There are two threads ongoing on Israel, the 'arseholes' one and the 'Vilnai.. Shoah' one. I am posting this on both.

I have previously posted on both in defence of Israeli policy in Gaza, which has led some, understandably, to question the wholeheartedness of the rejection I have long professed of any identification with present-day Israel, a vast disappointment to many like me in my generation of Jews and its successors. I still feel that the Israeli position on the Gaza situation is understandable in the circumstances, and maintain my mystification as to how weapons but not food can get in.

But I shall no longer pursue this attitude; nor will I contribute any further to, or even open again, either of these threads.

This decision follows my horror at reading Lox's link on one of the threads to the members of the IDF's accounts of their colleagues' behaviour in carrying out searches, which consisted largely of maltreatment of the occupants of houses chosen to be searched. These activities were, I shame to say, learnt from the behaviour of British troops occupying Palestine under the Mandate. I have related before, on another thread, the stories my family learned from an Israeli friend who stayed as a houseguest with us in the late 40s, soon after Israel's Independence, of her friend's having experience a search by British soldiers, which consisted, with their sergeant's consent & encouragement, of nothing but shitting on the floor and then using the family's personal clothing to wipe their bums. And these, I repeat, were British soldiers, oh the shame! It seems the way soldiers go on in such situations

But, be that as it may, I still cannot countenance the tales in Lox's link of Israeli soldiers going on in any such fashion, mistreating innocent occupants of houses they have chosen to search, destroying things, and so on, whoever or wherever their predecessors in such conduct might have been.

So, I repeat, I leave this thread and its companion: with my curse on what Israel has become as my final words.

~Michael~