Not a massacre, but gang rape and murder by Israeli soldiers, if this email is to be believed. I don’t necessarily accept it as credible without further information.

If what he’s saying is true, there should be many other witnesses who could confirm it. I’ll leave it to others more familiar with the cultures over there to judge whether it rings true. Sometimes, regrettably, soldiers do do such things, even in the best of countries.

If it is true, of course, those responsible should be brought swiftly to justice (a much more likely outcome than if the situation were reversed), to demonstrate vividly the difference between Israel and her enemies (many of whom would likely reward their soldiers for such a thing, though probably not as much as if they simply blew them up).

How did I find this? As someone interested in the travel industry (via my interest in the adventure-travel market and space tourism) I’m a subscriber to a travel email update called eTurboGlobalTravelTradeNews, designed for travel professionals. They often receive emails and letters from people all around the world, and use them to provide additional color and background on the countries being discussed, but as they say, it’s rare that they get anything from the West Bank.

Should they have run this without verifying its authenticity? They’re not a formal news organization, and don’t necessarily have either the journalistic experience, or the resources to do so. I don’t know, and I hesitated to publish it myself.

But I’m figuring, if it’s true, it’s news. If it’s false, like the mythical “Jenin massacre,” it should be shown to be false, and one more lie to be added to the niagara of lies to come out of the area controlled by the Palestinian Authority, thus further diminishing their credibility (not that it will ever matter to their apologists in the Middle East, Europe, and Berkely).