culture and information, reportedly defended the use of the term "martyr" with reference to suicide bombers. "You can call him a shahid and denounce what he does politically," he said.87

Other officials have expressed more unequivocal support for attacks on civilians. On April 10, 2002, PA Cabinet Secretary-General Ahmad `Abd al-Rahman described that day's attack on a Haifa bus as a "natural response to what is taking place in Palestinian camps."88 Six weeks later, `Abd al-Rahman described suicide bombings in an interview with the Qatar-based satellite television station al-Jazeera as "the highest form of national struggle. There is no argument about that."89

....

Apologetic statements by public officials have also been accompanied by the broadcast of incendiary statements on publicly funded television. There were several recorded instances of such broadcasts on the official PA television channel in 2001, particularly in the broadcasts of weekly Friday prayer sermons. Among these were the live broadcasts of Shaikh Ibrahim Ma`adi delivering sermons from a Gaza mosque on June 8, 2001, and again on August 3, 2001. "Blessed are the people who strap bombs onto their bodies or those of their sons," Ma'adi said on the first of these occasions. On the second, he explicitly called for bombings in Tel Aviv, Hadera, Ashkelon, and other Israeli cities, adding:

The Jews have bared their teeth. They have said what they have said and done what they have done. And they will not be deterred except by the color of the blood of their filthy people. They will not be deterred unless we willingly and voluntarily blow ourselves up among them.93

In the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, such statements constitute incitement to crimes against humanity. Under international criminal law, the PA has a responsibility to ensure they are neither broadcast nor published, and should bring to justice those who make them.
.....

Willful killing, that is, intentionally causing the death of civilians, and "willfully causing great suffering or serious injury" when wounding victims, are war crimes.124 Persons who commit, order, or condone war crimes are individually liable under international humanitarian law for their crimes.
.....


Many Palestinians interviewed by Human Rights Watch said attacks on civilians were their only weapon with which to respond to repeated IDF use of tanks, attack helicopters, missiles, and warplanes.

Many conflicts, whether internal or international, take place between parties with radically differing means at their disposal. This is true of almost all wars that could potentially qualify under Additional Protocol I, article 4(1) as wars of national liberation, where one party frequently has vastly more sophisticated technical and military means than the other. Yet Protocol I reaffirms that all the basic rules of international humanitarian law still apply in those circumstances. Indeed, such a practice would be an exception that would virtually swallow the rules of international humanitarian law, since most wars are between forces of unequal means. The prohibition against intentional attacks against civilians is absolute. It cannot be justified by reference to a disparity of power between opposing forces.

....

Most perpetrators of suicide bombing attacks have been young men aged eighteen to twenty-four. At least three bombings, however, have been carried out by children-persons under the age of eighteen.

...

On June 28, 2002, an Israeli military court sentenced a sixteen-year-old boy to life imprisonment after he was apprehended in an attempt to blow himself up on or near a bus. At his sentencing, the boy said he had been "deceived" by Hamas into participating in the unsuccessful attack.249 Islamic Jihad acknowledged that to perpetrate a bombing on June 9, 2002 at Megiddo Junction, its members taught Hamza Samudi to drive; his age has been given variously as sixteen, seventeen, and nineteen.250

The participation, acknowledgment, and acceptance of the use of children to perpetrate suicide bombings have continued despite widespread Palestinian unease with such tactics. This unease intensified in April 2002 following three separate incidents in the Gaza Strip in which several Palestinian boys between the ages of fourteen and sixteen were killed as they charged the perimeter of an Israeli settlement armed with knives and crude pipe bombs.

...

There have been several reports of segments on PA television that explicitly encourage children to take part in clashes with Israeli forces and extol the virtues of martyrdom.

...

On August 26, 2002, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate called on Palestinian armed factions to stop using children, and declared that it was "absolutely forbidden" for photojournalists to take pictures of children carrying weapons or taking part in militant activities. The statement said that footage of armed children served "the interests of Israel and its propaganda against the Palestinian people." Tawfiq Abu Khousa, deputy chair of the syndicate, said, "We have decided to forbid taking any footage of armed children, because we consider that as a clear violation of the rights of children and for negative effects these pictures have on the Palestinian people."3

It is the encouragement of children to carry weapons and take part in armed activity that is wrong, not media coverage of these activities.

...

Syria has consistently refused to take steps to limits its assistance to armed Palestinian groups that perpetrate suicide attacks. It claims that such groups are engaged in legitimate resistance against occupation but makes no effort to disassociate itself from attacks on civilians, in clear violation of international humanitarian law.32

....
The government of Iraq has expressly endorsed and encouraged suicide bombing attacks against civilians. Iraq, in its provision of funds to families of "martyrs" and others, has established a differential in which families of suicide bombing operatives are said to receive a considerably larger sum of $25,000, while other families that have suffered a death receive $10,000.33 In promoting suicide attacks, Iraqi leaders have made no distinction between attacks against civilians and attacks against military targets.
....


Among the PA documents captured by the IDF in April-May 2002 are records relating to payments from the Saudi Arabian Committee for Support of the Intifada al-Quds, headed by the Saudi Arabian Interior Minister, to the Tulkarem Charity Committee.53 Under the arrangement, all payments or distributions were made on the basis of information supplied by "Palestinian elements," and were arranged through some fourteen local charity committees, many of which had links to Hamas.54 Each charity committee made payments or distributed food to the needy, and also gave both lump-sum and ongoing payments to families of individuals killed, injured, or imprisoned in the intifada, including the families of individuals from Hamas or other armed groups who had carried out suicide attacks against civilians.55 The PA strenuously objected on the grounds that it was designed to undercut its authority, but not because the payments were rewarding attacks on civilians.

....

One of the most contested questions in the debate about Palestinian suicide attacks on Israeli civilians is what, if any, role has been played by the Palestinian Authority and specifically, President Arafat. Israel charges that the PA has ordered and systematically participated in "terror," a term it applies to all armed activity against Israeli targets, whether military or civilian. It holds the PA responsible every time an attack occurs. The PA denies having any role in attacks against civilians.

The PA, under the terms of the Oslo Accords, assumed law enforcement responsibilities for those areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip under its control-namely, the major cities and Palestinian population clusters, amounting at the time of the outbreak of clashes in September 2000 to approximately 26 percent of the West Bank and 60 percent of the Gaza Strip.62 The PA thus has had an obligation to take all available and effective measures consistent with international human rights and humanitarian law to prevent suicide or other attacks against civilians by the armed groups operating from these areas.

Human Rights Watch found that there were steps that the PA could have taken to prevent or deter such attacks, but that it remained unwilling to risk the political cost of acting decisively. The PA routinely failed to investigate, arrest and prosecute persons believed to be responsible for these attacks, and did not take credible steps to reprimand, discipline, or bring to justice those members of its own security services who, in violation of declared PA policy, participated in such attacks. In addition, although President Arafat repeatedly condemned suicide attacks against civilians, he consistently failed to insist that terms of honor and respect such as "martyr"-which Palestinians use to designate persons who have died or suffered grave loss in clashes with Israeli forces or settlers-should not apply to people who die in the course of carrying out indiscriminate attacks against civilians.

....
The PA's failure to act in an effective and consistent manner against Palestinian attacks on civilians contributed to an atmosphere of impunity, allowing the armed groups to conclude that there would be no serious consequence for those who planned or carried out attacks that amounted to war crimes, and in the cases of suicide bombings, crimes against humanity. This failure reflects a high degree of political responsibility on the part of President Arafat and the PA leadership for the many civilian deaths that have resulted.

...

As the spiral of violence wound tighter, the Palestinian Authority continued to condemn publicly armed attacks that deliberately targeted civilians but, except for a brief period from mid-December 2001 to mid-January 2002, took no clear or credible actions to prevent such attacks or to punish those responsible.

...

Although the PA's legal governing authority derives from the Oslo Accords signed with Israel, the duty to prevent systematic indiscriminate attacks against civilians is not contingent on Israeli compliance with those accords or rendered null by what the PA regards as Israeli violations of the accords. That duty should not be a bargaining chip whose implementation is subject to political negotiations. As the political authority in place, the PA has a responsibility to bring to justice individuals who order, plan, or carry out attacks against civilians. The PA has failed to meet this obligation.

When the PA made arrests, they were often indiscriminate, picking up supporters of one or another militant group without regard to any alleged responsibility for the serious crimes being committed in the name of that group. Instead of being investigated, detained suspects were typically held without charge and later released. The PA has explained these releases as a response to the danger posed by Israeli bombings of places of detention, but it has not tried to explain why suspects were not investigated, charged, or brought to trial.

PA officials also claim that Israeli actions, such as the destruction of PA police and security installations, have undermined the PA's capacity to act. However, the record indicates that the PA for the most part did not attempt to exercise its capacity to prevent or punish such crimes even when it had the ability to do so.
...


In the first weeks of the clashes, the PA released numerous detainees, most of them members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, some of whom had been in PA detention without charge or trial for several years.78 According to press reports, the first releases took place on October 4, 2000, when twelve Hamas detainees were released from Gaza Central Prison. Subsequent releases occurred over the following week. A PA security official in Gaza claimed that by mid-October the PA had "begun to re-arrest them."79 In Nablus, fourteen of the thirty-five who had been released reportedly responded to a summons to turn themselves back in.80 Hamas political leader `Abd al-`Aziz al-Rantisi was rearrested on October 18 and released again on December 26, 2000, at the end of Ramadan.81

The Islamic Jihad organization has cited these releases as a factor contributing to the group's ability to carry out attacks against Israeli targets.
...

Some of the detainees released at the beginning of the uprising, as well as other armed militants and political critics of the PA, were re-detained and re-released periodically during 2001. Some were formally arrested and, beginning in late October 2001, the PA started using administrative detention orders to detain suspects. Individuals known to be leaders of groups responsible for attacks against civilians nevertheless continued to operate openly in the West Bank and Gaza Strip-in the case of Bethlehem-area al-Aqsa Brigades leader Atef Abayat, even when technically under "house arrest."

...

In mid-April 2001, the PA confirmed that it had released Muhammad Deyf, imprisoned since 1996 for his role in the Hamas suicide bomb attacks in February of that year, although officials insisted he remained under their control in "a safe place where he cannot be reached by the Israeli authorities."86 No such pretenses were made when Deyf narrowly escaped death in an Israeli rocket attack targeting him as he traveled by car in Gaza city on September 26, 2002.87

...

Those measures taken by the PA to limit armed activities failed to include meaningful efforts to bring perpetrators of suicide attacks on civilians to justice.
...

Fatah officials authorized these six requested payments despite widely available evidence that, in at least the cases of two individuals, the named recipients had participated in attacks on civilians in the Occupied Territories. Fourteen of the forty-one individuals for whom payment was authorized were at the time "wanted" by Israel. Twelve of these individuals, in seeking financial assistance, identified themselves as "wanted."
...

The clearest case in which President Arafat authorized payment despite the recipient's widely reported links to attacks on civilians was that of Ra��id al-Karmi, the al-Aqsa Brigades leader in Tulkarem. 119 An undated request from Ramallah-based Fatah leader Hussein al-Sheikh asked Arafat to provide al-Karmi and two others with $2,500 each; Arafat apparently authorized payments of $600 each on September 19, 2001.120 The IDF had placed al-Karmi on its "most wanted" list in August 2001, accusing him of involvement in "numerous" shooting attacks and responsibility for the deaths of seven civilians and two soldiers. Al-Karmi himself openly boasted of his involvement in the execution-style killing of two Israeli restaurateurs visiting Tulkarem on January 23, 2001-in retaliation, he said, for Israel's assassination several seeks earlier of local Fatah leader Thabet Thabet.121 The PA had arrested al-Karmi and three others later in January 2001 in connection with the killing of the two restaurateurs, but he fled prison several months later. Al-Karmi had survived a well-publicized Israeli assassination attempt on September 6, 2001, shortly before President Arafat authorized the payment in question, and had spoken openly of his intention to continue attacks against Israelis.122

In another captured document, al-Karmi approached Arafat via Marwan Barghouti, requesting payments to twelve "fighter brethren," not including himself.123 Despite al-Karmi's own self-proclaimed responsibility for attacks on civilians, Arafat granted a payment of $350 to each individual on al-Karmi's list, again without making any apparent effort to ensure that these fighters were not responsible for attacks on civilians. The payments were made on January 7, 2002, a week before al-Karmi was assassinated. At the time of his assassination, according to media reports, the PA had assured European Union officials that al-Karmi was under arrest.124 According to one report, he was assassinated "while visiting his wife and daughter during a furlough from the `protective custody' of a PA jail."125

....

Based on its own investigation as well as media accounts and publicly available, captured PA documents, Human Rights Watch identified instances in which individuals employed in one or another Palestinian security force were involved in shooting or suicide bomb attacks targeting civilians. Human Rights Watch also found that individual members of the PA security forces have had ongoing associations with armed groups that have carried out suicide bombing attacks on civilians. On at least two occasions, individual members of PA intelligence services assisted perpetrators in carrying out such attacks.139
...

The PA should have made credible efforts to reprimand, discipline, or, where appropriate, bring to justice members of its own security services who, in apparent disregard for declared PA policies, participated in or lent support to those responsible for attacks against civilians. Insofar as Human Rights Watch could determine, it did not do so.
...


High-ranking PA officials, including President Arafat, failed in their duty to administer justice and enforce the rule of law in compliance with international standards. Through their repeated failure to arrest or prosecute individuals alleged to have planned or carried out suicide attacks against civilians, they contributed a climate of impunity-and failed to prevent the bloody consequences. Their payments to, and recruitment of, individuals responsible for attacks against civilians likewise demonstrate, at least, a serious failure to meet their political responsibilities as the governing authorities, if not a willingness to support them. However, there is no publicly available evidence that Arafat or other senior PA officials ordered, planned, or carried out such attacks.

I'm staying out of the regular Israel/Palestine fight here.

I want to comment on topic in question.

Those pilots deserve respect. Although they are a minority ( there are 100s of other pilots in Israel ready to take over), they have done the right thing, IMO. Also one should never underestimate the power of few, or even an individual, over many.

Remember that woman who didnt want to move to the back of the bus and what happened after that?

History is made by individuals, masses just follow....

it's easy to just fall in line and deny your conscience. if you disagree with something you should stand up and be counted that's true democracy in action. this is why the pilots shouldn't be disciplined. disciplinary actions are taken to discourage folk from certain behaviors and it also implies that the pilots did something wrong. i don't think it's wrong to refuse to murder innocent people and in a democracy its never wrong to stand up for what you believe in even when it's not popular.

And that goes for orthordox jews as well...i didn't like the spit in their face comment. its takes more than their 20 or so percent to create a policy. they can't bare the brunt of all theses problems. there are some israeli's that are mainstream that support these assassinations. the fact is that until there is a real peace agreement israel is a country ruled by violent reactionary emotions. they are out to prove that terror doesn't work by proving terror works...it's insanity.

But lets remember.. in real world one might get shot for treason doing things like these..

Originally posted by FULCRUM
But lets remember.. in real world one might get shot for treason doing things like these..

True, but I myself would rather die doing the right thing, then continue my life doing the wrong thing. These pilots probably think the same.

The PA ? It's a joke. The PA is lead by Arafat. Arafat has started his " political career " as a terrorist. His father was, in the 30', the Great Mufti of Jerusalem and has been received by Hitler. Both of them have spoke about on " how to set up the nazis final solution for the Jews " in Palestine and the Middle-East. Do you think his son ( the actual PA Leader ) has forgot his father and what he tryed to do ????????????????????? No, he try to finish what his father was looking to do.

Some month ago, I've posted on ATS some pics. They were showing the PA cops and soldiers who were doing the nazis sign, in front of the PA flag during an Arafat speech !!!

If I was an Israelian, I would NEVER speak with Arafat who's a nazi. NEVER.