This one is hard to watch: members of the Tamimi family, whose daughter, Ahed, was arrested after slapping an IDF soldier who just stood there and took it (actually, he was trying desperately to escape, seeing that she was 17 at the time and quite vociferous and all he had was a very heavy rifle that made running away so difficult) – now managed to shame another IDF soldier, this time over obeying the checkpost he was manning.
The plot was simple: a lone, armed IDF soldier was standing at the checkpost and a bunch of Arab cars were waiting to go through. While he was trying to get confirmation over his cellphone, members of the Tamimi family harassed the daylights out of him and then encouraged a long line of Arab cars to cut around the checkpost and drive off.
Would have been so much cheaper and easier not to have a checkpost there at all.
The truly alarming thing was the official IDF response. They said: “The warrior (sic, so help me) documented in the video acted as expected in that complex situation, and waited for additional force to complete the mission. After a short time, another force arrived to assist the vehicle inspection.”
Here’s the thing, though: by the time the reinforcement had arrived, all the Arabs had driven off to get on with their busy daily schedule.
Here’s something the soldier could have done (we thought while cringing at the video): fire in the air; shoot up the tires of the lead car; yell: “Get behind the checkpost or so help me…” There were so many things he could have done, but he opted to do nothing – and may receive a medal, judging by the warm endorsement he received from his bosses.
Yet another sticky problem Defense Minister Naftali Bennett will probably take care of soon, don’t stand over him with a stopwatch.
