War crimes should be taken very seriously, not dealt with in the court of public opinion. Just look at how “ready to convict” people are in this thread, without any evidence whatsoever, just on hearsay —though yes, Haaretz is very reputable. “Blood libel” may be too strong a term, but similar idea: the jews are conspiring to do evil to non-Jews and keep it secret by control of the media or by leveraging the “zog” or maybe shapeshifting or Kabbalah or something more imaginative. It’s all just shades of antisemitism.
Even the stance that such claims must be valid because the reporters are Israeli, is itself derivative of the Jewish conspiracy trope. Is it more likely there is a large conspiracy afoot and Israeli officers are engaging in war crimes at large scale as many in this thread have concluded (even before this report), or that these are isolated and undesirable events playing out in the fog of war and representative of poor decision making in circumstances of which we have only partial knowledge?
My bias, if I have one, is to believe that the Israeli military, or really any competently run military anywhere, is interested in not committing war crimes when avoidable.
Even the stance that such claims must be valid because the reporters are Israeli, is itself derivative of the Jewish conspiracy trope. Is it more likely there is a large conspiracy afoot and Israeli officers are engaging in war crimes at large scale as many in this thread have concluded (even before this report), or that these are isolated and undesirable events playing out in the fog of war and representative of poor decision making in circumstances of which we have only partial knowledge?
My bias, if I have one, is to believe that the Israeli military, or really any competently run military anywhere, is interested in not committing war crimes when avoidable.