Arab rights movements need to purify themselves of anti Semitism

That's a good point: abuse is not an excuse but it is one reason.

War rape definitely wad done by all armies by Red Army seemed to have a revenge element for the horrors of Germany's attack on Russia (though German Jewish women hiding, French women in Ravensbruck, Polish women and many others were all assaulted too, which implies deeper issues). Similar as you say in shaving etc of women for collaborating. It's complex though- as you say some were assaulted by Germans and had no choice but others did willingly have affairs/collaborate. Obviously this doesn't justify public shaming though: men were usually tried, women often judged automatically guilty.

The Guardian article from 2003 about the Nirim Affair I think shows several significant things.

Quoting :
He and most of the soldiers at the outpost were tried in secret. Some said they were carrying out their commander's orders. The military judges rejected that line of defence. Moshe denied rape. "Morally speaking, it was impossible to sleep with such a dirty girl," he told the court.

(This shows clear dehumanisation of civilians on the part of this group of soldiers : the fact that they were tried in secret does ALSO show that at the height of the war there were Israelis willing to stand up for human decency against their own soldiers. The most danger is when a country cannot do this. The question remains to what extent, if any, war crimes were encouraged from higher up).

He was acquitted of rape but convicted of murder and sentenced to 15 years in prison. The judges likened his stated willingness "to murder even women and children in cold blood" to "Hitler's methods in France".
Nineteen other soldiers received light sentences of between one and three years, mostly for "negligence in preventing a crime".

(So the judges at least have strong condemnation. Why the light sentences?? This is of course, in context, sadly not unique . Wartime sexual violence was hushed up and taboo by all kinds of armies until recently).

The appeal court reduced their sentences, saying: "At the time there was a general feeling of contempt for the life of Arabs ... and sometimes wanton events occurred in this sphere. All this helped create an atmosphere of 'anything goes'."We are convinced that this atmosphere existed at the Nirim outpost, too."

(So the appeal court themselves admitted that there was a 'general feeling of contempt for the life of Arabs'. Very disturbing.
At the same time, I've read a lot of accounts that DO show soldiers then avoiding harming civilians. Clearly most soldiers did NOT behave the way the soldiers in Nirim & other atrocities did.
The fact 'general feeling of contempt' was used to justify lighter sentences makes me wonder if they were arguably to some extent unfairly condemning the army as a whole when plenty of soldiers did NOT succumb to this 'general feeling', so as to try and get these men lighter sentences.)

I see, thank you. I agree misunderstandings are really serious with conflicts and events like this

Thank you, I understand. I was a bit confused because you @ the post to me, but I hadn't mentioned Tantura at that point.

I apologise if I have misunderstood something.

May I clarify which of my posts you were referring to when you wrote this :

'Groans..we've had the dreaded mention of Tantura. @Carla786 you really are flogging a dead horse.'

Thank you for this post. I want to address your points gradually.

'You say Palestinians were complicit in jewish people’s suffering under the nazis, personally I have not seen any evidence of that. I have heard of no connection between Palestinians and German nazis! '

• I don't mean Palestinian people as a group. Did you read my OP? Leaders of the Palestinians who are still seen as heroes today did have strong links to Nazis. The Mufti of Jerusalem urged 'killing Jews wherever they are' as a holy act, stirred up a massacre of Jews at Hebron in 1929 and collaborated with Hitler. It is disputed but there is some evidence he wanted to help establish a 'final solution' involving crematoria if the Axis had broken through to Palestine.

Nasser was a key ally of Palestinians in the Six Day War. He called during it for 'driving all the Jews into the sea' and used ex-Nazis who had committed Holocaust crimes to write anti Semitic propaganda to stir people up against Israel. Similar happened in Syria.

The Palestinian youth movement of the 1930s, Al-Futuwwa was based on the Hitler Youth. The Iraqi branch drove the Fahud, the murder of Iraqi Jews which forced them from Arab lands.

My point with this was not to negate Palestinian suffering or blame them as a whole for actions taken by leaders. But I do think the Palestinian rights movement ad a whole needs to come to terms with ugly parts of its history just as Israelis have had to confront war crimes, terrorism by Irgun & Lehi. Instead figures like the Mufti seem to idealised.

I agree Palestinians did sometimes take in Jewish refugees and that should be remembered. I agree too on the ideal of a binational state. This is what people like Theodore Herzl, Ahad Ha'am and Martin Buber advocated: either a binational state (Buber) or a single state where Jews and Arabs collaborated on an equal footing (the other 2). Theodore Herzl in his novel Old New Land (this is what Tel Aviv means) even dreamed of rebuilding the Second Temple near the original site so it could be restored without harming the Dome of the Rock.

To make clear, the Nirim Affair was totally separate from Tantura, I'm unsure why you leapt to linking them. They took place at separate places and in different years.

Why do you write dismissively of Palestinians who suffered war crimes? It doesn't negate Israeli suffering or justify anti Semitism to say that Israeli troops have sometimes committed war crimes. It makes them human, with all the brutality that can entail.

Are you saying that all the Palestinian civilians who claim to have witnessed war crimes there are lying?

And that the soldiers who claim to have witnessed them are lying too? Why would they do that?

We know war crimes against Palestinians took place during the 1948 war. Why is it so inconceivable they could have taken place at Tantura? Armies throughout history have committed war crimes, and the highly charged situation and the trauma of many soldiers in the army would have only made it more likely.

Here's some more info.

told Schwarz in Tantura that Katz's thesis was flawed due to its heavy reliance on oral testimony,[35][36] and later criticized the film after it was screened due to what The New York Times paraphrased as "a paucity of other documentation [besides oral sources]."[37] This criticism and others about the film were also made by Benny Morris.[38] The family of one of the veterans interviewed accused Schwarz of misrepresenting the veteran's account,[37] and another veteran said a massacre had happened[39] but told The New York Times that the Israeli soldiers had acted without orders.[37]

In Tantura, Judge Drora Pilpel who presided over the court in which Theodore Katz had been accused years earlier, is shown listening to tapes with testimonies of soldiers from the Alexandroni brigade talking about having killed Arab civilians. Pilpel reacts by saying "This I never heard. If it's true, it is a shame...If he (Katz) had such things, he should have seen it through."[40]

Forensic Architecture investigation (2023)
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This section needs expansion. You can help by making an edit request. (May 2023)
In 2023, after being commissioned to do so by the Palestinian NGO Adalah, the Forensic Architecture research unit at Goldsmiths undertook a comprehensive investigation of the historical sources, cartographic and aerial photographic data together with oral testimonies, and produced a 3-D model indicating the existence of three grave sites beneath the beach resort.[41][42][43][44]

I'm not sure what I think, but it sounds likely that at least some war crimes took place. I will read more.

Thank you for your post.

I think you have a strong point that the fact many Israeli soldiers had PTSD, had lost family to Nazis etc had an impact on some atrocities committed, surely. It is no excuse but it is part of the explanation.

Elie Wiesel, for one, noted at the end of his terrible memoir Night that some survivors he knew went 'to rape German shiksas' after they were released from the camps as 'revenge'.

It's a tragic truth that some survivors of atrocities can end up reacting by dehumanising others.

What do you mean, Tantura? I've never heard of that. I will look it up now.

The gang rape and murder of a Palestinian Bedouin teenager in the Nirim affair is NOT contested. I've never heard of Teddy Katz and the historical truth of the Nirim affair doesn't appear to be rely on such a person.