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Wednesday, July 15 2009Unanswered Questions
Breaking the Silence released a booklet of anonymous soldiers' testimonies about the Gaza war. Unfortunately it raises more questions than answers. • What do the people at Breaking the Silence really expect me to make of their booklet of allegations? • How am I supposed to trust a report based entirely on anonymous testimony? • Given the vague details in the incidents described -- no names, units, or locations are identified, nor are any incidents put in a perspective of a date -- how are IDF investigators, journalists or human rights activists to look into these claims? • Why is so much testimony based on hearsay and word-of-mouth? • Did the Breaking the Silence make any effort to independently verify the stories themselves before going public with such explosive allegations? • Why haven't these allegations already come up in numerous investigations already undertaken by the army, media, and non-governmental organizations? • Just why should I believe that these 30 soldiers represent the entire IDF? • Is there any reason to believe Breaking the Silence has its own agenda? • Did the EU and Britain -- two of the organization's donors -- fund this new booklet? • Hasn't the media learned from Dani Zamir and the soldiers' testimonies that sparked a wildfire of hysterical coverage in March? • Why didn't Zamir's reaction to the controversy get equal billing to the sensational headlines? • Did Breaking the Silence's uncorroborated allegations deserve a double-page center spread like in today's print edition of The Independent? • And why did The Independent see fit to post on it's web site the full copy of Breaking the Silence's booklet? • How do we explain today's British media's fixation, while the US media (except for McClatchy News) completely skipped the story or used wire coverage? • Did certain papers rush the story because it fits a pre-conceived storyline of Israeli brutality?
TrackBackTrackBack URL for this entry: Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Unanswered Questions: Comments"How am I supposed to trust a report based entirely on anonymous testimony?" It's entirely consistant to the reports coming from the Gazans themselves. Why would these israeli soldiers lie in any case? All of a sudden people believe what was and is happening in Gaza to the Palestinian people because a few Jewish or Israeli soldiers say so. This outrage has been happening a long time, indeed since the European Jews came to Palestine in the 40's. The palestinian people have been reporting the truth of Israeli evil since then. I am ashamed of israel especially since they consider themselves "Gods People". They could never be that because Gods people live up to that name in their everyday actions. |
