*Stop the lying!*

By: B. Michael
Yedioth Aharonoth

Every few years one's patience runs out. The soul again recoils at the
festival of falsehoods, deceit and mutual ass-covering. At the
uproarious binge of bluffing that once again makes tangible the degree
to which the culture of the lie and the wink have taken root in the
heart of the power structure.

It is not clear which bluff broke the camel's back this time. Was it the
shooting in the head of an emotionally-disturbed person in Ni'lin
village? The distraught mother who went to a police station to report
the disappearance of her daughter and left it with a broken hand? The
Israel Security Agency [ISA – Shin Bet] clerk who decided once again
that seriously ill patients are a "security danger"? Or maybe the
courts, that buy with such casual indifference all the nonsense on offer
from the army, the police and the ISA? Clearly they have all gone too
far. In order to avoid confusion, we will place each under a separate
heading.

Let us start with the army.

We will not once again delve into its systematic "deep lies". Like the
"Civil Administration", which is nothing but a tyrannical military
government with all that implies. Like the shady collaboration between
the army and the "hilltop" thugs. Like the routine abuse by soldiers
against passers-by, just for the sake of entertainment and relief of
stress. Like the scandalous military policies that for year now have
prevented any serious investigation into the killing of hundreds of
innocent people by soldiers' gunfire.

All the above has been known for years. It wasn't those cold noodles
that strains one's patience to the breaking-point. So what did it?

It would seem that the first thing was the episode of the battalion
commander who ordered the shooting of a bound man. First of all, the
commander lied. That was his default response, and if the incident had
not been filmed the system around him would have joined in the lying.
And why not? Mendacity long ago became the reflexive first response of
the army. Only after filming or stubborn investigations reveal the
facts, is the army forced to consider the option of truth.
That lie was still hovering in the air, and along comes the story of the
emotionally-disturbed man from Ni'lin village. Soldiers shot him. He was
gravely wounded. Quick as a flash, within a few hours, the army produced
an exculpatory "investigation": "the wounded man tried to grab a
soldier's gun".

The army's version is baseless. Film and testimony prove that the man
was standing on a balcony and was shot from the street. He didn't try to
grab anything. He just yelled abuse, and thereby upset the sensitive
honour-glands of the young men with rifles. But the army stuck to its
story. Everything's OK. Why, what happened? Another Arabush that got a
rubber bullet to the head, that's all.

Everybody knows they all lie. And they all lie under oath. Because
that's the procedure.

Never mind me, a stinking leftist consumed by self-hatred, but what
about the commander of the army? Is not General Ashkenazi, as has been
made clear more than once, a man who knows how to turn his gaze towards
the truth? Is he too not fed up with this culture of lying? Does he not
know that this mendacity is rotting his army?

Now let us move on to the police.

About a month ago a man and his wife, he a doctor and she an art
lecturer, left a theatre in Jerusalem. A police car was blocking the
street, and the policeman who had come in it was busy writing parking
tickets. A fairly familiar scene. After all, everything is permitted for
police cars. The woman mockingly clapped her hands and declared: "all
honour to the police". Can a worse crime be imagined? To mock a diligent
writer of tickets, in the middle of his fruitful shift?

Quick as a flash the woman was violently shoved into the police car,
handcuffed and taken to the police station. With brutality, threats, and
savagery, the husband received no less. Quite the crime family.

This week the couple received word that the Police Investigations Unit
has closed the file. But what? "The complainant prevented [the officer]
from writing tickets … attacked an officer … insulted …". Can anyone
have any doubt about what really happened there? Who is lying and who is
not? But the Police Investigations Unit, the official launderer of the
Israel Police, did its duty well. Mendacity won the day again.

Let us proceed. A distraught woman went to a police station to report
that her 15-year-old daughter was missing. She left the station
battered, bleeding and with a broken hand. Her emotional behaviour had
apparently not pleased the police officers. So they neutralized her with
blows. "She screamed, attacked a policewoman, tore the file …", report
the police. As usual. Those violent citizens always attack our poor
persecuted police.

The perfidious PIU is investigating again. And who will be surprised if
this file too is closed expeditiously?

And let us conclude with the ISA.

Ah, the ISA. An entire book could be written on the artistry of the
ISA's mendacity. From the Bus 300 affair* to Tali Fahima. From the
despicable use of the courts and hospitals to take revenge on those who
refuse to collaborate, to all those ludicrous "al-Qaeda cells" that
suddenly pop up among the Israeli citizenry as if on order.
Below is a tiny sample from recent days: two gardeners working for the
Jerusalem Municipality were savagely beaten by guards of the Prime
Minister's Residence. Those wearers of sunglasses and loose-fitting
shirts were apparently offended when the gardeners asked them to
identify themselves. The guards, incidentally, are obliged to identify
themselves before they accost passers-by.

One of the gardeners was hospitalized in serious condition. The guards
are undisturbed. They most likely marketed one of the accepted bluffs
("suspicious behaviour, obstruction, insolence" and suchlike nonsense),
which will surely be immediately embraced by their employers. Perfidy
will prevail again.

And another patient in grave condition has been defined as a "security
risk". He was forbidden to go to a hospital to receive treatment.
Another baseless lie. One of the hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands
of lies that are part of the routine work of the secret security police.
And that one is not being investigated at all, not even for appearance's
sake.

Well – our patience has run out again, and once again our frustration
has been alleviated with a few angry words.

You can go back to sleep now.

* In 1984 an Israeli bus that was operating on line 300, from Tel Aviv
to Ashkelon, was hijacked by a group of four armed Palestinians. Two of
the Palestinians were subsequently extra-judicially executed by a Shin
Bet agent. The affair came to light when photographs were published of
two of the Palestinians alive in Israeli custody, whom the Israeli
authorities had announced were killed by gunfire, along with the other
two Palestinian hijackers, when the bus was stormed by Israeli soldiers
– trans.