As anyone who knows me will tell, I'm not one to shy away from allegations of Israeli wrong-doing. When we do things wrong we need to recognize, understand, own up, learn for the future and move on. This in one of the most important ways to ensure our overall morality at war, since we're going to be at war for a long time yet.
Haaretz has just launched a series (so they say) of articles in which soldiers who fought in Gaza tell of wrongdoings. I'm linking to the first article here, and may link to the next. As war crimes go, these stories published so far are not particularly horrendous; they tell of lax orders and lack of care, not of an intention to kill civilians, but let's see what the next installments tell. I expect Haaretz will publish the whammies in their weekend (=Friday) edition.
When interpreted by the Deutsche Presseagentur, this becomes a report of wanton destruction and indiscriminate killing of civilians:
ReplyDeletehttp://news.de.msn.com/politik/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=15239544
Same in index.hu largest Hungarian online portal. http://index.hu/kulfold/2009/03/19/vedtelen_civileket_gyilkolt_az_izraeli_hadsereg_/
ReplyDeleteWho needs the Guardian, Juan Cole and the rest when you have got Haaretz?
YNet has a report where several soldiers cast doubt on this kind of accusations:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3689388,00.html
It's been staggering to watch how quickly this spread around the world and how the stories morphed into more serious allegations. A read of the Haaretz article reveals the stories are still hearsay and as yet completely unsupported by any evidence or facts.
ReplyDeleteYaacov it's depressing when your own people betray you like this. The Israeli left, including the likes of Morris, Pappe etc, have done more harm to Israel than Hamas and Hezbollah combined. Freedom of speech is all very nice, but it has to be accompanied by some responsibility.
Gavin