Shomrim’s Year: A look back at the biggest stories of 2020
Cloaked in Trauma, from the Gaza-border to the Yom Kippur War; COVID-19 and the government’s failure to protect Israelis’ society; the massive leak that shook the world’s financial system. One thing on which we can all agree: 2020 was an unforgettable year
Cloaked in Trauma, from the Gaza-border to the Yom Kippur War; COVID-19 and the government’s failure to protect Israelis’ society; the massive leak that shook the world’s financial system. One thing on which we can all agree: 2020 was an unforgettable year
Cloaked in Trauma, from the Gaza-border to the Yom Kippur War; COVID-19 and the government’s failure to protect Israelis’ society; the massive leak that shook the world’s financial system. One thing on which we can all agree: 2020 was an unforgettable year
in collaboration with
December 29, 2020
Summary
1.
Israel’s battered region: The IDF’s Qassam Generation – trauma rekindled
Shomrim’s flagship project in 2020 dealt with the issue of post-trauma in Israeli society. The first in a series of articles by journalist Renen Netzer focused on the youth of the Gaza-border communities, who, after growing up under fire, reach the age of enlistment in the Israel Defense Forces and the trauma slams home hard: “I simply couldn’t shoot … There is always the feeling that something is being repressed.”
2.
The children of the Gaza-border communities – ongoing trauma
The second article in the Cloaked in Trauma project focused on children in the Gaza-border communities, 40 percent of whom exhibit post-trauma symptoms and are prone to behavioral regressions such as bedwetting, sleep disorders, obesity, depression and aggression. “Mom, do we hear the siren when we die?” Moran Hila-Madmoni’s 9-year-old son asked her one evening on their way home to Sderot.
3.
The huge leak that shook the global financial system
Thousands of Suspicious Activity Reports from banks worldwide were revealed to the public in the framework of the so-called FinCen Files affair, led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, of which Shomrim is a member. We revealed hair-raising stories about Israel Aerospace Industries and business tycoons Roman Abramovich and Lev Leviev.
4.
Shomrim’s Israeli Innocence Project: How many innocent people are doing time?
Inspired by the Innocence Project, an American legal organization that has secured the release from prison of hundreds of innocent individuals since its establishment some 30 years ago, we started over the past year to look into the issue in the Israeli legal and justice system too. The results are dismal – beginning with the severe dearth of retrials, and through to the starring role played by false admissions of guilt in criminal convictions In Israel.
5.
The Year of the Coronavirus, Part 1: The Health Ministry’s endless string of failures
We kept track throughout the year of the ramifications of the COVID-19 crisis, with comprehensive investigative reports into the emergency services that failed to step up and the contingency plan for a pandemic that remained unused, the scandalous conduct of the former health minister and certain hospitals, and the failure to properly inform the public of the efficacy of Vitamin D – even though the information was readily available.
6.
The Year of the Coronavirus, Part 2: The heavy social and economic cost to the public
In addition to our focus on the health aspect of the pandemic that has brought the world to its knees, Shomrim also dealt extensively with the social implications of the crisis. We brought to public attention statistics that show how poorer population sectors are more likely to contract the virus; we looked into the failing third-sector NGOs and the threat that looms for the ultra-Orthodox community’s economic stability; and we followed the misfortunes of the newly homeless on the country’s streets.
7.
The Year of the Coronavirus, Part 3: The mortal blow to Israel’s democracy
The wave of anti-government protests and all they entailed kept Shomrim very busy too, with in-depth reports on the police’s controversial crowd-control measures, a series of three image galleries depicting Israel’s democracy in the shadow of COVID-19 and we shined a spotlight on the intense crisis facing the Israel Police.
8.
Paint it black: Colors, sounds and voices from the emerging Black protest movement
Lior was slapped in the face by a police officer when he was 15; Rachel knows that it’s a struggle that will be passed down from generation to generation; the same patrol car team apprehended Shimon twice in the same month; Tal is angry with Israelis who identify with the Black protests in the United States but are criminally indifferent to the situation at home. Shomrim’s special Paint it Black project offers 10 monologues from a new generation of proud and conscious women and men from the Ethiopian community.
9.
The never-ending war: Multi-generational trauma
Anxiety, depression, violence, avoidance, fear, addiction. The second part of our Cloaked in Trauma project was devoted to the Yom Kippur War veterans whose PTSD has come to the surface in their later years, following decades of repression, and also to their families and the families of other victims of military-related trauma who are living the struggle as if they, too, were there.
10.
Listen to Greta: The environment is crying out for help
Israel’s open spaces, beaches and green urban expanses are fighting for their lives in the face of real estate pressures – and without much success; as part of a special Shomrim project, photographer Jonathan Bloom went out into the field to document just some of the eyesores that remind us that profits for the few means losses for the rest of us. With the collapse of the long-disused twin cooling towers of an oil refinery in northern Israel, we also went out to investigate the secrets behind “the most monitored area in the world,” only to find a whole lot of hot air.
