Sunday, September 15, 2002

This article details two versions of the incident where the IDF shot dead 4 Palestinian men in the middle of the night near Bani Naim a couple of weeks ago. Often Haaretz presents a vivid attachment to the Palestinian perspective - together with a more sober account that doesn't really connect with the first.

But in this instance there's only the accounts given by Palestinians (who claim that soldiers came into a factory where men were working and then dragged them off and shot them) and the totally different version given by the IDF (that the men were shot after breaking in to a fenced area that was the site of several violent attacks previously).

One side is deliberately lying, and I see no reason to doubt the version of the IDF. Though the men are said to have no known association with violent groups, the amateur video of their funeral shows the father of Ala'a Ayayda crying "A month ago you said that you want to be a shaheed [martyr] ....".

The funeral video showed the victims wounds in gory detail (something that's common on Islamic sites like Clearguidance ). Villagers expressed their desire for revenge, and of course...

There is no solution to the cycle of bloodshed without an end to the occupation and the establishment of a Palestinian state within the `67 borders," the young people of the village repeated with determination...


If Haaretz' Ada Ushpiz had studied math, she would know that the villagers were describing their view of a "necessary" condition rather than a "sufficient" one. "There won't be peace unless X" does not mean "There will be peace when X". It means "Give me at least X; and then I'll demand more".

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