The MAG Affair (one in what looks like it will be a lengthy series)

The Washington Post has this status report on the ever-hotter MAG Affair in Israel. Shira Rubin and Lior Soroka write:

This public brawl is not over the facts of the case but rather a broader struggle between a growing segment of Israelis who contend that all their soldiers are heroes who should be immune to prosecution and those who call for the rule of law in cases of misconduct.

The case is exceptional in part because it is one of the rare instances during the Gaza war when the Israeli military has sought to hold its soldiers accountable for alleged atrocities. After Hamas carried out a massive attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel in response launched its devastating war in Gaza, soldiers have repeatedly posted online photos and videos of themselves carrying out acts that have been deemed by international organizations to be evidence of war crimes and violations of international law.

But human rights groups say that since the start of the war, with calls for revenge going mainstream in Israel, hundreds of incidents of unjustified killing or other violence against Palestinians have gone unpunished. Amid widespread accusations of prisoners being abused by Israeli soldiers, the IDF says it has launched only eight criminal investigations into alleged detainee mistreatment.

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[Eran] Shamir-Borer said that regardless of whether the military does not prosecute soldier misconduct aggressively enough — or if [Yifat] Tomer-Yerushalmi had acted unprofessionally — the fate of the Sde Teiman case will nonetheless have consequences for the character of Israel’s army and state. “Without a functioning, credible legal institution, Israel will be compromising its own values,” he said.

The political attacks on military justice also come at a time when other elements of the Israeli judicial systems have already been under fire, legal experts say. They point, for instance, to a vicious right-wing campaign against Israeli Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, partly on the grounds that she had allegedly colluded with Tomer-Yerushalmi, and against Supreme Court judges.

“There is no doubt it’s part of the broader campaign against law enforcement institutions,” said Mordechai Kremnitzer, professor emeritus of law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute.