Israeli Officer Says Higher-Ups Ordered Beatings

TEL AVIV —  A tearful Israeli colonel broke down during his court-martial Friday, saying his commanders abandoned him to face charges that he ordered his soldiers to beat and break the limbs of Palestinians.

“Yes. I said beat them on the limbs and then release them,” Israel Radio quoted Col. Yehuda Meir, 38, as telling three military judges when asked if he had given orders to break Arabs’ bones during the uprising in Israeli-occupied territories.

But he said he was carrying out orders that then-Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin issued in January, 1988. Maj. Gen. Amram Mitzna, former army chief in the West Bank and Meir’s commanding officer, has testified that he did not recall such orders.

Israel Radio said when asked by his lawyer how he felt about his commander’s testimony, Meir broke down crying and said: “They’ve abandoned me. They’ve thrown me to the dogs.”

Rabin defended his policy in a radio interview Friday.

“I ordered the army at that stage, after a time of heavy use of firearms which did not bring results, that units fighting violent riots . . . should go in and beat the demonstrators to control them as long as the riots continue.

“I didn’t use the phrase ‘break bones,’ ” he said.

The radio also quoted Meir as comparing Israeli soldiers fighting the uprising to Lebanese Christian militiamen who massacred Palestinian refugees at the Sabra and Chatilla camps in 1982 during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

“The army began to act like hooligans. The distance between this and what the Falangists (militiamen) did was small,” the radio quoted him as saying.

Meir is the highest-ranking officer to be tried for offenses against Arabs during the 30-month-old uprising in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In seven felony counts, he is accused of ordering soldiers to smash the arms and legs of Palestinians in the West Bank villages of Beita and Hawwara in January, 1988.

Meir’s men are alleged to have rounded up about 21 Palestinians named as agitators by the Shin Bet secret police, taken them into nearby fields and then beaten them with rifles and clubs. At least 12 reportedly suffered broken limbs.

On Thursday, Meir had testified that Rabin instructed senior officers: “You do the work, I’ll deal with the press and the law.”