Israeli Protestor Shot

"The army's shooting of a Jewish Israeli peace protester has sparked a fierce debate about the conduct of the military in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Gil Naamati, 21, was seriously wounded in the legs when soldiers opened fire last Friday on demonstrators who were trying to cut through a gate in Israel's controversial separation barrier. An American woman tourist was also lightly wounded.

As the army launched an internal inquiry into the incident, leftwing politicians demanded to know why live fire had been used against unarmed protestors.

'An order to fire on people that do not fire on you is a completely illegal order,' Ami Ayalon, former domestic intelligence chief and co-author of an unofficial peace initiative, told army radio on Sunday.

Others rushed to defend the army, including Uzi Landau, a Likud minister without portfolio, who said the soldiers had been protecting the citizens of Israel by acting against 'collaborators with terror'."

Guilt by association and summary justice via immediate capital punishment. Uzi's law of the Middle East sounds a lot like the law of the old west.