"Shortly after Israel announced a new “zero tolerance” policy toward demonstrations in Gaza, some 130 Palestinians were injured Friday while protesting ongoing Israeli occupation and demanding the right of return. Four paramedics and 25 childre…
"Shortly after Israel announced a new “zero tolerance” policy toward demonstrations in Gaza, some 130 Palestinians were injured Friday while protesting ongoing Israeli occupation and demanding the right of return. Four paramedics and 25 children were among the injured. Ten thousand protesters gathered along Israel’s heavily militarized separation barrier with Gaza as part of the weekly Great March of Return protests that began March 30. Since then, Israeli forces have killed at least 170 Palestinians, including more than 30 children, and injured thousands more. We speak with Hagai El-Ad, the executive director of the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem. He was in New York last week testifying before the U.N. Security Council officially for the first time.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, this week, the pope sainted Archbishop Romero, Óscar Romero, of El Salvador, who was assassinated in 1980. The last speech he gave before he was gunned down was heard throughout El Salvador on the radio. And he ordered the soldiers, he beseeched them, he pled with them, to put down their arms, to defy orders. He said, “Stop the repression.” In April, your group, B’Tselem, called on Israeli soldiers to refuse orders to shoot unarmed protesters. Did they heed?
HAGAI EL-AD: No. We published ads. This is actually also like a legal responsibility, a moral responsibility, not only, I think, from like any decent person, but also according to like Israelis’ own laws. If a soldier receives a flagrantly illegal command, he is duty-bound not to follow that command. And commands that order soldiers to fire at unarmed protesters that are not endangering anyone, from a distance, these are flagrantly illegal commands. They should not have been given. And the responsibility for that is with the country’s leadership, with the prime minister, defense minister, chief of staff. And that’s where the responsibility begins. That’s where the brunt of the responsibility is. But if such orders are given..
