The recently publicized testimonies of officers and soldiers who took part in the fighting in Operation “Cast Lead” should surprise no one. Their statements disclose a permissive policy for opening fire, killings of innocent Palestinian civilians with no justification, and deliberate destruction of property. The impassioned and militant discourse that prevailed in the first days of the operation contributed to an atmosphere of lawlessness, as revealed in the soldiers’ recently publicized testimonies. In their statements, soldiers and officers mention that the messages they received from their commanders in the field instilled in them a clear sense that "in Gaza you can do whatever you want".

In prominently publishing these testimonies eight weeks after the end of the fighting, it may seem that the Israeli media are fulfilling their critical role. But once again, as it was during the Second Lebanon War, the Israeli media’s critical examination of the IDF’s military operations comes too late.

Keshev finds that alongside the impassioned coverage of the first few days of the fighting the major media outlets in Israel played down information that was known at the time about arbitrary conduct and severe harm to innocent civilians, minimizing the significance of these reports and placing them only in the margins of the coverage.

During the actual days of the fighting Keshev published several research reports that presented these findings (see links in the sidebar).

As the fighting continued, evidence accumulated regarding the harm inflicted to civilians by the IDF. Once in a while, certain reports were given more widespread coverage, but this did not lead to a significant discussion of the IDF’s ethics or its rules of engagement. In general, the media opted to surrender unconditionally to the military’s public relations machine, consistently relaying information received from the IDF spokesperson, without any independent verification. The official positions of the IDF were received and passed on virtually without question. The unequivocal message that the media emphasized was that the IDF made every effort to refrain from civilian casualties and that Hamas was responsible for any harm to civilians because it used the civilian population as human shields.

The widespread coverage afforded to the soldiers’ testimonies should be commended. Although, at the same time, it points to a ritual that is familiar from coverage of the Second Lebanon War—a ritual in which harsh facts and substantive questions are raised only after the fact, when they can no longer influence the events in question.