The true nature of the soldier’s mission usually dawns upon him shortly after he arrives on the scene. He might be told, as I was in one of my first shifts, to close a checkpoint for some reason or other. A Palestinian child comes by and asks to pass on his way home from school. When the child discovers the checkpoint is closed and he cannot get home, he begins to cry. Recalling the freedom and responsibility to exercise his clear-headed judgment, the soldier decides to let the child through. A while later, ten crying children come by. They all heard about a new way to pass through the checkpoint even when it is officially closed.
At this point, facing the crying children, the soldier realizes he made a mistake—not because these children are dangerous, but because he cannot afford to be fooled by ten-year-olds, or by anyone, for that matter. There cannot be an efficient way to pass through his checkpoint. Any such way may be used against him, against his mission. He cannot tell harmless ten-year-olds from ten-year-olds who were sent to trick him. Everyone should know that at his checkpoint it is up to him and him alone to decide what will be their fate.
The soldier realizes he should not act on empathy since empathy can be manipulated. But can he suppress this natural sentiment? It takes time. The next time a similar situation occurs he does not let the child pass. Instead he smiles at him or tries to make him laugh. These are also signs of weakness. His lenience toward children, if it becomes known, may be used against him. He realizes this when families start encouraging their children to soften him up so they will pass through more quickly. If the harmless Palestinians manipulate him, so can the harmful ones. He makes a further effort to suppress his empathy.
But if sentiments such as empathy are not proper guides for his clear-headed judgment, which are? Strictly following orders leads to failure as well. He was ordered to use his clear-headed judgment to recognize cases to which the orders do not apply. How should he recognize such cases? Any rule for recognizing exceptions will have to be assigned a higher-order rule by which to recognize its own exceptions. This seems to lead to an infinite regress. The soldier gradually realizes that he cannot but fail his mission: the rules and orders he has to guide him are conditional on his judgment, which cannot be guided by any rule. His judgment is bound to be vacuous.
The soldier constantly treats people as innocent although as far as he can tell they might be conspiring against him; he constantly intimidates people who arouse his suspicion although they might, for all he knows, be innocent. There are no principles or rules to help him tell a terrorist from a harmless citizen: everything he does is groundless and he knows it. One soldier tells of a taxi driver who kept passing through his checkpoint to drive wounded children to the hospital. On his way back, the driver always had paying passengers in the back seat. When the soldiers at the checkpoint noticed the “trick” they stopped letting him through. From then on, the wounded kids had to wait at the checkpoint until an ambulance came to pick them up. The soldier explains:
If you let everyone through who comes with a kid and a fractured arm, you’ll be letting terrorists through before you know it. They have no inhibitions. They’ll stop at nothing.
All the malevolent people he might have let through his checkpoint; all the innocent people who have suffered because of him. He goes on, unable to deliberate about the things he’s done, which cause more pain than he has ever witnessed.
Manning the Checkpoint - Israeli Soldier's Account
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Originally Posted by Simon Cashmere
Generally, positive accounts from the Israeli point of view are knocked down because they don't show "the pain suffered by the Palestinian people".
