An Israel Defense Force investigator recommended Monday that disciplinary charges be filed against two senior officers who failed to restrain a pair of Israeli civilian security guards on a destructive rampage through downtown Nablus last Friday.
The incident, filmed by Visnews television, created another angry confrontation between left and right-wing members of the Knesset.
The guards, reacting to a stone-throwing attack, were shown overturning vegetable stands, smashing car headlights and threatening passersby at gunpoint in the West Bank Arab town.
According to Knesset members Yossi Sarid and Dedi Zucker of the Citizens Rights Movement, a lieutenant colonel in charge of the Nablus region witnessed the incident and did not “lift a finger” to stop it.
But Likud Knesset member Uzi Landau called their charges a “witch hunt.” He said the security forces should be punishing Arab hooligans, not Jewish civil guards.
The investigating officer confirmed that when the security forces ordered the civilians to desist, the soldiers themselves were threatened with firearms.
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