Sunday, December 20, 2009

How Israel lost

As prophesied long ago by the philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz and others, the occupation -- and above all the settlement project -- have profoundly eroded the moral fiber of Israel, corroded central institutions of the society and undermined our integrity as a political community. None of this happened in a vacuum; the "other side" has much to atone for as well. But even I can remember a time when charges of war crimes were not simply sloughed off by Israel's leaders, when military mistakes that cost innocent civilian lives were acknowledged as such and elicited expressions of sorrow, and when Israeli courts clearly articulated the principle that a soldier has not only the right but indeed the duty not to carry out an order that is at odds with his consciousness as a human being or with basic human values.
-- from Israel without illusions by David Schulman.

P.S. Mustafa Barghouthi

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