*sigh*

I'm just wndering if anyone else saw The Cutting Edge on SBS tonight, and whether like me, they cried for the rest of the program once a former Israelie soldier admitted to taking part in the killing of a 14 year-old Palestinian shepherd boy?

I was very proud of the soldiers who had chosen to take a stand and refuse to take part in the violence that the Israelie army is committing. They chose morals and human rights over violence and hatred, which was amazing.

But there were so many elements that were horrific, of terrible, or evil or just plain ridiculously stupid. It's like the Israelie army doesn't realise that it's equally as bad as Hamaas or any of the other Palestinian separatist forces. And one Israelie man yelling at the soldiers who were resisting service that he was sacrificing his life for the 'cause' was so infuriatingly futile after you hear about soldiers murdering a young teenager.

Is that the 'cause'? Is that what he was giving up his life for?

Who knows...

Anyhoo, the program summary: Tonight Cutting Edge presents the story of Israeli combat soldiers (many of them officers in elite units) who have decided, after years of loyal reserve service, to refuse doing their annual 30 days duty in the occupied territories. The film tells the stories of six soldiers, the reasons for their action, the chilling confessions of the experience of being an occupying soldier and especially the difficulties they encounter as the consequence of their objection, collective rejection and imprisonment. The people who object in Israel these days constitute an important landmark in public discourse since they raise the question of the unconditional support the public gives to a government's military actions and the individual moral price of this support. (From Israel, in Hebrew and English, English subtitles)