Israeli media and the public are in turmoil over the call by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked to open a police investigation against Dean Issacharoff, the spokesperson for Breaking the Silence, the anti-occupation organization. Having delivered a personal, difficult-to-take testimonial, according to which he beat a Palestinian unconscious for no justifiable reason during military service, Issacharoff must be investigated in the public interest.
In April, Breaking the Silence had publicized the filmed testimony by Issacharoff, 25, a first lieutenant in the reserves. In it, he courageously confesses how during his regular service as an officer in the Nachal division, he was asked one Friday to restrain a Palestinian who had thrown rocks at Israel Defense Forces soldiers: “My company commander looked at me, my soldiers looked at me, and I stood there and thought what I am going to do with a person who didn’t try to stab me, didn’t try to shoot me. He doesn’t speak Hebrew, and I don’t speak Arabic. So I grabbed him by the back of the neck, and I started hitting him in the face and the chest until he was bleeding and unconscious, in front of my soldiers and my commander. And then we dragged him from there while he was dazed, and we put him in the military post.”
