nyong said:
The way the soldier's quote is framed within the article, they are using it as evidence for their sensational headline, that being essentially an official policy to shoot first and ask questions later.
Either that particular media outlet is entirely unfamiliar with basic military rules of engagement, or the soldier is. Or one of them is probably banking on the reader's ignorance of these basic facts. In any case, it gave me immediate pause and leads me to question the author's integrity. Or the soldier's integrity. Or at least their credibility.
Yes, it's game-breaking. Like I said earlier,
It's not an obscure quote. It's a blatantly misleading quote.
I'm going to have to disagree with you. You're making an assumption from that quote yourself - you are taking from it what you want (i.e. This is standard military procedure) and not necessarily what the soldier was trying to convey. For all we know the soldier was using a roundabout way of saying that the IDF up tops cared less about the civilians - innocent or no - than the soldiers. Or maybe that is what the person who wrote the article assumed the soldier was trying to say.
If people can interpret it in different ways as easily as that, I would say it is obscure - and I would also say it is not nearly enough to dismiss the article outright as poorly researched and filled with spin.
1. It was one line in the entire article, and the spin is not necessarily there.
2. It was only in
one of the
two articles that were reporting this story, not even the one in the OP - unless I am reading it wrong and they are both the same article written by the same person. So you dismissing them both seems silly (well I am only assuming you are dismissing them both, maybe you are not).
3. Putting forward a quote from a soldier is not "poor research" at worst, like you said, it's manipulating the quote to add effect - but all you need to do is ignore that one quote if that is the case and the article keeps its legitimacy - surprisingly - still intact.
Edit: Also, the 'shoot first' policy is clearly outlined in some of the testimonials, where civilians were shot even if they had no weapons/were putting up their hands/waving white flags. The title may have been a little 'sensationalist' but it isn't misleading.