MG SHAMNI REPRIMANDS KFIR BRIGADE COMMANDER FOR

C O N F I D E N T I A L TEL AVIV 001125

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/19/2014
TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM KWBG IS
SUBJECT: MG SHAMNI REPRIMANDS KFIR BRIGADE COMMANDER FOR
CONDONING VIOLENCE AGAINST PALESTINIANS

Classified By: CDA Luis G. Moreno for reasons 1.4 b and d.


1. (SBU) MG Gadi Shamni, commander of the IDF Central
Command, publicly reprimanded the commander of the West
Bank's Kfir Brigade, Col. Itai Virov, on May 19 for
statements Col. Virov made to a military court in which he
defended the use of violence when detaining Palestinian
suspects. (Note: The Kfir Brigade is the only IDF Brigade
assigned full-time to the West Bank; other units rotate in
and out.) Col. Virov made the statements while testifying on
behalf of one of his subordinates, Lt. Adam Malul, who has
been charged in a military court with beating a Palestinian
during an arrest operation in the West Bank. In his
testimony, Col. Virov defended Lt. Malul by saying that in
the course of making arrests, "a slap, sometimes a blow to
the back of the neck or chest, sometimes a knee-kick or
stranglehold for the purpose of calming someone down, is
reasonable." Regarding interrogations, Virov added,
"Questioning is a relatively aggressive act. Sometimes there
is shouting or pinning someone to the wall, sometimes there
is no choice but to shake, pin, push. To say that
questioning is done without any use of force would be
feigning innocence." In his reprimand, communicated through
the IDF Spokesperson's Office, MG Shamni stressed that
Virov's statements "do not correspond with the 'Spirit of the
IDF' (the IDF's ethical code) nor do they correspond with IDF
regulations... safeguarding human dignity is a central value
in the Central Command and the IDF."


2. (C) COMMENT: Col. Virov's comments reflect the norm for
IDF soldiers operating in the West Bank. Undoubtedly Virov
assumed in making them that he was just acknowledging facts
that everyone knows but few admit publicly, and that in doing
so he would be protected by the IDF command structure which
also knows what happens in the territories and which also
often prefers to "feign innocence." What is unusual about
this case is that MG Shamni decided to take off the cloak and
air the dirty laundry publicly. While it's not clear to us
whether he did so because Virov crossed an unspoken line by
putting his statements on the record, or whether Shamni has
decide he truly wants to shake up the behavioral norms of
soldiers in the West Bank, in either case the reprimand is a
welcome reminder that operational expediency should not be
allowed to overrule ethical behavior. It is also likely that
recent USG pressure regarding the humane treatment of
Palestinian civilians and detainees also played a role in
Shamni's decision to make his reprimand public.

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MORENO