A week ago I posted about reports in the Israeli press of IDF soldiers talking of abuses that had occurred on their own side in Gaza. Since then the case has been made that these reports are based on mere rumour and I've had several emails drawing my attention to this. An article by J.J Goldberg in The Jewish Daily Forward discusses the issue. Referring to the reports, Goldberg says, amongst other things:
That much is common knowledge. Less familiar are the quiet discussions among some army insiders and close observers - reserve officers, military correspondents, politicians - who insist the abuse reports are substantially true and think they know the reasons for the abuse. One key reason, many say, is the "special character" of the infantry units that carried the brunt of the fighting in Gaza: the Golani and Givati brigades. They talk about the units' religious character - the high proportion in these brigades, especially Golani, of militant religious nationalists motivated by a messianic sense of mission to save the Land of Israel.
I am not, vis-à-vis the IDF, either an insider or a close observer, and I do not have contacts with anyone who is. For all I know, J.J Goldberg may have dreamed this all up. But it remains worrying to me that the things being reported are coming, not merely from the usual suspects in the damn-Israel-and-all-its-works brigade, but from Israelis without that poisonous axe to grind. For my part I therefore reserve judgement on the issue for the time being. It also worries me that proponents of the 'empty rumour' position are people who want these to be nothing but rumours. I would very much like that too. But I also like not to discount too quickly unwelcome possibilities on the grounds merely that they are unwelcome.
