Morality and Ethics Begin at Home
26 January 2009
Israel may be making headway on the diplomatic front but in the humanitarian arena, Jerusalem is on the defensive. According to Hamas sources quoted by international organizations, over 1300 Palestinians were killed in the 22 day war, many of them civilians. The percentage of civilians killed is disputed, but it is clear that hundreds died in the urban warfare. Hamas, as a terror organization showed no regard for civilian casualties, as they shelled almost exclusively Israeli towns on over 600 occasions. (There are serious claims that the Palestinian casualty count is exaggerated – more about that in a later article.)
From the outset, Hamas announced the mining and booby trapping of complete neighborhoods, in particular in and around Gaza City, especially Beit Hanun, Beit Lahia and Jabalya, all of which proved true. Civilian structures were set to explode regardless of whether non-combatants were inside or not as is evidenced by maps and sketches found by the IDF. Hamas gunmen fired from those structures and then quickly withdrew as recounted by not only the IDF but by Palestinians captured by Israel and others interviewed on the streets of Gaza, obviously with no names given or faces shown to the camera.
Israel suffered 13 killed; ten soldiers and 3 civilians. Like all states, Israel is morally committed to defending its own citizens and military first while being responsible to minimize enemy civilian casualties. Raising enemy combat casualties to the maximum forces them to break, and thereby ends hostilities as quickly as possible. There is always the question as to where to draw the line during combat. How much fire power should be used against a guerilla force attacking a sovereign state from an urban environment? How does one root them out? The issue arose in Jenin in April 2002 when the IDF wanted to keep Palestinian civilian casualties as low as possible and refused to use air power. Twenty-three IDF soldiers were killed, thirteen in a booby-trapped alleyway. Accusations by the Israeli public against its own government for immoral behavior in not protecting its own soldiers were rampant.
A typical example given is a recon force sent to apprehend terrorists who are hiding on the fourth floor of a seven story building. Palestinian civilians reside on the lower three and top three stories. In order to get to the fourth floor does one evacuate the bottom three and possibly warn militants on the fourth floor of the impending operation and risk greater losses on the Israeli side? Very often the answer is "Yes". As a parent of a former recon soldier I sat in on such a discussion at the invitation of the battalion commander. Some parents were livid, complaining that the IDF had put the safety of the Palestinians ahead of the lives of their sons. The battalion commander responded by saying that in a democratic society soldiers had to act morally, otherwise they would stop functioning in defense of their society. If one wanted the best soldiers to do the best job they had to act ethically. Otherwise the contradiction between society's values and military behavior brings about a non-identification not only with the operation at hand, but with one's culture and the state authority.
In Gaza, destruction was exponentially multiplied by Palestinian booby traps and the secondary/tertiary explosions from Hamas ammunition dumps, detonated by Israeli fire. Hundreds of thousands of IDF phone calls and leaflets dropped urged Gazans to leave their homes prior to Israeli bombings of strategic (both military and civilian) targets, including the homes of Hamas terror leaders. The Hamas/Jihad political echelon is tied to the terror structure, supporting and directing it and is as guilty as those who carry weapons. The goal was to avoid as many civilian casualties on both sides, which only work to the advantage of Hamas and to Israel's detriment. Palestinian civilian casualties breed more hatred and are an excellent recruiting tool for extremism, while Israeli casualties create distrust towards a government perceived as unable to protect its citizens.
Human rights groups are demanding investigations of the "excessive" and "incorrect" use of Israeli firepower. They infer it was intentionally directed against non-military targets including civilians and neutral targets such as UN facilities. Shells landed in the UN warehouse and supply compound just as the UN Sec. General Ban Ki Moon arrived for talks in Jerusalem. Certainly this could not be deliberate since world criticism could force Israel to halt the operation before Hamas was severely crippled.
Civilians were caught in the cross-fire. A Hamas rocket squad hit standing next to a civilian structure lead to casualties inside the building. The same can be said for snipers on rooftops. Yet it is all very unsettling. Human rights groups and the UN barely mention Hamas rocket attacks against the Israeli civilian population and are seen in Israel as the ultimate in hypocrisy and dismissed as Israel haters or even anti-semites.
Much of the criticism of human rights groups and the UN may very well be accurate. However that does not absolve us here in Israel from investigating every last misfire of a shell whether it hit our own men (as it did in four cases – killing four and wounding dozens) or an unintended civilian target. Certain targets may have been incorrectly identified as much intelligence concerning Hamas came from within the Gaza Strip by Palestinians themselves – adversaries of the Islamist fundamentalists. There needs to be thorough internal investigations; our own accounting of ourselves and how the Cast Lead Operation was pursued. We must know we behaved as ethically as possible under the circumstances. Explanations to the world are secondary. Morality begins at home. All the fire power necessary directed at an enemy, even as vicious as Hamas, who not only demands the destruction of the Jewish State but death to the Jews (Hamas Covenant, Article 7) does not absolve anyone from doing their best to spare by-standers. It is true that the population voted overwhelmingly for Hamas, supported the overthrow of the quasi-state Palestinian Authority in June 2007 and apparently continue to support Islamist policies even today. Yet if they are not active members of Hamas or the other terror factions, they must be considered non-combatants.
And lastly, should Hamas rockets actually cease hitting Israel, the reaction should only be one of relief. There is no reason for a feeling of victory or even joy over what happened in Gaza. There was and is, simply too much suffering on both sides of the border.
Israel's greatest mistake was having waited far too long to take on Hamas, allowing Gaza to turn into one large ammo dump intertwined with civilians. Had the Islamic terror organization possessed fewer weapons, the intensity of combat would have been lower. Israel procrastinated for eight years, enduring over 8,000 rocket attacks on her citizens. Nevertheless, we all need to know we acted as carefully as possible as concerns civilians while simultaneously pursuing military objectives. Any mistakes made need to be corrected.
Yisrael Ne'eman
Israel may be making headway on the diplomatic front but in the humanitarian arena, Jerusalem is on the defensive. According to Hamas sources quoted by international organizations, over 1300 Palestinians were killed in the 22 day war, many of them civilians. The percentage of civilians killed is disputed, but it is clear that hundreds died in the urban warfare. Hamas, as a terror organization showed no regard for civilian casualties, as they shelled almost exclusively Israeli towns on over 600 occasions. (There are serious claims that the Palestinian casualty count is exaggerated – more about that in a later article.)
From the outset, Hamas announced the mining and booby trapping of complete neighborhoods, in particular in and around Gaza City, especially Beit Hanun, Beit Lahia and Jabalya, all of which proved true. Civilian structures were set to explode regardless of whether non-combatants were inside or not as is evidenced by maps and sketches found by the IDF. Hamas gunmen fired from those structures and then quickly withdrew as recounted by not only the IDF but by Palestinians captured by Israel and others interviewed on the streets of Gaza, obviously with no names given or faces shown to the camera.
Israel suffered 13 killed; ten soldiers and 3 civilians. Like all states, Israel is morally committed to defending its own citizens and military first while being responsible to minimize enemy civilian casualties. Raising enemy combat casualties to the maximum forces them to break, and thereby ends hostilities as quickly as possible. There is always the question as to where to draw the line during combat. How much fire power should be used against a guerilla force attacking a sovereign state from an urban environment? How does one root them out? The issue arose in Jenin in April 2002 when the IDF wanted to keep Palestinian civilian casualties as low as possible and refused to use air power. Twenty-three IDF soldiers were killed, thirteen in a booby-trapped alleyway. Accusations by the Israeli public against its own government for immoral behavior in not protecting its own soldiers were rampant.
A typical example given is a recon force sent to apprehend terrorists who are hiding on the fourth floor of a seven story building. Palestinian civilians reside on the lower three and top three stories. In order to get to the fourth floor does one evacuate the bottom three and possibly warn militants on the fourth floor of the impending operation and risk greater losses on the Israeli side? Very often the answer is "Yes". As a parent of a former recon soldier I sat in on such a discussion at the invitation of the battalion commander. Some parents were livid, complaining that the IDF had put the safety of the Palestinians ahead of the lives of their sons. The battalion commander responded by saying that in a democratic society soldiers had to act morally, otherwise they would stop functioning in defense of their society. If one wanted the best soldiers to do the best job they had to act ethically. Otherwise the contradiction between society's values and military behavior brings about a non-identification not only with the operation at hand, but with one's culture and the state authority.
In Gaza, destruction was exponentially multiplied by Palestinian booby traps and the secondary/tertiary explosions from Hamas ammunition dumps, detonated by Israeli fire. Hundreds of thousands of IDF phone calls and leaflets dropped urged Gazans to leave their homes prior to Israeli bombings of strategic (both military and civilian) targets, including the homes of Hamas terror leaders. The Hamas/Jihad political echelon is tied to the terror structure, supporting and directing it and is as guilty as those who carry weapons. The goal was to avoid as many civilian casualties on both sides, which only work to the advantage of Hamas and to Israel's detriment. Palestinian civilian casualties breed more hatred and are an excellent recruiting tool for extremism, while Israeli casualties create distrust towards a government perceived as unable to protect its citizens.
Human rights groups are demanding investigations of the "excessive" and "incorrect" use of Israeli firepower. They infer it was intentionally directed against non-military targets including civilians and neutral targets such as UN facilities. Shells landed in the UN warehouse and supply compound just as the UN Sec. General Ban Ki Moon arrived for talks in Jerusalem. Certainly this could not be deliberate since world criticism could force Israel to halt the operation before Hamas was severely crippled.
Civilians were caught in the cross-fire. A Hamas rocket squad hit standing next to a civilian structure lead to casualties inside the building. The same can be said for snipers on rooftops. Yet it is all very unsettling. Human rights groups and the UN barely mention Hamas rocket attacks against the Israeli civilian population and are seen in Israel as the ultimate in hypocrisy and dismissed as Israel haters or even anti-semites.
Much of the criticism of human rights groups and the UN may very well be accurate. However that does not absolve us here in Israel from investigating every last misfire of a shell whether it hit our own men (as it did in four cases – killing four and wounding dozens) or an unintended civilian target. Certain targets may have been incorrectly identified as much intelligence concerning Hamas came from within the Gaza Strip by Palestinians themselves – adversaries of the Islamist fundamentalists. There needs to be thorough internal investigations; our own accounting of ourselves and how the Cast Lead Operation was pursued. We must know we behaved as ethically as possible under the circumstances. Explanations to the world are secondary. Morality begins at home. All the fire power necessary directed at an enemy, even as vicious as Hamas, who not only demands the destruction of the Jewish State but death to the Jews (Hamas Covenant, Article 7) does not absolve anyone from doing their best to spare by-standers. It is true that the population voted overwhelmingly for Hamas, supported the overthrow of the quasi-state Palestinian Authority in June 2007 and apparently continue to support Islamist policies even today. Yet if they are not active members of Hamas or the other terror factions, they must be considered non-combatants.
And lastly, should Hamas rockets actually cease hitting Israel, the reaction should only be one of relief. There is no reason for a feeling of victory or even joy over what happened in Gaza. There was and is, simply too much suffering on both sides of the border.
Israel's greatest mistake was having waited far too long to take on Hamas, allowing Gaza to turn into one large ammo dump intertwined with civilians. Had the Islamic terror organization possessed fewer weapons, the intensity of combat would have been lower. Israel procrastinated for eight years, enduring over 8,000 rocket attacks on her citizens. Nevertheless, we all need to know we acted as carefully as possible as concerns civilians while simultaneously pursuing military objectives. Any mistakes made need to be corrected.