Dear SteeleRedux,

«Why would documents which had been hidden in the archives have been written to scare away Arabs who would not have been privy to them?»

Are you referring to the documents by Shraga Peled?

He was from the rival militia, the Haganah, so as part of the scheme he was set up and presented with the pogrom-like ugly pictures, in hope that he will "expose" it. Shraga chose not to expose, but others did.

«Why would the commander be relating to a documentary maker in 2009 a few weeks before his death be saying things like:»

It was an authentic description of a fierce house-to-house battle.
Some of his soldiers made mistakes, that happens too.
You do need to get rid of corpses one way or the other, otherwise they spread disease.

«And this from Yair Tsaban, a former Meretz MK and government minister, related in his interview with Shoshani»

According to the article, Shoshani wasn't there during the "massacre", but only sent there afterwards.

No wonder they were sent to bury corpses, no wonder they were trying to hide things from the Red Cross - they were from the Haganah, the rival militia, they didn't share the same objectives and strategies with the Irgun!

As for corpses of old people shot at the back, things happen in the heat of a battlefield, not every shot reaches its exact target, civilians get mixed up when perhaps they want to give the fighters a glass of water, or even to ask them to cease and surrender. The clever thing was to then take such corpses that were accidentally shot and sit them in a corner of their room, facing the wall, or to burn a corpse with a tree as if he was burned alive - this was the unique strategy of the Irgun which the Haganah did not share.

«Hoard away, but also deal with the population you have under occupation with the stewardship required.»

I fully agree. Israel's denial of responsibility is not only cruel, but also stupid because it increases the chances of variants emerging next-door.

Dear Yuyutsu,

Mate you have gone from you stridently asserting “Only fighters were killed, only houses from which the troops were fired on were blown up”

To:

“Insofar as it was necessary to achieve the first objective, fighters and their helpers were killed and the houses from which they operated blown up. Sadly, some unfortunate innocent people were also killed as a result of being in these houses.”

And finally:

“As for corpses of old people shot at the back, things happen in the heat of a battlefield, not every shot reaches its exact target, civilians get mixed up when perhaps they want to give the fighters a glass of water, or even to ask them to cease and surrender.”

Look I get it, this is the type of behaviour or gas lighting those who choose to defend the actions of Israel inevitably find themselves engaged in.

You have attempted it on a number of fronts during this discussion and it has caught up with you. Outside of the topic of the actions of Israel I am happy to consider your contributions as having a degree of veracity. With the greatest respect, on this subject never again I'm afraid.

Dear SteeleRedux,

I am not trying to defend Israel, only to be objective about the facts, which are in this case:

1. Israel will do whatever it takes to win its war of survival. Yes, even if innocent others are accidentally killed, whatever it takes, no hold-backs.
2. Israel does not harm others otherwise, be it for fun or whatever.

Is such policy right? is it wrong? You be the judge...

SR in utter ignorance wrote : The Histories of Herodotus in the 5th century BCE used the term.

In fact he didn't. That's just used in translations to make it easier for the uninitiated to understand. He used a term closer to our Philistine to describe people from the region of Phonecia.

But let's pretend you're right. The people there at the time were Jews. So by your 'logic' Jews are Palestinian. The people now claiming to be Palestinian didn't arrive for another 1200 years.

I'd encourage you to learn the history of the region but you refuse to even learn the history from 1870 it's unlikely you'll learn it from 511BC

Dear Mhaze,

«The people now claiming to be Palestinian didn't arrive for another 1200 years.»

Many of these people who now claim to be "Palestinian" are in fact the original Jews who lived in Israel and farmed its land for millennia. They happened to convert to Islam at some stage (in order to avoid the heavy taxes), but they are still the same people.

The question is why are you focusing on the one incident where Arab civilians were killed and ignoring the 3 incidents when far more Israeli civilians were deliberately targeted by Arabs and murdered.

That's clearly antisemitism or racism in itself. Apparently the left believe that the Palestinians are sub-humans that cannot be held responsible for their actions and need to be protected like sharks.