Unverified Rumors of War Crimes by Israeli Soldiers in 1950s Conflict

At least those were the rumors after the war. I asked friends what they were hearing. I asked some of the older men on the kibbutz, my father included. All of them responded with a slightly different version of events. But I knew what I wasn’t hearing. No one of them told me it was a lie. When I asked Yigal, he averted my glance, and then changed the subject. I knew it was true, at least broadly. I realized that, before it happened, Yigal and the others had seen dozens of friends gunned down in an Egyptian ambush in the Mitla Pass. But I didn’t need a lesson tohar haneshek to know that the killing of captured Egyptian soldiers should not have happened. Or that it was plainly, simply wrong. When Yigal and I made our final trip to Patish in 1959, I knew it would be pointless to ask him about it. Whatever he said wouldn’t change anything. I still respected his courage and his fighting spirit, and the part he’d played in defending Israel. I appreciated what he’d done for me as I grew up. But what mattered now wasn’t what Yigal had done. It was what I would do, and how I would live my life. Especially since I, too, was about to begin my army service. 49 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_027897