CPTnet
March 15, 2002
HEBRON: "Mistake after Mistake after Mistake"

[Note: Rich Meyer wrote the following letter to the
Israeli newspaper Ha'Aretz after members of the the February 2002 CPT
delegation spent the night with a family in Beit Ummar whose home soldiers
had invaded following the shooting described below.]

IDF: Mistake after mistake after mistake

Editor,
In a brief closing paragraph on various shootings (Feb. 22), you
wrote:"Israeli hurt after mistakenly hit by IDF troops . . . IDF soldiers
manning the nearby roadblock . . . returned fire, hitting the driver. . . .
The IDF launched a search for the Palestinian gunmen who fired the first
shots, and have placed the West Bank village of Beit Ummar under curfew."

Do your readers know what "the IDF launched a search" means? I was in Beit
Ummar Friday afternoon after this incident, and I visited some of the
victims of this "search," a Palestinian family who came home after visiting
relatives for the Eid to find that their house had been trashed by the
Israeli military. The family locked their empty home when they left in the
morning; somehow the soldiers, in high anxiety after having shot a settler
by mistake, picked this house to vent.

Yes, it was the wrong house, if there was a right one. No, contrary to the
soldiers' claims, no gunmen had been there or gone there. As the soldiers
found, after smashing three windows and the door, after prying off one set
of burglar-bars, after
shooting through the door and window, and after setting off a smoke grenade
in the house, the house was empty. Ooops.

I'm sorry the soldiers shot the settler. Mistakes happen. I'm sure the
soldiers felt awful. I hope they did not feel better after vandalizing the
home of an innocent Palestinian family. The family was able to see the
bright side: it was a good thing they weren't home, otherwise the soldiers
would have taken one of their sons and beaten him, imprisoned him, or
worse. This way, it was only thousands ofshekels of damage to the
house.Mistakes happen. Living under occupation, it doesn't help to be
innocent; better to be out of town.

The article concludes, "The IDF commander in the West Bank has ordered an
investigation into the incident." I wonder how many of the IDF mistakes of
this day the investigation will cover?

The occupation is one big mistake.

Rich Meyer
Hebron