Tzahal Ties a Crimson Cord on Elor Azariah

elor-azariah

No sooner do we get the Menorahs put up, the last of the chocolate coin tin foils in the garbage and the olive oil spatter, cleaned off the kitchen vent hood, a military tribunal representing the very worst of Hellenized/Socialist/Ghetto Jew mentality still afflicting modern Israel, brings us a belated Chanukah lesson.

The conviction of Elor Azariah for Manslaughter.

Anticipating an objection, about the only thing I wish to add to the reaction below, is that it has very little to do with the uniform.  It has everything to do with the healthy psychology of any human being, when faced with a dedicated murderer.

From Facebook, we read:

It is no surprise that Elor Azaryah, the IDF soldier accused of shooting and killing a wounded terrorist, was convicted today. Any other outcome would have been a stinging slap in the face of a much too broad elite and their erroneous assumptions.

Elor was the only uniformed man in the area who acted in a moral manner. The bullet that he shot and the publicity generated by the radical Left B’tzelem’s film of the terror attack and its aftermath – recalibrated the moral coordinates in the arena.

The concept of murdering Jews just because they are Jews is not justiciable! Putting Elor on trial is not moral! The standard bearers of destruction of the Jews and those who act upon those evil principles do not deserve a trial. They lose their right to exist, and anybody who eliminates them and ensures that they are dead is performing the most just and lofty moral act.

The bullet that Elor shot restored the dimension of justice to the arena. The question mark that the knifing terror had etched over the right of the Jews to live, was erased by the clear exclamation point drawn by Elor.

Elor’s moral act was the antidote to the poisonous de-legitimization of Jewish existence – the poison against which Israel’s entire security apparatus stood helpless. His moral act stopped the knifing terror (a fact that can be clearly proven). Elor’s conviction will likely reignite the stabbings.

A cogent answer to the gutlessness of the Tribunal.  here is another analysis, from last Spring.

 

 

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19 thoughts on “Tzahal Ties a Crimson Cord on Elor Azariah”

  1. I am so there with you Y.B.

    Once again the court sends the message, Jews living in Israel are of no value. Amona and Azariah, different sides of the same idea.
    The lives of the Jewish citizens and the lives of those that would keep them safe are of little value. Certainly of less value than the good opinion of the world and the UN.

    Like the guy that would look like obama’s son in FL. The media and the the progressives look at the victimhood pecking order. Normally Zimmerman would be in a somewhat protected class. But as his attacker was in a higher protected class, he lost out and became the media’s “white-hispanic”.

    The bitter irony? The IDF that is trying so hard to prove they are the most moral army in the world? Has shown itself to have few morals and ethics. Not the soldiers, the leaders. The ones who are so concerned with proving how “enlightened” they are. The ones who come up with knucklehead ideas like “beard quotas”. The ones who go after a good solider because he shot a terrorist who ONLY stabbed Jews, but lacked a suicide belt under his heavy coat on a warm day. The second bitter irony? It wasn’t Elor’s bullet that killed the terrorist.

    Well said Y.B., well said.

  2. I can’t agree. Elor, acting as a government agent, killed a man who was already disarmed and subdued. If an American policeman or soldier did that, we would be (rightly) howling for his head.

  3. “The security strategy of the Jewish Nation and the State of Israel is ‘Kill those who come to kill you – first’. Any soldier who does not accept this principle should remove his uniform and release the IDF from the attitudes that are preventing it from doing its job.”

    I don’t believe in the first use of force however in this case Elor did not use force first.

    I also do not believe in the targeting of innocents however if Israel is to survive IMHO they will have to preempt any nuclear attack by Iran now it can be said that many innocents may be loss if Israel were to do that however if Israel does not there most likely will be no Israel.

    Here’s another scenario more on an individual scale; say you have terrorist coming at you and yours with suicide vests using innocent people as shields if you allow the terrorist to get within a certain range everyone is gonna die; do you shoot thru the innocents to kill the terrorists before this happens?

    I also believe there are exceptions to every rule and maybe the rule of putting down real mad dogs also should have an exception but when it comes to survival methinks if you make the wrong decisions you will not survive. The very survival of Israel will be in the balance of their upcoming decisions and I do believe it will take a certain mindset to make the right decisions.

  4. Here is an example of the stupid mindset that informs the ‘judges’, media, and intelligentsia, which produced this verdict: https://thejewishlibertarian.com/2016/05/31/yonatan-hailo-who-killed-his-rapist-vs-meir-ettinger-who-killed-his-attacker/ [note, the author inadvertently conflated Elor Azariah with yet another political prisoner, Meir Ettinger, in his link-naming. But, _that_ issue can wait for another beer and another pretzel 😉 ]

  5. Y.B. — Thanks for the links. I see the JewishLibertarian has now corrected the name. That helps.

    The case of the man sent to prison for killing his rapist is indeed horrible, but I don’t see how it relates to a government agent killing an attacker who’s already been subdued.

    The other article simply says (I paraphrase), “You sent an 18-year-old kid in to represent your government and your army. It’s not really his fault if he screwed up.” To me, that’s not a valid excuse. Nothing in either of those articles says, “Elor did NOT do what he was accused of doing. He did NOT kill a man who was already lying disarmed on the ground.”

    Show me that this soldier simply did not do the deed he’s accused of doing and I’ll admit I’m wrong. Show me that the terrorist was getting up off the ground, armed, and threatening people. But to say, “Jews have a right to kill disarmed attackers, simply because of the unique circumstances of Jews or Israelis or because this kid was too young to make a wise decision” — I’m sorry, none of that is persuasive.

    1. We may have to wait on appeals to get more of the story. Early on, before being pressired by their superiors, the commanders on the scene said that a) they informed Elor that the sappers had NOT checked the terrorist for a bomb vest or other weapons (both standard procedure, and the threshold for defining the scene as secure & the perpetrator as subdued), b) they told him to guard the terrorist, specifically because of that fact, and c) they told him “if he moves, shoot him”, and d) he moved. As soon as the Minister of Defense and the upper echelon found him guilty in the press, (within a day) these commanders saw which way this was going, and buried the kid. The Military Tribunal was a formality to re-secure the authority of an increasingly ineffectual & fickle bureaucracy. Thus, the title of the piece.

      1. “c) they told him “if he moves, shoot him”, and d) he moved. As soon as the Minister of Defense and the upper echelon found him guilty in the press, (within a day) these commanders saw which way this was going, and buried the kid.”

        If that’s the case, he has my sympathy. Thanks for elucidating, Y.B.

  6. First IMHO this is a very healthy conversation to have; Israel is in a state of war, when you have a neighbor who elects a government dedicated to your destructions that lobs missiles at you and sends their citizens to kill & maim your citizens. In the fog of war there will be errors however what protocols that’s you established can greatly increase the odds of where those errors fall.

    I agree whole heartily in; “The fool always gets entangled in troubles that the wise man knows how to avoid.”

    This political show trail is just such an entanglement that should have been avoided and the ramifications of the troubles it will cause will be numbered in Israeli dead I’m afraid.

    1. “First IMHO this is a very healthy conversation to have”

      On that, I agree 100%. I’m glad there are still people who understand the value of civilized disagreement and discussion. Too often these days it’s, “If you don’t hold exactly my opinion, you’re a Nazi mysogynistic racist bigot who ought to be strung up from a lamppost.”

  7. I have a love for Israel and her people that perhaps many can never understand. I would stand and fight for Israel just as readily as my own America. I am not as well informed on the issue of this trial as I should be, and for that, I can only blame my own lack of time. However, I find that I have to straddle the fence on this one. I support Claire in that, if this soldier did indeed shoot the terrorist for no just cause, then he was not serving the cause of defense of the nation of Israel, but instead, was serving as a murderer. But if, instead, the young man did act on orders, at least as he understood them at the time, and thought that he was following what was lawful and just, then he has certainly been railroaded in order to be made into what was referred to in the days of the fathers as a scapegoat.
    The fact is, I doubt that we will ever find the real truth. I think that the powers that be have already decided the outcome that they wanted, they made sure that it was the outcome that they got, and I don’t think any appeal will go anywhere.
    Sometimes, truth and justice are not the same thing. In fact, often, they are completely the opposite. I hope that in this case, truth and justice meet up and ultimately prevail, no matter which way that turns out.

  8. I’d like to add a couple of things that I haven’t seen yet.
    Y.B. touched on it. The sappers hadn’t checked him yet. Magen David Adom, the ambulance service would not treat him. They are told NOT to treat him until he has been cleared. He hadn’t been. He was wearing a heavy coat on a warm day, there was a very real fear of a suicide belt. The video that B’Teslem turned over had no audio. At the scene bystanders were yelling to watch out he was moving, bomb. They thought he had a bomb. I wrote about this at the time it happened. http://zelmanpartisans.com/?p=3035 While I was in Israel I talked to Moshe Feiglin about it. It’s also pretty telling that most of Israeli society is outraged about it. They mayor of Hevron is supporting the soldier. This thing is a stinker. Y.B. nailed it. They tied a red string around him.

    This guy is going through the SAME dang thing a concealed carry holder goes through when he has a anti-gun PA, who sits in his nice, well lit office sipping his Starbuck$ latte and deciding if what was done under stress and sometimes in the dark was the “right” thing.

  9. It does sound like I suspect, but I don’t think it is going to make much difference. I don’t think that people are different anywhere you go. When you have politicians who want a narrative to play out, and set about to make it happen, there is not much on earth except the hand of G-d Himself that can change that. Still, there should be an appeal, and we have to trust that justice will be served, but I have seen how that goes here in this country. I hope that the truth is not sacrificed at the expense of political expediency.

  10. Here’s a few cherry picked with love comments from a Debafile column on the situation.

    The court threw out the entire case for the defense in favor of the testimony given by the commanders at the scene of the incident and the prosecution.

    debkafile’s military analysts note that the controversy reflects long efforts to introduce politics – or a brand of political correctness – into IDF decision-making.

    Both Yaalon and Eisenkott went overboard in their attempt to improperly influence the course of the military trial sub judice by public statements disparaging the accused soldier.

    This was a move to prejudge the trial and sway the three military judges, just in case they were persuaded that Azaria was not trigger-happy but had shot the prone terrorist in the belief that as a soldier it was his duty to protect the immediate environment from further menace.

    Our military analysts have searched in vain the IDF military codebook for a definition of “IDF values” among the often contradictory orders of when to open fire.

    You can read the whole thing here: http://app.debka.com/n/article/25868/The-Azaria-trial-and-the-rift-over-orders-to-shoot
    But I think people are getting tired of being stabbed, run over, shot and do not want their soldiers to hesitate to protect themselves or the citizens. Political correctness is deadly. But only for those that don’t want to harm others it seems. Those that do want to harm others don’t seem to worry so much about political correctness.

  11. And… the consequences begin:

    from Moshe Z. Matitya

    “IDF instructor: Cadets hesitated to fire on terrorist out of fear that they would be prosecuted”

    “The Elor Azaria case has had an impact on the IDF, and it has even caused possible casualties in the heavy ramming terror attack on the Armon HaNatziv Promenade.”

    “The cadets’ training instructor told Galei Tzahal that the cadets were afraid to open fire on the ramming terrorist, due to their worries that they would be prosecuted and tried.”

    “According to the instructor’s claim, it was only after he had emptied his gun’s entire clip shooting at the truck, that some of the cadets first began to fire.”

    “In an interview with Galei Tzahal, the instructor clarified that he was saying this while waiting in an ambulance, in the aftermath of the emotional whirlwind of the incident.

    “The instructor explained that for some time, soldiers have been hearing about what’s been happening in the Azaria case, and this has been having a direct impact on them.”

    “The instructor: “The first shots from the soldiers began only after I had finished firing. There was a long delay. I don’t want to say the words ‘Elor Azaria’ outright, but I have no doubt that this was an influencing factor.”

    [Translated]

    http://glz.co.il/1064-94527-HE/Galatz.aspx

    Apply this to the frequent “Shoot – Don’t Shoot” scenarios constantly presented to both government agents and, at least as importantly, to those non-government actors (who do not enjoy even Sovereign Immunity, and procedural protections) contending with violent actors.

    As the potential for violent terror (Jihadi , and otherwise) escalates, in rough proportion to the Government punishing legitimate self-defense, these lessons will be very instructive.

  12. Y.B., this is probably the most instructive thing that will come out of the entire incident. And the saddest. I am sure that there were some who predicted this very thing. My son is a U.S. Navy sailor. He is a sonar tech, but one of his other duties is as a military guard aboard ship. When they come into or leave port, he is charged with guarding the ship with full auto weapons, etc. Also if they come under attack, in certain instances, he would also be called upon to assume those duties. He has trained extensively for this, not only for his primary job, of which he had a full year of schooling. He told me of the time a number of years ago that somehow a person ran some baracade and made it onto a pier at the port where he is stationed, and was able to shoot and kill I believe at least one person. This happened because those on guard duty were hesitant to do anything about it for fear of making a mistake and getting into trouble. My son says that his training now is such that they are taught that of course, lethal force is not used indiscriminately, but that they must be ready and willing to use such force at all times, and there is never a moment when they are on guard duty that they can let down. They meet force with the next level of force. I can only hope that this latest incident in Israel is used to instill a sense of rationale in soldiers, and that the leadership will step up and show the kind of courage that is needed to allow for soldiers to protect their country.

  13. I understand that the tour guide/guard is sort of walking back his statement on them hesitating to fire.

    I think THAT is politically motivated. Debkafile’s http://app.debka.com/n/article/25877/Truck-terror-in-Jerusalem-4-soldiers-killed-15-hurt report has interesting goodies:

    The photo attached to this article shows no more than 9 or 10 bullet holes, confirming the security guard’s statement that he emptied a magazine.

    and

    His account was confirmed by video footage, which shows dozens of uniformed men 30-50 meters from the rampaging truck and heading away. There were also witnesses who reported that groups of Palestinians stood by and watched and some clapped and shouted encouragement to the truck driver.

    Some peace partners, eh?

    דמד־אתה נכון

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