I don’t know whether to laugh or cry over Amira Hass’ latest report in Haaretz that the Shin Bet ordered the IDF to produce a Palestinian Arab named Za’arir from the West Bank village of Beit Omar for questioning. Instead, they went to the house of the Za’akik family in the same village and demanded its 7 year-old son appear for questioning:
On June 10, the Za’akik family from the West Bank village of Beit Omar awoke to loud knocks at the door. The father of the family opened, and three Israeli soldiers entered the house; one of them, whom the father thought to be the commander, asked for the boy, M. His father told the officer that M. was seven years old, and showed him his identification, stating the boy’s date of birth as September 17, 2002.
The mother noticed that the officer laughed upon seeing the document, but he delivered the summons nonetheless. The mother understood from him that the 7-year-old must attend a meeting with “Captain Tamir” of the Shin Bet security services at the offices of the Coordinator of Government Activity in the Territories (COGAT ), in the settlement bloc of Gush Etzion the next morning. The family decided not to send the child to the Shin Bet office, but because they feared the soldiers might return and arrest the boy, they consulted the organization Defense for Children International.
The family told Hass that there was no one in the village named Za’arir. The IDF naturally claims there was and that it was simply an unfortunate error. One has to wonder at the ineptitude that would cause someone in the Shin Bet to misidentify a 7 year old boy named Za’akik with their actual target named Za’arir. Can they not read? Not to mention the utter cluelessness of the IDF officer who handed the summons to the family. Did this oaf not realize that summoning a 7 year old for Shin Bet questioning was ludicrous? One has to wonder whether this is yet another example of the vaunted intelligence capabilities of the IDF and Shin Bet.
richard,
you live in a country that puts 7 year olds on no fly lists
sounds to me like israel is becoming a model democratic nation
I’ve told you in the past that I HATE snark. So keep this up & you won’t just be moderated…
Are you seriously comparing the mistake of accidentally putting on the no fly list (an incident you haven’t proven btw) someone who has the same exact name as a suspected person, w. the Shin Bet-IDF’s mistake of trying to arrest someone who has four names, only one of which matched the suspect they really wanted to question? Not to mention, that they went to this 7 yr old’s home & tried to force his family to bring him for questioning to a Shin Bet intelligence office? Are you really trying to compare these incidents???
I’m guessing he is referring to this.
Richard, sometimes I think you’ve created the Uncle Joe McCarthy identity to engage readers in conversation. But, alas, there is much bigotry in the world already to provide us with an actual fool such as Uncle Joe McCarthy. Pretty please, do not ban Uncle Joe McCarthy from the site. We need him to remind us of the current take on bigotry, specifically when it comes to politics. It is much like having Rush Limbaugh wake you up in the morning to remind you that not everyone is trying to make the world a better place.
Thanks!
Uncle Joe, you’re lucky you have such nice supporters. You’ll live to comment another day.
For me, Uncle Joe is simply comic relief. Until he’s egregious, keep him.
By bashing the intelligence capabilities of the IDF/Shabak, which are far deadlier and accurate than you mockingly make them out to be, you end up missing the point of the matter: that the soliders, while realizing the mistake, laughed at it and still went forward with the summons – an order is an order, after all. That is the real indicator of the skewed moral system behind the military occupation and its rotting effect on Israeli society in general.
You switched the names in the last part of your post. It isn’t a big thing, but it does detract from your point. Just a heads up.
I sure did. Thanks for catching my error.