How Money Vanishes Into Thin Air During A West Bank Raid

[Purveyor]

When Murad Albaden was woken up one morning by Israeli soldiers and police officers, he had no idea they were going to raid his home, destroy his furniture and take his money.

By Yossi Gurvitz for Yesh Din

One of the issues the Israeli army hardly ever discusses is looting. In the IDF’s early days, it was considered to be a grave felony. Ben-Gurion dismissed a valued officer, Uri Ben Ari, following the 1956 Sinai War, after the colonel’s driver – not the colonel himself – was caught with a looted sack of sugar. In another case during the same war, an officer by the name of Aryeh Biro threatened to shoot a fellow officer on the spot after Biro caught him looting. Journalist Nahum Barnea once documented a paratrooper captain during the First Lebanon War who ordered his soldiers to turn over their loot, lest he severely punish them. He then burned the booty before their eyes.

But that was a long time ago, when the IDF still fought regular armies, rather than an occupied population. Along the years of occupation there were quite a few reports of looting, and the IDF’s latest large operation in the West Bank, Operation Brother’s Keeper, supplied Yesh Din with a series of such reports. Yesh Din recently reported a case of looting from ‘Aqraba; here is a story from Tuqu.

In the town of Tuqu, southeast of Bethlehem, lives Murad ‘Ayish Khamdan Albaden, who works as a tax collector for the municipality. Early one morning at the end of June, Albaden was awakened by strong knocking on his door. A large group of soldiers was outside, accompanied by several police officers who were not in uniform, but had police hats on.

The soldiers ordered Albaden to concentrate the family members, including three children, in one room, and then began causing massive damage to the house. They carried out an intensive search, breaking furniture and doors and smashing closets, all of which frightened his children. The undersigned once saw, during his military service, a soldier smashing a transparent glass table, saying later with a smile that he had been searching it. Such a search was carried out in Albaden’s house. It was a warrant-less search – a search without proper documentation of the search. A “search” that one could liken to a kind of intimidation, or perhaps, terrorism.

But that’s not the story. There are far too many similar stories, never mind the fact that Albaden didn’t even complain about the damage. During the search, Albaden was asked to present all the money he had in the center of the living room. There was 4,800 NIS there, 3,000 of which were tax funds Albaden had collected as part of his job (he kept the receipts) and had yet to turn over to the municipality, as well as 1,800 NIS of his own money. One of the men with the police hats took the money, but adamantly refused to give Albaden a receipt, which he is obliged to give by law during a confiscation. The man with the hat claimed he didn’t have the proper form with him. Albaden asked for a handwritten receipt; the man with the hat refused, saying Albaden should go to the Etzion District Coordination Office (DCO).

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http://972mag.com/how-money-vanishes-into-thin-air-during-a-west-bank-raid/95085/

[SydneyP]

1. Money Money Money!!!

Well, when the whole "country" is built on land that was stolen from the Palestinians, it is no surprise to anyone (at least Palestinians) that the foreign invaders are still stealing everything they can get their hands on from their Palestinian victims.

[Loudly]

2. Huh? The tax collector takes tax money home?

Doesn't that make him the target of ANY bandit with a gun who knocks on his door?

[4now]

3. I am not surprised at anything the IDF does anymore

They used to be respected but I guess that was a really long time ago.

[politicman]

4. IDF was always like this, but you were limited from knowing about it.

The IDF has always been like this, but because information used to be solely controlled by the big media outlets, they made sure you and others never knew of these IDF crimes.

These days the IDF cant rely on the big media outlets to cover for them as with social media and internet journalists, information will always make its way out into the public arena no matter how hard the big media tries to control it.

[4now]

5. You are so right

We only knew what the people that were bought and paid for would tell us.
Sometimes I forget that we were raised on clumsy propaganda.