There is no way on earth to successfully deal with this kind of video clip. An armed, well-trained Israeli soldier from an elite unit, covered with camouflage paint, pursues a 12-year-old Palestinian boy, trying to arrest him. Meanwhile, the entire family arrives at the scene where they set upon the soldier with howls and screams. After all, the boy is only 12, with one hand in a cast.
Once every few weeks or months, Israel finds itself facing this kind of video going viral on the Internet, a clip that soars through digital space with the speed of light, without limitations of time or place. Go argue with these pictures. A chronicle of an inevitable Israeli rout, the clip was filmed Aug. 28 in the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh. Now, against all odds, I will attempt to describe the same event from the soldier’s point of view, from the Israeli angle.