The Osterley Times: Award-winning film-maker's death divides UK and Israel

The UK and Israel are about to come to loggerheads over the shooting of James Miller, an award-winning British film-maker who was shot by Israel soldiers while working on a documentary in the Gaza Strip more than four years ago.

Like in the case of the shooting of Tom Hurndall, killed by an Israeli sniper in 2003, the Israeli government's first instinct is to batten down the hatches and claim that the fault for the death of the victim belongs with the victim themselves.

The army's first instinct, as shown in both cases, is to protect its soldiers. A military spokesman said that "a cameraman who knowingly enters a combat zone, especially at night, endangers himself."

In the case of Tom Hurdnall, the army eventually relented and court martialled the soldier concerned. He was sentenced to eight years.

However, in the case of James Miller, the Attorney General of the UK gave the Israelis six weeks to launch a criminal investigation into the officer who fired the fatal shot. That deadline runs out tomorrow.

Moshe Cohen, a spokesman for Israel's Justice Ministry, said in a written statement yesterday that an earlier British request had been thoroughly checked and a decision to close the Miller case had been reported to London. "Now that the British authorities have decided once more to approach us, the matter will be attended to.... A response will be provided in an acceptable fashion, as soon as possible, in accordance with the timetables of the Israeli authorities."

The Israelis have always had an incredibly cavalier attitude towards the killing of Palestinians, an attitude that they seem to want to extend towards anyone - of any nationality - killed within the occupied territories. This is where they run into bother. The world largely turns it's back on Israel's killing rate when it comes to the occupants of the West Bank or Gaza. However, no government can ignore the killing of one of it's own citizens, and it seems to take the Israelis a great deal of time to understand that they are not dealing with an occupied people over whom they have total control when they are, in fact, dealing with another sovereign government responsible to it's people.

And whilst this casual attempt to blame the victim might wash with an American administration who support Israel's overall aims in the Occupied Territories, it is hardly likely to prove a sufficient answer to a British government or, indeed, to a British court.

In April, 2006, a London jury at St Pancras coroner's court returned a verdict of unlawful killing and said that Mr Miller, 34, had been "murdered". The Israeli army had dropped the case for want, it said, of enough evidence to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

The coroner, Dr Scott Reid, wrote to Lord Goldsmith inviting him to "consider starting criminal proceedings in the UK against members of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) for an offence of willful killing".

The only soldier who has been named, though only by rank and surname, is Lieutenant Heib, who commanded the armoured vehicle from which the fatal shots were fired.

To try him in Britain, Lord Goldsmith's successor, Baroness Scotland, would have to seek his extradition, which Israel would be expected to resist.

Mr Miller's family accused Israel of "an abject failure to uphold the fundamental and unequivocal standards of international humanitarian and human rights law". They are suing the Israeli government in the Tel-Aviv magistrates' court for compensation.

So a British jury found that Miller had been "deliberately shot with the intention of killing him". The Israeli response was almost a classic lesson in the way an occupying army refuses to accept any responsibility for it's actions, always finding cause for doubt.

"The findings of the military police show that an Israel Defense Forces lieutenant, the commanding officer of the IDF force at the site, allegedly fired his weapon in breach of IDF Rules of Engagement," a statement said. "However, it is not legally possible to link this shooting to the gunshot sustained by Mr. Miller."

So, they have a soldier at the exact location where Miller was killed. They know the soldier fired his weapon against the IDF rules of engagement. They also have a man lying dead with a bullet through his neck, but they find it impossible to make any connection between the two things.

This is not dissimilar to the missing Israeli shell and the dead bodies on a Gaza beach. The IDF admitted that it could not account for one of the shells it was firing during a routine practice in the area but found it could make no correlation between it's missing shell and the huge explosion which ripped through the nearby beach killing seven Palestinians.

This inability to join the dots leaves the IDF's credibility in tatters to all but Israel's most fervent supporters.

In an investigative report in October 2003, the journalist John Sweeney wrote: "They had walked about 20 metres from the veranda when the first shot rang out. The team froze. For 13 seconds, there is silence broken only by Saira's cry: 'We are British journalists.' Then comes the second shot, which killed James. He was shot in the front of his neck. The bullet was Israeli issue, fired, according to a forensic expert, from less than 200 metres away. Immediately after the shooting, the IDF said that James had been shot in the back during crossfire. It later retracted the assertion about where in his body he was shot, but until today it has maintained that he was shot during crossfire. There was no crossfire on the APTN tape."

The moment when James is killed is caught on this piece of film from Death in Gaza. It is quite clear that there is no crossfire as the Israelis later claim.

Astonishingly, Israel's response to James' death was to insist that any foreign national wishing to enter Gaza will need to sign waivers absolving the IDF of any wrongdoing if they are killed or injured by Israeli forces.

Those are hardly the actions of an army that seeks to control it's soldiers and protect civilian lives.

British MP, Gerald Kauffman, who lost many members of his family in the Holocaust, has described the IDF as, "trigger happy and well nigh out of control". If you're asking visitors to sign waivers excusing IDF soldiers if they shoot you, then Kauffman's description actually borders on being too kind.

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