Israel Disputes Soldiers’ Accounts of Gaza Abuses

An article today counteracts the media whirlwind of accustions that Israel acted wrongfully in the Gaza conflict.

“When we entered houses, we actually cleaned up the place,” said Yishai Goldflam, 32, a religiously observant film student in Jerusalem whose open letter to the Palestinian owners of the house he occupied for some days was published in the newspaper Maariv. “There are always idiots who do immoral things. But they don’t represent the majority. I remember once when a soldier wanted to take a Coke from a store, and he was stopped by his fellow soldiers because it was the wrong thing to do.”

Yaron Ezrahi, a political theorist who lectures military commanders, said they rejected the notion of willful abuse by their troops. But the commanders say more civilians died than should have and attribute it to two factors: faulty intelligence that led to attacking the wrong houses, and a failure, after warning Palestinians to leave, to provide safe escape routes.

Personally, I can't say that I believe there is a a systematic effort by Israel to destroy Palestinians. But I don't doubt that there are some Israelis who would believe in such a thing; I don't like the attitudes from a lot of Israelis commenting on message boards in the wake of accusations that IDF acted wrongfully. The unwillingness to believe anything other than "IDF is the most moral army in the world", to do anything but revere the Israeli talking points, frustrates me. Of course...all of these things can be said, really, about any society; like the quote above says, there are always immoral idiots. I guess the hope is that people would realize that, and instead of trying to defend the idiots, try to understand how others might feel now because of those idiots, and try to understand all of the different biases going in from themselves and others, and try to focus as much on useful dialogue as on defending their own original stances.

Here is the open letter that Yishai Goldflam wrote: I am the soldier who slept in your home.

I am convinced that you hate me with unbridled hatred, and you do not have even the tiniest desire to hear what I have to say. At the same time, it is important for me to say the following in the hope that there is even the minutest chance that you will hear me.