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Israeli soldier unapologetic over prisoner photos
Eden Abergil posted pictures of herself posing with Palestinian detainees on Facebook
A former Israel Defence Forces soldier who posted photos of herself posing with Palestinian prisoners on Facebook has said she did nothing wrong.
Eden Abergil, 26, posted a photo album entitled 'IDF: the best days of my life' on the social networking site. Some of the pictures showed her posing with blindfolded Palestinians who had been captured while attempting to cross over from Gaza to Israel.
Attached to one picture was a comment by one of Abergil's friends,
reading: "That looks really sexy for you." Abergil replied, referring to the Palestinian detainee: "I wonder if he is on Facebook too - I'll have to tag him in the photo."
The photos are reminiscent of the admittedly far more humiliating photographs of naked Iraqi prisoners taken by US soldiers in the notorious Abu Ghraib jail. When they came to light in 2003, some of the culprits were imprisoned.
But in an interview with Army Radio today, Abergil was unapologetic - even combative.
"I still don't understand what's wrong," she said. "The pictures were taken in good will, there was no statement in them." She said they were souvenirs taken to remember her military experience and demanded of her interviewer if the media always asks detainees for permission to film them.
Abergil was also dismissive of suggestions that the images could damage Israel's image. "We will always be attacked," she said. "Whatever we do, we will always be attacked."
But an IDF spokesman condemned Abergil. "These are disgraceful photos," Captain Barak Raz told Associated Press Television News.
"Aside from matters of information security, we are talking about a serious violation of our morals and our ethical code and should this soldier be serving in active duty today, I would imagine that no doubt she would be court-martialed immediately."
Military service in the IDF is compulsory for virtually every non-Arab Israeli citizen, whether male or female. And Abergil is far from the only former IDF soldier to have a photo album of their army days with pictures of prisoners - or indeed a Facebook photo album. She is, however, the only one so far to have been foolish enough to ignore her privacy settings. ·
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Just 'doing her job', just obeying orders.
Its really isn't anything immoral to theses photos. ...Just a few pix of her doing her job.
She reminds me of the White Trash females who messed with Iraqi prisoners in Abu Graib.
Is this some sort of syndrome?
Worse still, is it par for the course?
"We will always be attacked," she said. "Whatever we do, we will always be attacked." - Keep behaving like that and it's hardly a surprise.
"I still don't understand what's wrong," And that is why this war will never end until all the nutters have laid waste to the entire region.
She "still [doesn't] understand what's wrong"? That says it all about this self-centered, immature, ignoramus.