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INSIGHT
INSIGHT
Aired October 10, 2002 - 17:00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JONATHAN MANN, CNN ANCHOR: Collateral casualties. Palestinian terrorist target Israeli civilians, but what does Israel do when Palestinian civilians come under its fire?
Hello and welcome.
In Tel Aviv Thursday, a suicide bomber took the life of an elderly woman and wounded four other people. The details of what happened will stick in your mind.
The incident began when the bomber tried to board a bus and fell. Not knowing the man was on a suicide mission, the bus driver and a doctor rushed to make sure he was all right. It was only later, when a paramedic joined them and they began to examine him, that they realized they had come to the aide of a killer.
Stories like that are important to remember when you hear the other stories we're about to tell, incidents when Palestinians say Israelis hurt their civilians and did not help, sometimes even stood in the way.
Soldiers and terrorists are not the same. Israel holds itself to an incomparably different standard. But what is the standard when it comes to Palestinian civilians wounded or killed by Israeli fire? And do incidents like the one in Tel Aviv outweigh any objection to what Israel sometimes does?
On our program today, soldiers, suicide bombers, and civilians.
First, though, a look at the hour's headlines.
France says it's investigation of a French supertanker explosion indicates that the blast was a deliberate attack. French anti-terror teams say fiberglass debris of another boat has been found on the burned out ship, the Limburg. That tanker exploded and caught fire in the waters off Yemen on Sunday. French inspectors say the suspicious debris looked similar to that found on the USS Cole after it was attacked by suicide bombers in Yemen two years ago.
A powerful explosion has rocked the Chechen capital, Grozny, leaving at least eight people dead. Emergency officials say the blast ripped through a police station in the southern Russian province as a meeting was said to be taking place on the third floor. A dozen people are reported to have been taken to the hospital with injuries. No official word yet on the cause of the blast.
The United States House of Representatives has approved a measure to give United States President George Bush the authority to use force against Iraq. Mr. Bush is widely expected to get the same support in the United States Senate. The debate there is still underway at this hour. A long time hold out and key member of the Senate, Tom Daschle, has changed his position. Thursday, he agreed to support the resolution.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, U.S. PRESIDENT: The House of Representatives has spoken clearly to the world and to the United Nations Security Council. The gathering threat of Iraq must be confronted fully and finally, and today's vote also sends a clear message to the Iraqi regime. It must disarm and comply with all existing United Nations resolutions or it will be forced to comply.
MANN (voice-over): Opposition party veteran Robert Byrd said no president should have unchecked power.
You're looking at a live debate there as it continues.
A final vote in the Senate could come within just the next few hours.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
There were passengers on the bus that was targeted in Tel Aviv Thursday, among them several soldiers. According to first accounts, the soldiers fled when the bomber was discovered, leaving the work of restraining him to the doctor and driver who tried and then fled too.
CNN's Jerrold Kessell has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JERROLD KESSELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The man who helped avert a major calamity when he tackled a Palestinian suicide bomber who tried to board his bus in Tel Aviv, Baruk Noiman (ph), hero or just plain lucky? In his view, the latter, Noiman (ph) told CNN's Mike Schwartz, who put it to him there are not a lot of people who have come face-to-face with a suicide bomber and survived.
MIKE SCHWARTZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You had a minute with the bomber.
BARUK NOIMAN (ph), BUS DRIVER (through translator): Yes, that's true. I looked at him during those moments and I thought to myself, why is he doing this. First of all, we'd captured him and everybody had run away. He could have said that he would surrender, and he did not have to blow himself up. But it seems that he was programmed that he would explode in any case. If it was alone, if it was with two people, or if it was with half the world, he was going to explode, and that is what they brainwashed him to do. He was programmed. You could see it in his eyes. Whatever happens, he would explode. It didn't matter when.
KESSELL: It could have been a lot worse, a whole lot worse. Bus 87, packed with morning rush-hour passengers in the Tel Aviv suburb. A man tries to board through the back door, but the door was shut on him. He's knocked to the ground. The driver and passengers, including this young soldier, rush out to treat him.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE SOLDIER (through translator): We thought he was badly hurt, but when we lifted his shirt to try to revive him, we saw wires. Finally, someone put two and two together.
"It's a belt bomb," the driver yelled, telling people to clear the area. We were running in every direction.
KESSELL: The driver and a paramedic keep the man pinned down, but then as he comes to, they also decide it's time to rush away. The bomber scrambles to his feet, moves towards stunned people at the bus stop, a little way away, and blows himself up.
NOIMAN (ph) (through translator): The explosion. We saw this kind of red flame, red and orange, that burst into the sky, and all of his body exploded. It was an open place, so it spread over hundreds of meters. That's why people at a distance were injured, because objects were sprayed over a distance.
SCHWARTZ: Were you afraid?
NOIMAN (ph) (through translator): When? Today? I'm a coward. You know what a coward I am? You have no idea what a coward. But during this whole thing, I didn't even sweat. I don't know why. I didn't sweat. I was programmed to catch his hands and not to leave him. I wasn't even scared, and I'm a coward.
KESSELL: A 71-year-old woman was killed when the bomber setoff his explosives. A dozen other people were wounded, and many more treated for shock.
SCHWARTZ: Are you afraid, now that you think about it?
NOIMAN (ph) (through translator): I don't think about it. Maybe tomorrow when I go back to work, I'll think about it. I'm glad we got over the attack, but I'm sorry about the people who were wounded and the woman who died. We couldn't prevent it.
KESSELL: Jerrold Kessell, CNN, Jerusalem.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MANN: Right now, Israeli forces are hunting for terrorists in Gaza. A raid there Monday killed at least 14 Palestinians and wounded nearly 100 others. Since then, the total has risen.
Israeli Prime Min. Ariel Sharon expressed sadness but called the operation a success.
"Most of the casualties were terrorists," he said, "but still there were some civilians. Therefore, I express my sorrow for that."
Palestinians and even some Israelis wonder how much sorrow there really is.
CNN's Ben Wedeman has this look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Sahad A'Bahas (ph) rushes to see her son, 13-year-old Baha (ph), killed in Nablus.
Baha (ph) might have been just another statistic in this conflict's steadily mounting death toll, but for the presence of witnesses who say he was killed for no apparent reason.
(on camera): Baha A'Bahas (ph) was shot on the 22nd of September at 12:30 in the afternoon. He was hit by one round fired from an Israeli armored personnel carrier just down the street.
(voice-over): The Israeli army says Baha (ph) was up to no good.
CPT. JACOB DALLAL, Israeli ARMY SPOKESMAN: The initial inquiry that the Palestinian was throwing a Molotov cocktail at Israeli troops. The senior level has ordered further investigation of the incident.
WEDEMAN: The day of the incident, the army said Baha (ph) was killed when a Molotov cocktail exploded in his hand.
Dr. Fathi Sharif examined Baha's (ph) corpse. He says he found no burn marks anywhere on the body.
DR. FATHI SHARIF, ITHADITA HOSPITAL, NABLUS: The injury was intrathoracic by a bullet injury from the right side of the chest passed to the left side of the chest and exited.
WEDEMAN: Carol Karnes, from Santa Cruz, California, says she was standing next to Baha (ph).
CAROL KARNES, ACTIVIST: He had nothing in his hands, and in fact the same APCM tank had seen, like I said, had seen him walking with us for an hour, and during that time he had been holding on to one of the internationals, like gripping on to him almost, for protection.
WEDEMAN: Ewa Jasewiecz, like Carol, is an activist who doesn't hide her pro-Palestinian sympathies. She was also there.
EWA JASEWIECZ, ACTIVIST: He died in front of us. Blood was flowing profusely from his mouth, from his nose, from his ear.
WEDEMAN: "They killed him in cold blood," his mother told us. "He wasn't doing anything."
The army has yet to release the results of its investigation. Two weeks after Baha's (ph) death, none of the witnesses we found have been approached by Israeli investigators.
An Israeli Defense Forces statement said a request for information from members of international agencies who witnessed the incident went unanswered.
(on camera): Israelis chief of staff says that from now on the army will conduct high-level investigations into the killing of every Palestinian woman and child. An army spokesman says that about 220 such investigations have been conducted over the last two years and that around 30 soldiers have been brought to trial before military courts. He did not have any information, however, about how many Israeli soldiers had been convicted of violating military regulations involving Palestinian civilians.
(voice-over): Human rights workers say they have little faith in the army's ability to investigate itself.
JAEL STERN, B'TSELEM: When they do investigate, they usually speak only to the soldiers. It is very rare that they speak to the Palestinians.
WEDEMAN: The Israeli army spokesman says it is standard procedure for military police to question only the enlisted men and officers involved.
The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem is following the case of Mowad il-Alwasa (ph), killed last April, a day after being taken into Israeli custody in Ramallah. Israeli troops had taken over the building in which Mowad (ph) lived with his parents. The soldiers entered the apartment, and his mother and sisters say they were closed in a room. Through the door, his mother heard her son being beaten.
"I begged them," she recalls. "I begged them, please don't hit him. He's had four operations. They told me "Quiet!""
Mowad (ph) suffered from hydrocephalus, a neurological disorder. His doctors had told the 17-year-old no sports, nothing that would risk injury.
Israeli human rights investigators say that after the beating, he was taken to the top floor of the building. The next day, gunshots were heard. His father shows us the room where he says Mowad (ph) was killed. The actual circumstances of his death are unclear.
STERN: They did open an investigation, as far as we know. We are now almost half-a-year after that, and we still didn't have any response from the army about the investigation. So as far as we know, the investigation is still going on.
WEDEMAN: The army confirms that to CNN, but none of those we spoke to about Mowad's (ph) death say they were contacted by Israeli army investigators.
15-year-old Ali Koshir (ph) was shot last April in Ramallah while on his way to buy bread for his sister's family, 10 minutes before the curfew was lifted.
"No one was throwing stones, nothing," recalls his sister Halud (ph). "Most people were still inside.
Ali's (ph) great-uncle, Hamada (ph), says the soldiers let him bleed to death.
"They didn't try to help him," he says. "They wouldn't let anyone take him away. Every time someone tried to go near, they would shoot at him."
The army says it looked through its records for information about Ali's (ph) death, but found nothing. The death is not under investigation, says the army, because no one filed a complaint.
Few Palestinians file complaints because, they say, the army does little to investigate such deaths and rarely punishes those involved.
Israel's defense minister has consistently denied such charges.
BINYAMIN BEN ELIEZER, ISRAELI DEF. MIN.: Everything, every incident, has to go through an investigation. That's why I want you to know. And the results is coming to me. And I know that the results is coming, and sometimes some actions, either conclusions or actions, in any case, actions are taken there.
WEDEMAN: With many Israelis traumatized by waves of suicide bombings, the rights of Palestinians are a low priority, say human rights groups.
STERN: When you're so scared and you're so terrified, you don't really care about human rights on the other side. You just want to continue living your life, and that's understandable up to a limit. And I think that I can understand the feeling of revenge and the feeling of anger and all those feelings, but I still don't think that the Israeli army can do whatever it wants.
WEDEMAN: What the Israeli army says it will do, investigate all cases involving women and children. A new system of accountability that might help prevent the death of innocents.
Ben Wedeman, CNN, Ramallah.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MANN: We take a break. When we come back, an Israeli military lawyer on how the IDF investigates.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MANN: An intelligence mishap. That was the reason the Israeli military gave for its most lethal mistake to date. It happened in July when an Israeli military jet dropped a 1-ton bomb on an apartment building in Gaza. the attack killed a top militant in Hamas along with his wife, a daughter, and 12 other civilians.
Welcome back.
The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem says Israeli forces have killed more than 1,100 Palestinian civilians since the latest intifada began in September 2000. After a string of civilian deaths in late-August, Israel's President Moshe Katsav wondered aloud whether Israel's military had become, in his words, "trigger happy."
Israeli has launched scores of investigations into the killings, and to talk about them we're joined now by Col. Daniel Reisner, the head of the international law department in the Israeli Defense Forces.
Thanks so much for being with us.
Let me start out just by asking you about the numbers. To your calculations, how many times, say, in the last two years have Israeli forces hit Palestinian civilians? How many investigations have there been? And how many times have legal prosecutions resulted?
COL. DANIEL REISNER, ISRAELI DEF. FORCES: OK. I don't have an exact figure on how many Palestinians have been hit, frankly because we have no way of actually calculating that. We base ourselves on human rights reports and Palestinian media reports. So in that respect, we are sort of clients of the media, like yourselves.
In relation to how many cases we have actually taken under consideration, first let me say that we have a two-tier approach to investigation.
The first level is what we call field investigation, which any incident which comes to our attention, we call upon the commanders of the units to carry out an investigation of their subordinates, be it a battalion regimental division command or general staff level.
We have had thousands of such investigations over the last two years. For those investigations, the severe cases are taken by the military advocate general's unit and transferred to criminal investigation.
We've had 220 of those over the past two years, and from those 220 cases we already have 30 soldiers who have been brought to trial, who have been charged, and that's where we currently are statistically.
MANN: Well, the reason I ask you about that is because we'd like to get the figures right. They're important. And B'Tselem, the human rights organization that we've been quoting and the kind of people who make their figures available to the media and to people like you, say that there have been 1,100 Palestinians killed. And if that's the case, even if they are exaggerating wildly by a factor of 2 or 5 or even 10, it would seem the vast majority of Palestinian civilians who get killed don't result in any legal proceedings against any Israeli soldier.
REISNER: Well, first of all, let me explain that the current situation in the West Bank and Gaza isn't a standard policing United States-type scenario. We are talking about in fact a combat situation.
We have armed terrorists carrying out attacks within Israel or within Israeli controlled areas, and we have military operations taking place within Palestinian territory and encountering hostile forces wearing civilian clothing within civilian houses, and in fact hiding behind the civilian population.
So, first of all, we have a problem. There is an assymetry here. We have IDF uniformed soldiers fighting against people who are hiding in civilian clothing. Sometimes it's very difficult to distinguish who is a civilian, who is not.
According to our figures, and again our figures are based on a lot of sources, some of them public, some not, the majority of people who are hit by our soldiers are in fact activists, terrorists, people involved in the fighting. And we can't give you a statistic on how many innocent by standers are, but according to our estimations, the number is relatively small.
(CROSSTALK)
MANN: Let me just ask you for one more number. Forgive me for interrupting. Let me ask you then for just one more number before we move past this: how many people hav actually been convicted? How many Israeli soldiers to your knowledge are actually behind bars or have been punished for misusing their weapons against civilians?
REISNER: Well, of the 30 soldiers have been indicted, approximately 10 have already finished their trials. I must point out that the cases involving unlawful use of weapons and wrongful death are the most difficult cases, of course, and they take the longest. So none of those cases have yet come to an end.
The cases which have finished out are relatively, relatively easier cases. We have a few cases of looting and some cases of violent behavior towards Palestinians. These have ended and people have received sentences ranging from one month to one year imprisonment.
MANN: Let me bring in another voice here. He is Dr. Mustafa Barghouti of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees.
Doctor, we thank you for joining us.
I hope you've had a chance to hear what we've been learning from the colonel. Do you think these cases are difficult to investigate? Do you think there should be any problem trying to bring one or two or more cases to some kind of successful conclusion when it actually involves the loss of life?
DR. MUSTAFA BARGHOUTI, PALESTINIAN MED. RELIEF COMM.: Not at all. It won't be difficult at all if the Israeli army is interested, but obviously they are not interested.
They are not even interested in knowing how many Palestinians were killed. 1,940 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army during the last two years. Of those, 81 percent were civilians, innocent civilians. Of those, 24 percent were children. 359 children below the age of 15 were killed by the Israeli army, and not a single case was investigated. Not a single soldier was punished for this criminal act.
I think Mr. Sharon is turning his army and his officers and his soldiers unfortunately into criminals. They're practicing marksmanship against Palestinian civilians. That's what's happened to many, many children, including a very young child in Nablus, whom we witnessed the death of. He was just standing there with medical teams. There was no clash. There was no fight. And a soldier in a tank turned his gun at him and shot one shot, and killed him.
(CROSSTALK)
MANN: Dr. Barghouti, let me interrupt you to ask you a question.
BARGHOUTI: And not a single soldier was punished for that.
MANN: Let me interrupt you for just a moment, because I'm curious. You have extraordinary experience through all of this suffering. Let me ask you, have you personally ever tried to pursue a case? Have you ever brought a complaint against an Israeli soldier?
BARGHOUTI: Yes.
MANN: And what was that like?
BARGHOUTI: We have complained many times through many Israeli human rights organizations in particular, but as they say, we are in a combat. Actually, it is not combat. We are occupied by the Israeli tanks. the Israeli tanks are in every city. But when you try to go to them and complain, they say we are in a combat. So it's a way. So you cannot complain. And here the rules of law do not apply to us.
So they play the game. Sometimes they say they are occupying us. Sometimes they say they are in a combat. And they are not respecting the fourth Geneva convention, which should regulate the behavior of an occupying army. At the same time, they are not respecting the rules and the laws of combat, because they are letting soldiers bleed to death. They are letting injured people bleed to death, and they are killing prisoners of war after they arrest them.
So they play this game. Sometimes it's an occupation. Sometimes it's a combat.
MANN: Let's let Col. Reisner step in. You've been hearing what he's saying. These are extraordinarily serious charges.
REISNER: Yes. Well, I don't know where to start. Maybe the first question I would probably pose is, the standards that Dr. Barghouti is trying to apply to us, if we look at the Palestinians, there have been approximately 14,000 terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and other targets in Israel. Not one of these cases has ever been investigated by a Palestinian agency.
There is no rule of law at all in Palestinian controlled territories. They don't practice it. I doubt if they even think about it.
We do apply standards. We are a democratic country. We have limitations and we have capabilities. Frankly, as far as I have checked, and I think I have done relatively good research, we are applying standards here which are more stringent than any other military organization has applied in similar circumstances. Any other Western country in the world.
And in relation to the claims of the fact that we don't apply the rules of, the laws of war, I can tell you from personal account, IDF soldiers are ordered only to fire at combatants. If there are exceptions, we will investigate them.
The Palestinian terrorists intentionally fire on civilians. That is the most severe violation of the laws of war. Nobody does anything about it on the Palestinian side.
MANN: Dr. Barghouti, does that essentially take the pressure off of Israel, the fact that on days like today, Palestinian terrorists are trying intentionally to kill Israeli civilians, so that any killings that happen because of an Israeli soldier's error, or apathy, or anger, really don't matter quite as much by comparison? Do you see why some people might draw that conclusion?
BARGHOUTI: Look, I don't agree with any acts against any civilian, whether it's an Israeli or a Palestinian. I don't approve. I object to these kinds of acts. But nothing can justify the acts of killing against women and children. Nothing can justify this behavior, which has become systematic.
If you look at the last three or four months, every day a Palestinian child is killed. Every day, on a daily basis, a Palestinian child is killed by an Israeli soldier.
The Israeli army, the mighty, powerful Israeli army, which is now occupying the West Bank completely and the Palestinian Authority has no control of any street in the West Bank, this mighty, powerful army cannot claim that it is the victim. Israel is not the weak David in this conflict. Israeli is the mighty Goliath in this conflict. And it is the Israeli tanks that are occupying the Palestinian cities.
The Israeli tanks are surrounding us now. The Israeli tanks are oppressing us. Israel is an occupying and oppressing force, and this occupation has become the cancer, the cancer that is eating the lives of both people, the cause of all violence, and if you want to treat the symptom, the violence, we have to stop the cause. And the cause has been occupation.
It is distracting not only Palestinian lives but also it is destroying the Israeli behavior. It is making the Israeli army a bunch of criminals that are killing children and civilian women.
MANN: Let's give the last word to respond to this to the colonel. Is there a different standard here? Israel is a sovereign state. It's not an outlaw guerilla organization or an extremist group or a terrorist group. It is a sovereign state, a member of the community of nations. Doesn't Israel have to do better in this situation?
REISNER: First of all, I agree entirely. We do not try to apply the standards of the Palestinian Authority. We should not, we cannot -- we believe we should apply democratic standards and that's what we're doing.
I'm not using the lack of any action on the Palestinian side as an excuse. It isn't. We are investigating. We have launched thousands of investigations into allegations.
Two comments. Comment number one is that we have tried to receive cooperation from Palestinian people concerning complaints. You asked Dr. Barghouti that question. I think he didn't give you a full response. The truth of the matter is we get absolutely no cooperation from Palestinian civilians or their authority.
MANN: Comment number two, we have just a moment. What was the second point you're trying to make?
REISNER: And the second point is that the fact that they can claim.
MANN: Excuse me.
REISNER: The fact that people claim that children are being hit every day, you can claim it on television. The truth be told is that children are in many cases being intentionally put in the line of fire and being sent to participate. This is a violation of the law.
MANN: Gentlemen, terribly serious allegations. We should have more time to talk about them, we do not. I apologize, both to Col. Daniel Reisner and Dr. Mustafa Barghouti. We thank you both for being with us.
Strapped for time, that is INSIGHT for this day. I'm Jonathan Mann. The news continues.
END
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