EARLIER this week, Israel television broadcast an amateur cameraman's film of two Israeli paramilitary policemen kicking and hitting six Palestinians. The six had been arrested for trying to sneak illegally into Israel from the West Bank to look for work.
Apparently the sadistic abuse went on for close to an hour - the Israelis, members of the border police unit, bounced up and down on the Palestinians' heads, stood on their feet, forced them to do push ups. When another Palestinian approached to object, one of the Israelis slapped him hard across the face.
No sooner had the report been screened than the head of the border police, Mr Yisrael Sadan, telephoned the TV station to promise severe and swift punishment. And indeed, the pair were suspended from duty and placed under arrest.
But almost equally rapidly, the minister of internal security, Mr Avigdor Kahalani, who is responsible for the border police, was trying to emphasise the exceptional nature of the incident. "Most unusual," he called it.
Now, though, the head of an Israeli Justice Ministry unit charged with investigating complaints of such attacks, Mr Eran Shendar, has acknowledged that the problem is widespread. "There are many such deviations," he said.
Israeli abuse of Palestinians reached a peak in the early stages of the Palestinian intifada, when the then defence minister, Yitzhak Rabin, was reported to have urged his troops to use "force, might and beatings" to quell the uprising.
The sense that it was somehow permissible to use violence against Palestinians has been reinforced by a series of a lenient sentences handed down by courts to convicted offenders.
Just this week, for instance, the Jaffa military court meted out a fine of one agora - a coin of such miniscule value that it is no longer even legal tender - to four soldiers for the mistaken killing of a Palestinian, Iyad Amali, shot dead three years ago at a roadblock in the West Bank.
B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights watchdog group, has termed the handling of that case "intolerable".
It has also released figures showing that, while 1251 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli security forces over the past nine years, only 55 Israelis have been indicted. There have been no murder convictions, and just 19 convictions for either manslaughter or causing death by negligence. (The only circumstance in which soldiers are permitted to shoot to kill is one in which their own lives are in danger.)
B'Tselem has blamed Israel's Supreme Court for helping foster the climate of violence, adding, "The basic mindset of Israeli society shows an utter disregard for Palestinian life and well being."