It is said that justice is a profession and that judges are professionals, free from bias and outside influence, whose considerations and rulings are basely solely on evidence. The sentence of Hebron shooter Pvt. Elor Azaria challenges that principle, because it leaves us with the sense that the three judges in the case tried to please everyone. This sense is mainly the result of Azaria's ringing and unequivocal conviction for manslaughter last month. The judges' ruling about the soldier's actions and the absolute rejection of any possible mitigating circumstances, and the full adoption of the prosecution's stance while utterly rejecting the arguments of the defense (including criticism of the character and style of that defense) left no doubt about how they saw Azaria's acts. That, we could have supposed, would have informed his sentence, and that is the reason for the surprise when it turned out that the punishment was much lighter than what had been expected and what the prosecution had sought. If until now people thought that the Azaria case would be taught in political science courses and in the army's various officer training programs, there's no doubt that it will also serve as material for law students, who will be asked to explain how the crime of manslaughter in the first degree ends with a sentence of only 18 months in prison (and why matters that were rejected out of hand in the conviction were brought up as mitigating circumstances in the sentence -- legally, it might be possible, but it doesn't make sense to the public.) We aren't talking about mathematics or a drill, which is what leads us to feel that the judges were influenced by the background noise on the case -- the public outcry, the threats, the damage to the public's faith in the IDF. At least some of these matters will now die down, given the relatively light sentence. Evidence? The public protests let up yesterday. It is regrettable that politicians, as usual, did not restrain themselves and rushed to send out statements to the media even before the sentence was read out in full: Their calls for or against a pardon in a pathetic attempt to seize the headlines for a moment did nothing to help the soldier or bolster the IDF and its commanders or the public's belief in them. In a logical world, everyone would have stayed quiet yesterday and sat down to study the case. The army would focus on how to restore faith, mainly within its own ranks, and back its people while maintaining instructions and orders. The politicians and the rest of the professional cashers-in would take a look at their own sizeable contribution to the progress of the affair and the way in which the Azaria trial was conducted. The soldier and his immediate circle should think about how they stayed with a pack of advisors who even now, rather than being thankful for their good luck in the face of the lenient sentence, are insisting on dragging him back for another unnecessary round in court, which will not improve his situation and will only make it harder for him to receive a pardon. But in Israel in 2017 only a little of all this will happen. The IDF, obviously, will learn some lessons from it, but the basic situation in Judea and Samaria, where civilians and the military mix with the constant threat of terrorism in the background, is already ripe for the next incident of this kind. We can certainly expect nothing from the politicians, who proved during this affair that no cow is too sacred for slaughter. Azaria himself is facing long days and nights in prison, over the course of which he will have time to think about what he did, from the moment he fired until his sentence was read. The sooner he leaves behind the sense that he's a victim and takes in that he is being punished for a crime, the sooner he will have a chance at parole and be free to go on with his life.
