Jonathan Gornall

Judging by an extraordinarily tone-deaf collaboration between a New York photographer and the Israeli army, the past seven months have been an endless round of fun and laughter for the Israeli soldiers delivering death and destruction on an industrial scale in Gaza. Shot against the background of the carnage in Gaza, the images of “The Smiling Soldiers Project” have to be seen to be believed.
So far, photographer Menachem Geisinsky has taken more than 15,000 photographs showing the young men and women of the Israeli army smiling, laughing, kissing and generally having fun, “just like any other 20-year-olds.” The aim, according to Geisinsky, “is to show the world the humanity of the IDF, the true side — the happiness, the smiles, that the world media tries its best to hide.”
The effect, however, is to convey the impression of a force of young conscripts so surreally detached from the reality of its bloody handiwork that it appears to have given up all pretense of being a disciplined, professional army and instead become little more than a trigger-happy mob. Forensic analysis last week by the BBC of the shooting of an unarmed 8-year-old boy in the West Bank is........

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