Israeli Army Kills 8-Year-Old Palestinian Boy

[Sirotnikov]

The Warsaw ghetto killed more soldiers than that IIRC.

I don't exactly remember. It could be more. Could be less. Some 40 were injured, I recall that for sure.

If you're comparing it to Warsaw ghetto, are you suggesting that the Deir Yassin villagers were also armed?

[gsmoove23]

a

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
Which IMO further proves that the Hanganah wouldn't have approved a massacare. Thus, it was IMO, as I said, unplanned.

I don't think the Haganah approved any massacres, I think they were very careful about that. Thats what Irgun and Lehi were for. These were very nasty groups and its not only the 'anti-Israel' side that thinks so. Haganah gave their approval to operations by these groups as long as they had a somewhat believable military objective.

Perhaps they are reffering to the number of dead Jewish fighters.

No, here is one very good website, http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m20...49/print.jhtml

Infact, an autobiography of one of the fighters that day, states a number higher than the one claimed by Palestinian sources.

Its interesting, the highest numbers I've seen were the initial Irgun or Lehi reports which were 200+.

According to the autobiography of the Irgun (or was it lehi) fighter, they had a short firefight in which several jews were injured (and some 4 died, I think).

Then they gathered the village into the main square, at which point one of the 'women' took out a gun and began shooting at Jewish fighters. So did some other 'women' IIRC.

The Jewish fighters felt panic and anger and began shooting undescriminantly at the crowd, and didn't stop for a long while.

But there is a huge difference.

Dier Yassin - troops surprised by combatant in civilian clothes. run amok. Massacare which was comitted in a state of amok and confusion.

Suicide bomber - a person who mentally and physically prepares to take innocent lives, and plans to do so for a long while.

C'mon Siro, you're going to the Irgun's autopbiography? Why not just read the official Israeli government history of the event. That might be just slightly less skewed, but I agree that happened it just does not explain the size of the massacre. If you read the website I posted you'll find there are a number of references to conversations before the operation discussing the possibility of making a statement through mass killing. Also, the killing continued during and for a long time after the fighting. Combatants had enough time to cool down but the killing continued.

"The guerrillas' internal planning discussions stymied on the issue of Deir Yassin's inhabitants. A Lehi proposal suggested "liquidating" them "to show the Arabs what happens when the IZL [Irgun] and the Lehi set out together."(16) "The majority," Irgun officer Ben-Zion Cohen recorded, "was for liquidation of all the men in the village and any other force that opposed us, whether it be old people, women, or children."(17) The recent Gush Etzion and Atarot take-no-prisoners actions by Arabs and subsequent mutilation of Jewish bodies were on their minds. Irgun command in Tel-Aviv (headed by Menachem Begin, later prime minister of Israel) is said to have directed that fighters avoid inflicting unnecessary casualties and warn the villagers by loudspeaker to surrender or take flight.(18)"

taken from http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m20...49/print.jhtml

You seem to be a sensible enough guy but this explaining away of a ridiculously horrible event to combat rage is well... horrible. Lehi and Irgun were extremist groups with ultra-nationalist goals to claim the whole of ancient Israel and to sweep the Arabs and Islam out of the land. Racist ideas were part of their ideology. Massacre may not have been their goal at Deir Yassin but they didn't need to be pushed very far to carry it out.

It can be explained because it was taking place in an atmosphere of violence on both sides where each side believed its people were in danger. A massacre could be seen as a retaliation for previous arab massacres and so the retaliatory massacre of a busload of Israelis soon after was seen as retaliation as well. This goes on all the way up to the present day where arab terrorist groups are supposedly retaliating IDF aggression in a 30+ year occupation with limited resources and such an unbalanced military situation that they couldn't possibly consider effectively targeting military targets. Its all equally horrible.

Well, I think that the IDF as an army has one system of ethics. That doesn't mean that every soldier abides by it. It's a problem civil society shares. Some people steal, kill and harass. Those people serve in the army too. But the rules are among the most considerate of enemies and civilian populations.

You're absolutely right. The most grevious error Israel has made is in allowing the occupation to continue for 30+ years. For arming its citizenry with top of the line weaponry and placing them slap dab in the middle of masses of people that are not happy about Israeli occupation. Then to make things worse they attempted to 'change facts on the ground' by placing settlements within the territories. No matter what humanitarian rules the IDF has it is not possible for any armed force to come out of this situation smelling of roses.

I still can't see a comparison. Just because there are bad soldiers who abuse their authority, doesn't mean the IDF is comparable to Hamas.

You can understand combat rage in the heat of a moment but you cannot understand rage that has been cultivated for a lifetime, by the disproportionate death of innocents, stealing of land, poverty and the utter hopelessness of the situation. (arab viewpoint, no need to argue this is what palestinians see)

Well, some of your opinions are in the eyes of an Israeli - anti-Israeli.

... as I'm sure some of my viewpoints on America might be considered anti-American. In playing around with theories of what would be a just resolution I do take seriously the Israeli viewpoint. Doesn't matter though, no one will ever listen to me. Perhaps anti-zionist would be a more correct term.