'He should have been a hero, instead he's a murderer'
http://972mag.com/he-should-have-been-a-hero-instead-hes-a-murderer/98778/
Mother of a murderer?
A border policeman is arrested for shooting a Palestinian teen at a demonstration in Beitunia with live fire; he faces murder charges. On Wednesday his parents are interviewed. Faces blacked out, the unmistakable sounds of betrayal and anguish pour from the shadows.
The mother’s voice shakes, then sobs. She pleads for the nightmare to end. “It’s tearing me to pieces. I can’t believe this is happening to me, to our family” she weeps. The state has abandoned her son. “He risked his life for the state,” she says over and over. “After all he contributed to the IDF, to the state, this is how they reciprocate?” The father begs: “don’t turn him into a scapegoat.” The mother is bewildered. “It’s a knife in his back.”
I am crushed watching them. They are right. They were told their whole lives that donating their sons to the military is the mission of all Israeli families. The cause of supporting the army to support the state spans the globe, uniting this mother in spirit with Hollywood stars who last week donated $33 million to the IDF. This isn’t just “Friends of the IDF,” it’s a family brought together for the cause of sacrificing its children.
Maybe the family wasn’t told those things explicitly. Who has to say it? This holy mission of the military is an eternal truth for very nearly all Israelis. Every day, the prime minister repeats that Israel is surrounded by actual existential threats. A stone and a nuclear bomb, maybe even a teenage protestor, the video shows, are one and the same.
For the sake of the families of the Palestinian youths who were murdered I hope that this investigation makes clear what happened.