Soccer Dad

They sure better value the lives of their soldiers over all others. Or pretty soon they won't have any soldiers.

I was in the IDF, and some of our "soldiers" talk about palestinians as if they were ANIMALS.

They don't care about palestinians. That's why they shell houses, and then use hamas using them as human shields as an excuse.

It made me sick the way we treat the arabs. The truth is, they live there, and there aer MILLIONS of them.

What israel is doing, is replacing arabs with jews, and this is GENOCIDE.

The truth hurts, and I'm not the only jewish person that thinks this.

This comment will probably get deleted, but I don't care. Call me a self hating jew, whatever yo want. But I'm tired of israel killing arabs i my name and I am allowed my opposing viewpoint.

Israel is doing what is necessary to protect the lives of it's citizens. If you want to live as a Jew and be in fear of your neighbors, living as a second class citizen you can go to any Islamic country.

http://forceddemocracy.com is written by a jewish person.

If you think arab lives are secondary to jewish lives, then you are a RACIST.

If you're jewish, that's understandable. if you're NOT, then you're a f___ing RACIST, end of story

John,

I have no idea what experience you had in the IDF, but even you admit that the negative description you give applies to only 'some'. You do not describe how many, nor do you refer to the fact that we are talking about a war.

You also do not give any indication how long you were in Israel or in the IDF.

Your description of 'What israel is doing, is replacing arabs with jews, and this is GENOCIDE'--is superficial. Obviously, it is also incorrect and therefore is merely inciteful instead of insightful.

You write that it makes it sick how Israel treats the Palestinian Arabs, but there is no context--for example see what Karsh wrote about what Israel did for the economy of the Palestinians--

During the 1970's, the West Bank and Gaza constituted the fourth fastest-growing economy in the world-ahead of such "wonders" as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Korea, and substantially ahead of Israel itself. Although GNP per capita grew somewhat more slowly, the rate was still high by international standards, with per-capita GNP expanding tenfold between 1968 and 1991 from $165 to $1,715 (compared with Jordan's $1,050, Egypt's $600, Turkey's $1,630, and Tunisia's $1,440). By 1999, Palestinian per-capita income was nearly double Syria's, more than four times Yemen's, and 10 percent higher than Jordan's (one of the better off Arab states). Only the oil-rich Gulf states and Lebanon were more affluent.

This was when Israel had a hands-off policy.

Bottom line, the fact that you served in the IDF and that you are Jewish in no way makes you an expert or the final word on Israeli-Palestinian relations.

The truth may hurt, but not unless you back it up with facts to back it up.

If you think arab lives are secondary to jewish lives, then you are a RACIST.

If you're jewish, that's understandable. if you're NOT, then you're a fucking RACIST, end of story

Marie,

Please allow me to point out 3 of your mistakes:

1. The government of Israel and its army--just like everywhere else in the world--will always consider the lives of their own citizens first. It's just that simple. It is not a question of race, no more than the fact that a mother puts the welfare of her own children first.

2. You write If you're jewish, that's understandable.--indicating that you are in fact guilty of the very thing you attempt to claim about Israel.

3. You apparently think that your foul language accentuates your point. Once again, you are mistaken.

How dare you bully, intimidate and discount one of the very boys that your country sends to do your dirty work for you.

The least you could do is be concerned that he HAD such an experience as a soldier of Israel, rather than use the (slightly modified in this instance i must admit) hasbara technique of attacking the messenger.

And are you really such a cliche that you choose to use GNP/money as an example of the oh so humane way in which Israel treats the Palestinians. God (yes i am allowed to write it) give me strength!

The truth can only hurt those who been party to wrong-doing and who choose to face their God. And the longer this takes to happen the greater the hurt will be.

The experience of the soldier needs no further "backing up" - it was his experience and as such, apart from one point which he may have exaggerated, IS a Fact .... no matter how much you try to dilute it in a morass of context.

"Way to go" re using obfuscation to deny this (ex) soldier his truth while sticking to your ?belief structure, where Israel is justified in its untenable behaviour - and where, i may suggest, truth is a disposable commodity.

How absurd!

Since when does not agreeing with someone amount to bullying? Intimidating? Really--where do you see that? Discounting?

Apparently you are not used to having people disagree with you--especially not with facts since you seem to be forced to resort to the above-mentioned attacks as opposed to referring to any facts.

My reference to Karsh was merely to indicate a counter-example to what was claimed that about how Israel feels about and treats Palestinian Arabs. I could also have referred to the fact that they have their own University, where they are not forced to hew to a pro-Israel line, and don't. I could also have pointed to the fact that there are Palestinian Arabs in the Knesset.

Experience, as you write, may not need backing up, but since we am dealing with facts, bringing them in is appropriate--regardless of your admitted discomfort with 'context'.

I do not deny him "his truth" as you yourself put it--I merely insist on bringing one piece (of many) of information that contradicts the picture he paints--before I accept it as my truth.

Unfortunately, you have nothing to bring to the table but insults.

it is not my intention to insult, but it is my intention to bring truth and facts to the table (rather than (yes) "discounting" important elements of the truth which may need to be faced before one can claim moral/ethical/rightful superiority)

since we are dealing with facts i submit the following article
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Exceptional Cases? / Ziv Mavari

It would be better if Israeli society would to open its eyes and face up to what is happening

Again we hear about a serious case of violence against Palestinians perpetuated by IDF soldiers, again we hear about an investigation of the Military Police, and again a soldier will be sent to prison, again we hear about "weeding out the evil" and "exceptional cases", and again the army mates of this week's victim will stand up for him and talk about his moral stature. And above all the military system, with its laconic answers will again claim that "it has expunged the miscreant" and from now on it is again spotlessly clean.

We want so much to believe in this�and are ready to struggle and sacrifice so much just not hear and not to confront a reality that is so painful and so frustrating. And yet, the reality of our situation becomes more and more evident, our wonderful IDF soldiers, the best of our sons, who were raised on the lofty values of this land, and who chose to volunteer for combat duty in order to best serve their country are going through the inevitable process of moral decay, and have lost all sensitivity and humanity as a result of being occupiers of a civilian population.

Today we all know that beatings of Palestinians at checkpoints are not deviant incidents, shootings (at people) for fun are not deviant episodes, acceptance of bribery is not deviant, and even theft, to our enormous regret is no longer deviant.

It would be better if Israeli society would to open its eyes and face up to what is happening. A profound and honest confrontation, as painful as it may be, is much preferable to denial and obscurity and lurking in an insular bubble behind slogans. Israeli society must understand that it is paying a huge moral price for its control over another population. The violence and lack of tolerance do not remain "there"; it comes home with us and accompanies us when we are with friends, on the roads, on the beach and wherever we go.

We who have been there and have returned pay the price every day and therefore have decided to tell you, those of you who care about the soldiers who are drafted today and will be drafted tomorrow, to those of you who care about the social and moral character of Israeli society in the future, you must not close your eyes and shut your mouths, eighteen years you have raised and educated a son and now you will not fight for his future?

Unfortunately, most of the discussion around cases of violence is concerned with disagreements as to weather a particular Palestinian deserved to be slapped or not, and nobody seems concerned about what is happening to the soldiers whose actions are so violent, what brings them to this point and what sort of citizens they will turn out to be in our society. It's easy for us to explain it all away with sundry rationalizations such as "they probably come from a violent home" and "perhaps they have endured abuse" and so on, but the truth is different, we have all seen our best friends lose their peace of mind in this totally impossible reality, even a quick scan of incidents that have been covered by the media reveal that we are talking here about good soldiers who have many friends who rally to their support.

The higher echelons of the army concern themselves with cover ups and the hiding of reality as it is from Israeli society, instead of coming to the society and admitting that these so called deviant actions are actually the norm and that this is the price we must pay as long as we are present in the occupied territories, they chose to repeatedly present the "errant soldiers" as exceptions, however when the subject crops up despite these efforts they place full responsibility on the "deviant" soldier assuming that those soldiers who have not been caught doing the same sort of thing would prefer to keep silent rather than expose themselves.

It is impossible to prepare the various units in the army for service in the occupied territories, no matter how many lessons on the spirit of the IDF and the dignity of man are taught in the officer courses of the army, and how many briefings occur within the army, the IDF can only reduce the damage but not prevent it and this only to a limited extent, just as anybody who has been there can tell you the process of moral deterioration "there" does pass over any warrior or soldier and is the result of the nature of activity "there", there is no way, nor can there be, a way to enter a home and see a small child wet his pants out of fear and not to think about your little brother, it is impossible to regard a Palestinian as a human being like yourself if or when there is a suspicious object and you grab the first Palestinian you see and send him to move it, what help can there be from a lesson on the value of human life? After all, in this act I have already made clear to myself that his life is not worth more than a 10 minuet wait for the detonation expert.

Under no circumstance is it possible to regard the thousand Palestinians who pass each day at the checkpoint as human beings like us. As the hundreds of soldiers who testified to "Breaking the Silence" in the sentence that recurs again and again like a mantra, "after one month of eight (hours at the checkpoint) eight (hours off) at the checkpoint you don't care about anything except sleeping, eating and going home on leave."

In summary, Israeli society has no choice and there is no escaping from the painful truth, we as a society pay a heavy moral price, a price that will influence our future in this land and may well be higher than the price of terrorist attacks.
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all i am saying is - is your attitude doing anything to address these issues ?

Kudos, by the way, to Israel in that such an article can be written, and such issues raised but the fact that many of your soldiers are going through the inevitable process of moral decay surely needs to be addressed in any civilized society.

If Israel believes it is right to pursue its aggressive strategies (and that is up for debate but we'll leave that for the moment) surely the issue that the soldier who made the comment here raised needs to be "digested" rather than deflected, for the bigger question surely is - what sort of citizens they will turn out to be?

I can take everything that this soldier wrote at face value and still insist that in this war, started by Hamas, the lives of Israel's soldiers come before the lives of the Palestinians who knowingly elected a group that openly proclaims in its charter that their goal is to destroy Israel.

The article you quote claims that the abuses he mentions are not 'deviant'.
I stand by the photos in the post and the numerous other stories I have heard that they are not 'deviant' either.

The truth lies in the word which you belittled in your first comment: context.

If Hamas would stop firing rockets indiscriminately into Israel, then Israel would not be in Gaza either.

Israel's alternative to what the article points to as Israel's moral decay is not negotiations--you cannot negotiate with a group that openly declares they want to wipe you off the map and teaches their children to hate.

If you can show a precedent where such a thing was ever accomplished, please do--but don't tell me that Israel should be the first!

The statement that 'War Is Hell' is an understatement. If the conflict that is dragging on is leading to this degeneration in Israel, then--since Hamas has shown it will not stop until Israel is no more--the only other alternative is victory: to decisively defeat Hamas.

I have read your original comment to the prospect of Israel putting the lives of its soldiers first. I can only imagine what you will say to the idea of Israel putting its very existence first.