WEBVTT 00:00:00.300 --> 00:00:03.480 Right, so imagine being Israel's top military 00:00:03.480 --> 00:00:06.360 lawyer, years spent defending the most moral 00:00:06.360 --> 00:00:09.240 army in the world, inverted commas, turning war 00:00:09.240 --> 00:00:12.039 crimes into paperwork as that entails, and then 00:00:12.039 --> 00:00:14.400 one day realising the paperwork itself has become 00:00:14.400 --> 00:00:18.280 the crime. That was Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi. She 00:00:18.280 --> 00:00:20.739 leaked the footage from Stey Taiman, soldiers 00:00:20.739 --> 00:00:23.219 assaulting a bound Palestinian prisoner. She 00:00:23.219 --> 00:00:26.079 was the whistleblower. She resigned. She vanished. 00:00:26.379 --> 00:00:28.780 She was found again, and was promptly arrested. 00:00:29.440 --> 00:00:32.520 Soldiers, though, out on bail, arguing due process. 00:00:32.979 --> 00:00:34.939 The whistleblower treated like a spy, though. 00:00:35.179 --> 00:00:37.700 That's Israel's most moral army for you, though, 00:00:37.700 --> 00:00:40.500 isn't it? Aside from all of their misconduct 00:00:40.500 --> 00:00:42.859 on the battlefield, back at home torture gets 00:00:42.859 --> 00:00:45.039 court management, truth gets handcuffs, and the 00:00:45.039 --> 00:00:47.579 best part? The system thinks it's proving its 00:00:47.579 --> 00:00:49.759 own integrity by prosecuting the only honest 00:00:49.759 --> 00:00:52.939 person in uniform. They tried to bury a whistleblower 00:00:52.939 --> 00:00:55.100 and instead the state has indicted itself once 00:00:55.100 --> 00:00:58.520 more as amoral, bereft of legitimacy, and worthy 00:00:58.619 --> 00:01:01.380 crime of speaking out is the worst crime of all. 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:04.359 Right, so Israel's top military lawyer leaked 00:01:04.359 --> 00:01:06.680 proof of a war crime committed by her own state 00:01:06.680 --> 00:01:09.340 military. How mad a sentence is that at any time, 00:01:09.420 --> 00:01:12.299 anywhere? Instead of addressing what is a massive 00:01:12.299 --> 00:01:15.260 scandal in any other state, the system she served 00:01:15.260 --> 00:01:18.379 came for her instead of for the soldiers. Major 00:01:18.379 --> 00:01:21.480 General Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi wasn't some dissident 00:01:21.480 --> 00:01:23.780 clerk, she was the head of the army's law machine, 00:01:24.019 --> 00:01:26.760 the woman who signed off every operation the 00:01:26.760 --> 00:01:29.060 politicians called legal. When she confirmed 00:01:29.060 --> 00:01:31.400 she'd leaked the Steve Tayman video, soldiers 00:01:31.400 --> 00:01:33.519 surrounding a restrained Palestinian prisoner 00:01:33.519 --> 00:01:36.239 and assaulting him, she didn't just break secrecy, 00:01:36.540 --> 00:01:38.640 she broke the illusion that the law still ruled. 00:01:39.319 --> 00:01:41.900 She resigned last Friday over it, but by Sunday 00:01:41.900 --> 00:01:45.159 she'd gone missing. Her car abandoned on a Tel 00:01:45.159 --> 00:01:47.819 Aviv beach, a letter at home that made her family 00:01:47.819 --> 00:01:50.379 fear the worst. Hours later police said she was 00:01:50.379 --> 00:01:53.420 safe, and then they arrested her. The soldiers 00:01:53.420 --> 00:01:56.159 stayed free, the lawyer went in cuffs. That's 00:01:56.159 --> 00:01:58.280 Israel's moral order laid out in sequence for 00:01:58.280 --> 00:02:02.420 you. Ste Tamon isn't a secret anymore. It's a 00:02:02.420 --> 00:02:04.400 desert compound where Palestinians are dumped 00:02:04.400 --> 00:02:08.060 after raids. Shackled, blindfolded, left unnamed. 00:02:08.460 --> 00:02:10.379 It's a place notorious for beatings, medical 00:02:10.379 --> 00:02:13.520 neglect and deaths in custody. Physicians for 00:02:13.520 --> 00:02:15.819 human rights Israel called it a torture site. 00:02:16.319 --> 00:02:18.689 The government called it lawful. The footage 00:02:18.689 --> 00:02:21.430 made those denials collapse, though. Nine reservists 00:02:21.430 --> 00:02:24.030 questioned, five indicted for severe abuse, but 00:02:24.030 --> 00:02:26.710 not for anything more severe than that. Their 00:02:26.710 --> 00:02:28.610 lawyers now say the case must be dropped because 00:02:28.610 --> 00:02:32.229 the leak hurt the army. The IDF has a hurtie. 00:02:32.729 --> 00:02:34.469 Well, you can't put a plaster on a snowflake, 00:02:34.469 --> 00:02:37.110 I'm afraid, but that's the defence. Exposure, 00:02:37.189 --> 00:02:40.090 not assault, that's the injury. When a state 00:02:40.090 --> 00:02:42.310 prosecutes the proof before the crime, you know 00:02:42.310 --> 00:02:45.169 what kind of law it's practicing. Israel's leaders 00:02:45.169 --> 00:02:47.250 didn't call it cover -up, they called it security. 00:02:47.389 --> 00:02:50.250 Defence Minister of the demented Israel Katz 00:02:50.250 --> 00:02:52.530 said the leak was a severe violation of discipline. 00:02:52.990 --> 00:02:54.990 Far -right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich 00:02:54.990 --> 00:02:57.729 said those who leak endanger us all. No -one 00:02:57.729 --> 00:03:00.229 promised to close the camp though. The emergency 00:03:00.229 --> 00:03:03.810 was the truth. The press followed the cue. Herets 00:03:03.810 --> 00:03:06.490 kept to the facts. Search letter to arrest. The 00:03:06.490 --> 00:03:08.770 tabloids went for total character assassination. 00:03:09.389 --> 00:03:12.639 Unstable under strain. Channel 14 anchors demanded 00:03:12.639 --> 00:03:14.960 punishment. Overnight the narrative turned from 00:03:14.960 --> 00:03:17.919 torture to gossip about a woman's nerves. As 00:03:17.919 --> 00:03:20.740 you erase a scandal in real time you question 00:03:20.740 --> 00:03:23.879 the witness. Inside the army panic passed for 00:03:23.879 --> 00:03:26.080 discipline. The military advocate general's office 00:03:26.080 --> 00:03:29.319 exists to give operations a legal gloss. Once 00:03:29.319 --> 00:03:31.479 its chief becomes a defendant though every past 00:03:31.479 --> 00:03:34.659 opinion starts to look like a cover note. The 00:03:34.659 --> 00:03:37.180 institution that certified the Gaza war as legal 00:03:37.400 --> 00:03:39.680 has now indicted its own proof of illegality 00:03:39.680 --> 00:03:42.620 and so the contradiction is total. Law and power 00:03:42.620 --> 00:03:45.960 can't coexist. One has to serve the other. In 00:03:45.960 --> 00:03:49.020 Israel, power won that fight long ago. Of course 00:03:49.020 --> 00:03:51.120 what is happening now isn't new. It's all been 00:03:51.120 --> 00:03:54.840 done before. Mordecai Vannunu infamously blew 00:03:54.840 --> 00:03:56.939 the whistle and showed the world the nuclear 00:03:56.939 --> 00:03:59.479 stockpile. Israel still denies that it exists 00:03:59.479 --> 00:04:02.759 all the way back in 1986 and he got 18 years, 00:04:02.860 --> 00:04:06.340 11 in solitary for that. And at CAM leaked documents 00:04:06.340 --> 00:04:08.560 proving illegal assassinations and got four and 00:04:08.560 --> 00:04:11.460 a half. Breaking the silence collected soldiers' 00:04:11.520 --> 00:04:13.580 testimonies about what they had been up to and 00:04:13.580 --> 00:04:15.560 released them, resulting in them being banned 00:04:15.560 --> 00:04:19.040 from schools. Every time the pattern held. Crimes 00:04:19.040 --> 00:04:22.720 are tolerable, but disclosure isn't. Tomi Erashalmi 00:04:22.720 --> 00:04:26.060 knew that pattern and leaked anyway. That is 00:04:26.060 --> 00:04:28.459 courage in a country that treats honesty as sabotage, 00:04:28.500 --> 00:04:31.620 isn't it? Her family's fear wasn't melodrama 00:04:31.620 --> 00:04:34.199 either, therefore it was precedent. In Israel, 00:04:34.420 --> 00:04:36.519 telling the truth can end your life as you know 00:04:36.519 --> 00:04:39.399 it. When she vanished, people didn't imagine 00:04:39.399 --> 00:04:41.920 arrest, they imagined revenge. She came back 00:04:41.920 --> 00:04:44.600 alive, but indicted. The law she once defended 00:04:44.600 --> 00:04:47.500 now calls her its enemy. The same command that 00:04:47.500 --> 00:04:49.980 ignored abuse in the desert now hunts leaks in 00:04:49.980 --> 00:04:52.220 the capital. They call it order restored, but 00:04:52.220 --> 00:04:56.459 look closer. The order is silence. Every authoritarian 00:04:56.459 --> 00:04:59.399 habit Israel denies owning is written into this 00:04:59.399 --> 00:05:02.629 case. Secrecy is virtue. Loyalty as morality, 00:05:02.910 --> 00:05:05.829 punishment as proof of control. A government 00:05:05.829 --> 00:05:08.689 that can't refute evidence redefines it as treason. 00:05:09.329 --> 00:05:11.750 That's why her trial has to happen behind closed 00:05:11.750 --> 00:05:14.730 doors now, because sunlight is lethal to the 00:05:14.730 --> 00:05:18.569 myth. The gender smear was no accident either. 00:05:18.810 --> 00:05:20.930 The first woman to run the Advocate General's 00:05:20.930 --> 00:05:23.769 office exposes male soldiers for sexual violence 00:05:23.769 --> 00:05:27.389 and suddenly she's fragile. The ridicule about 00:05:27.389 --> 00:05:30.740 breakdowns and hysteria Wasn't cultural noise, 00:05:30.839 --> 00:05:33.579 it was message discipline. Power reasserting 00:05:33.579 --> 00:05:36.279 who's allowed to speak for the army. A woman 00:05:36.279 --> 00:05:38.600 telling the truth shames the hierarchy twice, 00:05:38.980 --> 00:05:41.220 once for the crime, once for needing her to hide 00:05:41.220 --> 00:05:44.259 it. Abroad the fallout has begun in the quiet 00:05:44.259 --> 00:05:46.379 language diplomats use when they're cornered, 00:05:46.540 --> 00:05:49.699 under strain, complicates cooperation. We continue 00:05:49.699 --> 00:05:53.420 to monitor. Those phrases mean one thing. The 00:05:53.420 --> 00:05:56.209 story's indefensible. Washington and Brussels 00:05:56.209 --> 00:05:58.769 built their defence of Israel on robust internal 00:05:58.769 --> 00:06:01.129 oversight, but oversight just got arrested, didn't 00:06:01.129 --> 00:06:03.970 it? So worm your way out of that one now. The 00:06:03.970 --> 00:06:06.949 legal firewall keeping the ICC at bay is crumbling 00:06:06.949 --> 00:06:09.589 line by line, warrant by warrant. You can almost 00:06:09.589 --> 00:06:11.649 hear the lawyers in the Hague marking her name 00:06:11.649 --> 00:06:15.009 as corroboration now. According to media reports, 00:06:15.410 --> 00:06:17.769 officers inside Israel's legal corps have begun 00:06:17.769 --> 00:06:20.269 conveying decisions verbally instead of recording 00:06:20.269 --> 00:06:22.810 them, a change triggered by the Ste Tamon leak. 00:06:23.079 --> 00:06:25.779 Military lawyers said the episode sent shockwaves 00:06:25.779 --> 00:06:28.459 through the core. In practice, the institution 00:06:28.459 --> 00:06:31.180 that once sold moral superiority through self 00:06:31.180 --> 00:06:33.740 -investigation now behaves like one afraid of 00:06:33.740 --> 00:06:36.560 its own paperwork, guarding not legality but 00:06:36.560 --> 00:06:39.680 deniability. The political culture turns the 00:06:39.680 --> 00:06:42.959 screw even more. National security has become 00:06:42.959 --> 00:06:45.560 a religion with one commandment, thou shalt not 00:06:45.560 --> 00:06:48.779 embarrass the army. Everything else, journalism, 00:06:49.019 --> 00:06:52.329 law, conscience, is all subordinate. Israeli 00:06:52.329 --> 00:06:54.670 commentators on several domestic channels even 00:06:54.670 --> 00:06:57.089 suggested she should have been kept under supervision 00:06:57.089 --> 00:07:00.189 to prevent further leaks, describing it as protection. 00:07:00.829 --> 00:07:02.730 Protection for the state, not for her of course. 00:07:03.790 --> 00:07:05.509 Many high -ranking figures don't want her to 00:07:05.509 --> 00:07:07.589 open her mouth, the anchors said. No outrage 00:07:07.589 --> 00:07:09.930 followed that. In Israel that kind of statement 00:07:09.930 --> 00:07:13.110 passes for normal. Abuse of Palestinians can 00:07:13.110 --> 00:07:15.689 still be managed through the usual euphemisms 00:07:15.689 --> 00:07:18.649 though. Irregularities, disciplinary measures, 00:07:19.069 --> 00:07:22.540 isolated incident. But a senior officer defying 00:07:22.540 --> 00:07:25.279 the gag is something else. It shows the machine 00:07:25.279 --> 00:07:27.759 is cracking from the inside. Her confession turned 00:07:27.759 --> 00:07:30.579 a human rights allegation into legal fact. That's 00:07:30.579 --> 00:07:33.040 why the reaction had to be swift, had to be public 00:07:33.040 --> 00:07:35.959 and punishing. The leak threatened the currency 00:07:35.959 --> 00:07:39.620 Israel trades in, moral legitimacy. Without it 00:07:39.620 --> 00:07:42.980 every ally's defense falls apart. At the disciplinary 00:07:42.980 --> 00:07:45.339 level and at the diplomatic level that's already 00:07:45.339 --> 00:07:48.360 happening. The ICC can now argue that Israel's 00:07:48.360 --> 00:07:50.800 military justice system isn't independent. The 00:07:50.800 --> 00:07:52.660 argument writes itself, doesn't it? When the 00:07:52.660 --> 00:07:54.980 head of the system is prosecuted for exposing 00:07:54.980 --> 00:07:57.579 abuse, there can clearly be no internal remedy 00:07:57.579 --> 00:08:00.980 for that. The jurisdiction door opens. Israel's 00:08:00.980 --> 00:08:02.839 allies know it, which is why their statements 00:08:02.839 --> 00:08:05.319 have shrunk to murmurs. They can't afford to 00:08:05.319 --> 00:08:08.100 acknowledge what this looks like. A democratic 00:08:08.100 --> 00:08:10.220 partner under stress, that's how they'll phrase 00:08:10.220 --> 00:08:13.040 it until the headlines move on. But the files 00:08:13.040 --> 00:08:16.740 will stay open. At home the case deepens to rot. 00:08:17.060 --> 00:08:19.199 Legality in Israel now operates like a broadcast 00:08:19.199 --> 00:08:21.839 for foreign consumption. Every inquiry is staged 00:08:21.839 --> 00:08:24.939 for optics. Every minor conviction offered as 00:08:24.939 --> 00:08:27.079 proof that the system still functions. But the 00:08:27.079 --> 00:08:30.139 facade has cracked. Tomer Yerushalmi exposed 00:08:30.139 --> 00:08:32.220 the gap between what Israel tells the world and 00:08:32.220 --> 00:08:35.000 what it does in the dark. The few Israelis who 00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:36.919 still believe the law can mean something are 00:08:36.919 --> 00:08:39.080 watching institutions that no longer believe 00:08:39.080 --> 00:08:41.700 it themselves. Officials going through the motions 00:08:41.700 --> 00:08:44.240 of justice while dreading what real justice would 00:08:44.240 --> 00:08:47.200 expose. They're terrified of justice in other 00:08:47.200 --> 00:08:49.779 words. They're cowards. Snowflakes. Pick your 00:08:49.779 --> 00:08:53.419 poison. The army says her prosecution is necessary 00:08:53.419 --> 00:08:55.899 to protect national security. What is protecting 00:08:55.899 --> 00:08:58.519 is reputation. The phrase security now means 00:08:58.519 --> 00:09:01.080 control of narrative. Justice means containment. 00:09:01.480 --> 00:09:03.980 Accountability means a press conference. It's 00:09:03.980 --> 00:09:06.200 not self -correction. It's self -preservation. 00:09:06.399 --> 00:09:08.879 A state that equates exposure with danger. will 00:09:08.879 --> 00:09:11.700 always choose ignorance. And that's where Israel 00:09:11.700 --> 00:09:14.600 stands now, a country claiming to defend civilisation 00:09:14.600 --> 00:09:18.080 by criminalising conscience. The machinery still 00:09:18.080 --> 00:09:20.759 works, the moral engines blown itself to bits, 00:09:21.120 --> 00:09:23.600 though. What you're seeing now is legality drained 00:09:23.600 --> 00:09:26.279 of all meaning, form without function, rules 00:09:26.279 --> 00:09:28.820 without conviction. And the advocate general 00:09:28.820 --> 00:09:31.120 who proved it has been erased from the very system 00:09:31.120 --> 00:09:33.700 she once upheld, treated not as a guardian of 00:09:33.700 --> 00:09:36.440 law, but as a threat to its illusion. The deeper 00:09:36.440 --> 00:09:39.379 you look, the clearer it gets. This isn't a scandal, 00:09:39.700 --> 00:09:42.259 it's an x -ray. You can see the whole structure, 00:09:42.379 --> 00:09:45.419 the political spine, the legal muscle, the press 00:09:45.419 --> 00:09:48.179 nerves, all tightening around the same reflex. 00:09:48.679 --> 00:09:52.120 Protect the image. That's the unspoken law of 00:09:52.120 --> 00:09:54.620 Israeli power. The state can absorb atrocity, 00:09:54.820 --> 00:09:57.419 but it can't absorb shame. It can't tolerate 00:09:57.419 --> 00:10:00.940 that. And what Tomer Yerushalmi leaked was shame 00:10:00.940 --> 00:10:04.720 in its purest form, filmed, authenticated and 00:10:04.720 --> 00:10:08.139 undeniable. The government's line never changes. 00:10:08.299 --> 00:10:10.580 They say these are isolated lapses, that the 00:10:10.580 --> 00:10:13.220 moral fabric of the army remains intact. But 00:10:13.220 --> 00:10:15.080 a moral fabric that tears every time someone 00:10:15.080 --> 00:10:17.500 tells the truth isn't fabric, it's camouflage. 00:10:18.120 --> 00:10:21.259 Each case they dismiss as exceptional is proof 00:10:21.259 --> 00:10:23.940 of the exceptions of the rule. Steve Tayman was 00:10:23.940 --> 00:10:26.620 supposed to be an off -book holding area, a necessary 00:10:26.620 --> 00:10:29.620 roughness of war. Instead it became a crime scene. 00:10:30.139 --> 00:10:32.179 And the person who said so out loud was the one 00:10:32.179 --> 00:10:35.049 who wrote the laws. That's the nightmare for 00:10:35.049 --> 00:10:37.190 Israel here. Not that the world might see the 00:10:37.190 --> 00:10:39.710 footage, but that Israelis might see what their 00:10:39.710 --> 00:10:42.649 law has become. What's the language the press 00:10:42.649 --> 00:10:45.870 uses? National trauma, sensitive material, breach 00:10:45.870 --> 00:10:48.970 of trust. Every word chosen to suggest confusion 00:10:48.970 --> 00:10:52.309 rather than intention. But nothing here is confused. 00:10:52.649 --> 00:10:54.750 The soldiers made choices. The government made 00:10:54.750 --> 00:10:57.549 choices. The prosecutors now charging the whistleblower 00:10:57.549 --> 00:11:00.509 are making choices. The paperwork tells the story 00:11:00.509 --> 00:11:02.730 if you read what's missing. No charge of rape, 00:11:02.870 --> 00:11:06.230 no instigation into command responsibility, no 00:11:06.230 --> 00:11:08.389 protection for the source. Every omission is 00:11:08.389 --> 00:11:11.850 a confession. Abroad officials pretend distance. 00:11:11.950 --> 00:11:13.669 The White House calls it an internal matter. 00:11:13.950 --> 00:11:16.129 The Foreign Office says Israel's legal system 00:11:16.129 --> 00:11:18.429 is capable of dealing with it. But capable of 00:11:18.429 --> 00:11:21.049 what? Capable of arresting its own conscience? 00:11:21.090 --> 00:11:23.570 Certainly. Capable of restoring credibility? 00:11:23.870 --> 00:11:27.129 Not a chance. Each line of diplomatic caution 00:11:27.129 --> 00:11:30.379 reads like complicity. They need Israel to look 00:11:30.379 --> 00:11:32.720 lawful, so they pretend this is law in action. 00:11:32.860 --> 00:11:36.720 But it's not law, it's maintenance. Inside Israel's 00:11:36.720 --> 00:11:38.580 legal core, the chill is already setting in. 00:11:38.759 --> 00:11:40.539 Officers whisper that they'll refuse certain 00:11:40.539 --> 00:11:43.720 assignments. Others update their wills. Not because 00:11:43.720 --> 00:11:46.059 they expect death, because they expect disgrace. 00:11:46.620 --> 00:11:48.720 When telling the truth becomes a security offence, 00:11:49.100 --> 00:11:51.440 everyone with access to the truth becomes a liability. 00:11:52.200 --> 00:11:54.460 That's how institutions die. Not with riots, 00:11:54.500 --> 00:11:57.179 but with silence. People stop writing, they stop 00:11:57.179 --> 00:11:59.500 arguing, they stop remembering. Look at what's 00:11:59.500 --> 00:12:02.059 happened to language itself. National security 00:12:02.059 --> 00:12:05.480 means protecting the myth. Integrity means obedience. 00:12:05.980 --> 00:12:08.500 Transparency means whatever the censor allows. 00:12:09.539 --> 00:12:11.700 The same terms that once described democracy 00:12:11.700 --> 00:12:15.100 now describe control. This is what happens when 00:12:15.100 --> 00:12:17.440 a country wages a permanent war and calls it 00:12:17.440 --> 00:12:20.519 normal life. The war comes home. It starts policing 00:12:20.519 --> 00:12:23.440 its own lawyers. And there's a personal dimension 00:12:23.440 --> 00:12:25.600 that never makes it into the headlines too. A 00:12:25.600 --> 00:12:28.159 woman who spent her career proving Israel's legality 00:12:28.159 --> 00:12:31.039 ended up proving its corruption. She broke rank 00:12:31.039 --> 00:12:33.279 because her conscience finally outweighed her 00:12:33.279 --> 00:12:36.519 fear. For that she's in custody, labelled a traitor. 00:12:37.340 --> 00:12:40.840 The soldiers she exposed walked free. That contrast 00:12:40.840 --> 00:12:44.100 is the whole story. Israel didn't just arrest 00:12:44.100 --> 00:12:46.899 a whistleblower, it arrested the idea that legality 00:12:46.899 --> 00:12:50.090 might still mean decency. And yet our act changed 00:12:50.090 --> 00:12:52.289 the terrain. The footage is evidence now. It's 00:12:52.289 --> 00:12:54.769 in the hands of the ICC, the UN, every major 00:12:54.769 --> 00:12:57.350 human rights body. The more Israel suppresses 00:12:57.350 --> 00:12:59.830 it, the more official it becomes. You can't un 00:12:59.830 --> 00:13:02.470 -leak the truth. You can only prove over and 00:13:02.470 --> 00:13:04.950 over that you're scared of it. And that's the 00:13:04.950 --> 00:13:07.990 paradox they built for themselves. Every punishment 00:13:07.990 --> 00:13:11.009 becomes another disclosure. Every gag order reads 00:13:11.009 --> 00:13:13.649 like a confession of what they're hiding. Western 00:13:13.649 --> 00:13:15.970 politicians will keep calling Israel a democracy 00:13:15.970 --> 00:13:19.039 until the phrase loses all oxygen, but... Democracies 00:13:19.039 --> 00:13:21.500 don't need to jail their lawyers to stay upright. 00:13:22.299 --> 00:13:24.440 Democracies don't vanish people for a day and 00:13:24.440 --> 00:13:27.000 then parade them in court for leaking proof of 00:13:27.000 --> 00:13:30.259 abuse. Democracies don't downgrade the most serious 00:13:30.259 --> 00:13:34.200 sexual assault to severe misconduct. These aren't 00:13:34.200 --> 00:13:36.179 democratic mistakes, they're the authoritarian 00:13:36.179 --> 00:13:38.559 instincts performed in a democratic costume. 00:13:39.240 --> 00:13:41.159 The uniform doesn't make the system clean, it 00:13:41.159 --> 00:13:43.259 makes the system look civilized whilst it rots 00:13:43.259 --> 00:13:46.460 from the inside out. The bigger collapse is moral. 00:13:46.840 --> 00:13:48.840 For decades Israel sold the line of being the 00:13:48.840 --> 00:13:52.000 most moral army in the world. It's in every briefing, 00:13:52.179 --> 00:13:54.879 every embassy talking point, every sympathetic 00:13:54.879 --> 00:13:57.379 newspaper column. That line kept the weapons 00:13:57.379 --> 00:14:00.559 flowing and the criticism muted. Now the army's 00:14:00.559 --> 00:14:02.840 own lawyer has proved that morality was just 00:14:02.840 --> 00:14:05.220 paperwork. You can't rebuild that with press 00:14:05.220 --> 00:14:08.080 releases. Once your own conscience testifies 00:14:08.080 --> 00:14:11.019 against you, the trial's already over. The state 00:14:11.019 --> 00:14:13.120 can still convict her, it can strip her pension. 00:14:13.309 --> 00:14:16.129 gag the hearings, reassign the judges, it can 00:14:16.129 --> 00:14:18.809 even destroy the footage. But what it can't destroy 00:14:18.809 --> 00:14:21.809 is the order of events. The abuse happened, the 00:14:21.809 --> 00:14:24.750 leak happened, the arrest happened, in that sequence 00:14:24.750 --> 00:14:28.450 on record beyond spin. That timeline will outlive 00:14:28.450 --> 00:14:31.590 every career involved. One day when the court 00:14:31.590 --> 00:14:34.509 files open it'll read like an autopsy of legality. 00:14:35.330 --> 00:14:37.570 This is where Israel finds itself now, a state 00:14:37.570 --> 00:14:40.210 defending its reputation with the tools of repression 00:14:40.210 --> 00:14:43.440 it used to deny owning. The same logic that built 00:14:43.440 --> 00:14:45.559 the occupation is now policing the truth. You 00:14:45.559 --> 00:14:47.879 can't call that democracy, you can only call 00:14:47.879 --> 00:14:51.419 it decay. Tomi Erashalmi's disappearance, her 00:14:51.419 --> 00:14:53.799 letter, her arrest, these are not footnotes of 00:14:53.799 --> 00:14:55.820 the anatomy of a government afraid of its own 00:14:55.820 --> 00:14:58.340 reflection. For a moment when she was missing 00:14:58.340 --> 00:15:00.539 the mass slipped, Israelis saw what it means 00:15:00.539 --> 00:15:03.159 to live in a country where honesty is a hazard. 00:15:03.940 --> 00:15:05.820 Finding her alive didn't close the wound, it 00:15:05.820 --> 00:15:08.019 marked it. The wound is trust and it's bleeding 00:15:08.019 --> 00:15:11.360 out through every courtroom door. History will 00:15:11.360 --> 00:15:13.240 remember her differently from the way the headlines 00:15:13.240 --> 00:15:16.059 frame her now, not as a traitor, not as unstable, 00:15:16.299 --> 00:15:18.440 but as the point where the system confessed. 00:15:19.159 --> 00:15:21.039 She didn't leak secrets, she leaked reality, 00:15:21.100 --> 00:15:23.600 and the reaction proved that reality is the one 00:15:23.600 --> 00:15:27.240 thing this Israeli state cannot survive. They 00:15:27.240 --> 00:15:29.259 can keep her under house arrest, they can drag 00:15:29.259 --> 00:15:31.600 the case through years of hearings, they can 00:15:31.600 --> 00:15:33.659 rewrite the law to make sure no one ever tries 00:15:33.659 --> 00:15:37.080 it again. But the story is fixed. The world has 00:15:37.080 --> 00:15:39.879 seen who gets punished and who doesn't. the soldiers' 00:15:40.139 --> 00:15:43.379 names will fade, hers won't. Israel wanted to 00:15:43.379 --> 00:15:45.820 bury the whistleblower, it buried its own pretence 00:15:45.820 --> 00:15:49.679 of having law of integrity instead. And no amount 00:15:49.679 --> 00:15:52.940 of silence will learn a thought. Speaking of 00:15:52.940 --> 00:15:54.919 matters of honesty and integrity though, the 00:15:54.919 --> 00:15:57.480 very basis for Israel's wars is now a matter 00:15:57.480 --> 00:16:00.200 of conjecture in such regards. So desperate is 00:16:00.200 --> 00:16:02.360 Netanyahu for an all -new war front, it seems, 00:16:02.759 --> 00:16:05.240 he's now basically made one up. And no, I'm not 00:16:05.240 --> 00:16:07.179 kidding. Check out this video recommendation 00:16:07.179 --> 00:16:09.250 here. as you're suggested next watch to find 00:16:09.250 --> 00:16:11.450 out more. Please do also hit like, share and 00:16:11.450 --> 00:16:13.210 subscribe if you haven't done so already, so 00:16:13.210 --> 00:16:15.009 as to ensure you don't miss out on all new daily 00:16:15.009 --> 00:16:17.009 content. Sort of spreading the word and helping 00:16:17.009 --> 00:16:18.490 to support the channel at the same time, which 00:16:18.490 --> 00:16:20.950 is very much appreciated. Holding power to account 00:16:20.950 --> 00:16:23.350 for ordinary working class people. I'll hopefully 00:16:23.350 --> 00:16:25.409 catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.