JERUSALEM, Oct 5, (AFP): A grainy video of a male Israeli soldier bellydancing around a bound and blindfolded female prisoner which went viral overnight, on Tuesday provoked a furious response from the Palestinians. The clip, which came to light after it was screened on Israel’s private Channel 10 television late on Monday, shows a soldier gyrating to rhythmic drumbeat of an Arabic track as the woman, who is wearing a headscarf, huddles against a wall, her hands bound in front of her and her eyes bound with a white cloth. The soldier, who is wearing sunglasses and grinning broadly, repeatedly brushes up close to the woman who has a Hebrew speech bubble coming out of her mouth reading “Allahu Akbar” — Arabic for “God is greatest.” Crudely captioned “israeli soldier catch arab terrorist (he dance on haer) funny,” the clip lasts just over a minute. The video was immediately slammed by the Palestinian Authority as “deeply offensive to the dignity of women.”

“This is a disgusting illustration of the sick mentality of the occupier. This is not an isolated incident,” said a strongly-worded statement from the office of Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad. In response, the army condemned the clip and said the military police had opened an investigation into what it described as an “isolated” incident. “The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) denounces actions such as those depicted in the videos,” it said referring to an unspecified number of videoclips. “The videos are isolated cases that do not represent the IDF as a whole.”

The statement said that from now on, a military police investigation would become “standard practice in cases in which similar behaviour is alleged.” Exposure of the video came just seven weeks after an Israeli soldier sparked widespread outrage by posting pictures of herself smiling and larking around next to blindfolded and handcuffed Palestinian prisoners. The army denounced the pictures as “shameful,” while the Palestinian Authority described them as humiliating, but the former soldier, Eden Abergil, could not understand why the images had caused such offence.

The YouTube video can be found: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxFlmXbzY3I