How many half truths, if not outright lies, is one allowed to spread in order to cover up the fact that the campaign in Rafah was first of all a campaign to instill fear and to break the spirit of the population?
Is it true that only a few houses were destroyed in Rafah, as the defense minister has said? Did they come to search for tunnels? How does an army that lies shamelessly look young soldiers and cadets in the eye in officer training courses? Who would once have believed that the Israel Defense Forces would accept the death of children with equanimity?
The stain on the army uniform is steadily spreading, as Danny Wolf has said. (Wolf is a former paratroop commander who testified to the massacre of Egyptian workers in Sinai by the IDF during the 1956 Sinai Campaign.)
It won't be cleansed easily, but the stain itself is only a manifestation. The reason lies both in the objective situation created by the occupation and in the destructive norms bequeathed to the army by the settlement enterprise. That is the root of the evil, and if it is not uprooted - this large stain will end up sinking the entire society.
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