The massacres of civilians at Deir Yasin in 1948, Kibiya in 1953 and Kfar Kassem in 1956, for instance, really were just that, massacres. But such events were atypical and were met with horror in the wider community, while great efforts were subsequently made to prevent their recurrence. Indeed, the IDF has shown a consistent commitment to fight its battles justly, as dramatically demonstrated by Operation Defensive Shield in Jenin in 2002. Instead of bombing from the safety of the air, Israel lost 23 soldiers in hand-to-hand combat 'so that the Palestinian terrorists would be defeated with as few [Palestinian civilian] deaths as possible' (p. 255).
Israel's behavior during its assault on Jenin has often been hailed as a model of morality. Here are other examples:
I am proud that we were there, that we fought, and I also am proud of the morality of the battle. The camp was not bombed from the air in order to prevent innocent civilian casualties, and artillery was not used even though we knew about specific
areas in the [refugee] camp where terrorists were holing up.
--Dr. David Zangen, Seven Lies About Jenin, Ma'ariv, 8.11.2002
In Jenin, Israel's government decided to pursue a course that placed much greater risks on Israel's soldiers but that greatly reduced the dangers to Palestinian civilians. We announced over loudspeakers our intention to clear out the terrorist infrastructure in the camp and warned everyone to leave. Then, instead of bombing from the air or using tanks or heavy artillery, our soldiers were sent on a harrowing mission. They painstakingly went from house to house, moving through a hornet's nest of booby traps, bombs, and armed terrorists. After thirteen Israeli soldiers were killed during one mission, we still refused to use our air force or heavy artillery.
--Natan Sharansky, Jenin: Anniversary of a Battle
Not only was Jenin not a massacre or an unparalleled catastrophe but it is regarded by many as a model of how to conduct urban warfare against terrorists hiding among civilians. (...) Instead of bombing the terrorists' camp from the air, as the United States did in Afghanistan and as Russia did in Chechnya, with little risk to their own soldiers but much to civilians, Israeli infantrymen entered the camp, going house to house in search of terrorists and bomb-making equipment, which they found. Twenty-three Israeli soldiers and fifty-two Palestinians, many of whom were combatants, were killed.
--Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, 2003, p. 144
In Jenin there was a battle - a battle in which many of our soldiers fell. The army fought from house to house, not by bombing from the air, in order to prevent, to the extent possible, civilian casualties.
--High Court of Justice of Israel
All of these pieces, as well as the hundreds of similar ones you will find on the Internet, argue that the Jenin operation was particularly moral because Israel did not bomb from the air but did house-to-house searches, thus minimizing civilian casualties.
But in December 2008-January 2009, Israel behaved quite differently during operation Cast Lead. In this war, Israel didn't risk a single soldier in hand-to-hand combat, but instead bombed all houses where terrorists were holed up, in addition to a large number of buildings that contained none. Jenin had been called not a massacre because the 500 casualties initially reported were later found to be just 52; but in Gaza, 1300 people died, including, by Israel's most ardent apologists' own estimate, at least 300 civilians.
You would think that would lead Zionists to lament the IDF's diminished moral standards. After all, in Jenin they declared that the IDF's virtue had been not to bomb from the air, and the Gaza op was completely carried out from the air. They should have observed that, while the IDF is and will always be the most moral army in the world, unfortunately it's not as moral as it used to be.
But somehow they haven't made that observation. The discourse has changed, and now an operation is moral not if the attacking army refrains from leveling buildings with its air force; it's moral if, in addition to the bombs, the warplanes drop leaflets calling on civilians to evacuate the area.
Well spotted, as usual. Thanks, Ibrahim.
ReplyDelete...and don't forget the exceedingly moral automated phone calls urging Gazans to leave. Of course, there's nowhere for them to go.
ReplyDeletethere's nowhere for them to go
ReplyDeleteIt seems that calls went out notifying people of very specific targets. They just had to get clear of them. Nizar Rayyan's family could have saved themselves, evidently, by going almost anywhere. From an Independent article on the death of Nizar Rayyan:
"Asked yesterday why at least his family had not left when the Israeli army issued the warning that his house was going to be destroyed, his son-in-law said only: 'He wanted to be a martyr.'"
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/profile-of-a-professor-who-was-prepared-for-martyrdom-1221114.html
More here:
http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/62757/-he-would-tease-us-and-ask-if-we-wanted-to-die-as-martyrs-with-him-rayyan-39-s-daughter-says.htm
Well, that takes care of one household. What about the other 1,400 Palestinians?
ReplyDeleteAmnesty International says that some 1,400 Palestinians were killed in the 22-day Israeli offensive between 27 December 2008 and 17 January 2009.
More than 900 of these were civilians, including 300 children and 115 women.
Israel is finally being seen for the brutal colonial military entity that it is.
Amnesty International says that some 1,400 Palestinians were killed in the 22-day Israeli offensive between 27 December 2008 and 17 January 2009.
ReplyDeleteMore than 900 of these were civilians, including 300 children and 115 women.
I believe the ultimate source for the numbers you are using is PCHR. The IDF says the total was 1166 and that 709 were not civilians.
661 have been identified by name, using Palestinian sources, as members of the Al Qassam Brigades or Islamic Jihad or similar groups. That seems to bear out the IDF numbers on the identity of those killed. Perhaps the IDF should be given more credence when it comes to the total number.
1. The explanation that Palestinians were notified of impending attacks and then chose to stay home is patently false. One may realize this by examining the police officers killed in the very first bombing attacks. Who warned those civilians, and where should they have gone?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQqnyVrJ2GQ
Or how about Dr Al-Aish? http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1056198.html
Or Mohammed Shurrab?
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jan/18/world/fg-gaza-sons18
And who exactly leafleted or phoned the clearly identified medical workers trying to transport the dead and wounded to the hospital?
http://www.btselem.org/english/testimonies/20090104_firing_on_ambulace_and_medical_team_in_beit_lahiya.asp
2. Moreover, an Israeli source, B'Tselem, identified 330 individuals who participated in hostilities out of a total of 1,387 dead. Anticipating your claims about policemen being combatants, the Goldstone report makes clear in Section VII, Part B that,
"the policemen killed cannot be considered to have been
combatants by virtue of their membership in the police."
and
"the policemen killed on 27 December 2008 cannot be said
to have been taking a direct part in hostilities. Thus, they did not lose their civilian immunity
from direct attack as civilians on this ground."
and finally,
"Even if the Israeli armed forces had reliable information that some
individual members of the police were also members of armed groups, this did not deprive the
whole police force of its status as a civilian law-enforcement agency."
3. Finally, the Israeli government has provided no evidence to support its claims of casualty and civilian figures. Not only are there no grounds to consider its numbers reliable, given its discredited claims that the police officers killed in the opening bombings were combatants, there is actually evidence to suggest that the casualty estimates provided by the Israeli government are inaccurate.
Yitzchak:
ReplyDeleteB'Tselem has released a list - with name, age and affiliation - of all the casualties they claim.
The IDF has refused to release a similar list up for scrutiny.
Who do you trust? The one disclosing information, or the one keeping mum about what it knows?
B'Tselem has released a list - with name, age and affiliation - of all the casualties they claim.
ReplyDeleteGot a link?
Anticipating your claims about policemen being combatants, the Goldstone report makes clear in Section VII, Part B that
ReplyDeleteAh, the Argumentum ad Goldstonum! Anyway, I think "combatant" is weasel category. Members of the Ezzadin Al Qassam Brigades or the Al Quds Brigades or the this brigades or the that brigades are legitimate targets in my book. You want to disagree? Fine, but report Gaza statistics in a more transparent way.
If members of armed resistance groups are fair game, whether actually engaged in combat or hors de combat, then surely you'll agree, Yitzchak, that members of the IDF reserve are fair game at all times, too?
ReplyDeleteThere's a good response to the questions about Israel's phone calls here:
ReplyDelete29. Israel calls the homes it is planning to attack and drops leaflets warning civilians to get away from military targets. Doesn't that meet its obligation to protect the civilian population?
Israel issued no warning at all when it first launched Operation Cast Lead. It struck at 11:30 a.m., a time when urban centers in Gaza were most populated and when children were changing shifts at school.[96]
Israel's subsequent phone calls and leaflets do not meet its obligation to protect civilians for several reasons.
First, Israel calls more homes than it actually attacks. As Amnesty International notes:
"Compounding the atmosphere of fear resulting from the Israeli bombardments, Israeli forces have been sending seemingly random telephone messages to many inhabitants of Gaza telling them to leave their homes because of imminent air strikes against their houses. Such messages have been received by residents of multi-storey apartment building, causing panic not only for those who received the calls but for all their neighbours.... The threatening calls seem to aim to spread fear among the civilian population, as in most cases no air strikes were carried out against the buildings. If this is the purpose, rather than to give effective warning, this practice violates international law and must end immediately.[97]
Second, in densely packed urban areas, moving from one location to another is no guarantee of safety.[98]
And third, when Israel is targeting individuals, warnings either give the target time to escape or come too late to help those who are not targeted.[99]
Imagine if Hamas broadcast an announcement that warned all Israelis in the south of the country to flee their homes if they are near military installations. Would that absolve Hamas for moral responsibility for all civilian deaths?
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/20269
If members of armed resistance groups are fair game, whether actually engaged in combat or hors de combat, then surely you'll agree, Yitzchak, that members of the IDF reserve are fair game at all times, too?
ReplyDeleteIf some members of "armed resistance groups" mounted a heroic martyrdom-seeking operation against some IDF reserve soldiers, wouldn't you argue that they they have to do that since they don't have F-15's? Wouldn't you howl with indignation if I called it "terrorism"? Whats-his-name at the "Magnes Zionism" blog, in an exchange with me, once wrote something along the lines of "Surely you don't expect them to wear uniforms and fight on battle fields." In any event, your argument doesn't really address what a normal army is supposed to do against an "armed resistance group" dug into an urban area.
Give me break, Yitzchak. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice you trying to skirt my question with your frivolous non sequitur? When, moreover, have you known me to howl with indignation? If I were going to howl with anything, it would be derision that an apologist for the Gaza pogrom goes around calling the victims ‘terrorists’. And I have no idea where you got the impression that I’m answerable for what Jerry Haber says. If the oppressor wants my advice on how to combat resistance to oppression, here it is: Stop the oppression and you stop the resistance.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, I’ll make you a deal – you answer my question – explain why any member of an armed resistance group is a ‘legitimate target’, but a member of the IDF reserve is not – and I’ll answer yours. You might also want to address yourself to why a soldier on a bus or at a felafel stand or in a classroom is not a legitimate target, and why Sheikh Yassin was a legitimate target, but Ehud Barak, say, is not.
explain why any member of an armed resistance group is a ‘legitimate target’, but a member of the IDF reserve is not
ReplyDeleteThe "military wing" of an "armed resistance group." Hamas affects some of the trappings of legitimate armies and police forces, but I wouldn't take these things seriously, certainly not while Hamas still uses terror-weapons. Qassam rockets have no legitimate military function.
If the oppressor wants my advice on how to combat resistance to oppression, here it is: Stop the oppression and you stop the resistance.
It's as if you don't think Hamas has an ideology.
Thus far, the questions Yitzchak has failed to answer or failed to acknowledge are as follows:
ReplyDelete1. From Paul - Where could Palestinians have fled to during the Gaza massacre?
2. From Paul - Even if one assumes that Rayyan's family was aware of the date and time of the planned bombing and chose to perish with him (which the article Yitzchak cites does not contend), what about other Palestinian civilian casualties who did not have the luxury of choosing whether to be killed or to flee?
3. From PT (myself) - Is there evidence that all Gazan policemen killed during Cast Lead were combatants?
4. From David - Why does Yitzchak prefer IDF statistics over other credible sources given that the IDF provides no evidence for those statistics?
5. From Anonymous - Why might Yitzchak believe that phone calls and leaflets sufficiently fulfill Israel’s obligations to non-combatants given several well-documented, serious problems with their implementation (in addition to the lack of places to flee to for safety)?
In my opinion, Yitzchak is not making real contributions to this dialogue, instead he is mostly responding to statements and questions posed to him with, as Ernie put it, non-sequitors. In the instances in which he does respond to a question, it is with his personal beliefs rather than a response based on evidence. One can see this in his response to Ernie regarding any distinction in status between members of an armed resistance group who are not currently participating in fighting and members of the IDF who are not currently participating in fighting, as well as in his response to evidence supporting the civilian status of Gazan policemen, evidence he brushed off by stating that the policemen were still combatants in his book.
While it is fine for a commenter to fail to respond to some of the questions or statements posed to him or her over the course of a discussion, Yitzchak's failure to acknowledge the questions he fails to answer indicates to me that either he is not participating in good faith, or Israel's behavior is indefensible, or both.
PT, you wrote:
ReplyDeleteThe explanation that Palestinians were notified of impending attacks and then chose to stay home is patently false. One may realize this by examining the police officers killed in the very first bombing attacks. Who warned those civilians, and where should they have gone?
Here is what I have time for now:
The case of Nizar Rayyan seems to be an example, at any rate, of someone defying a warning that could have been life-saving. In the Independent article his son-in-law attributes the deaths to Rayyan's desire for martyrdom not lack of a warning. I don't think there is serious controversy about this. In other cases people were notified and then got onto their roofs, causing the attacks to be called off. I don't know if there are good figures available for how many people took advantage of the warnings and saved themselves. Everybody seems to admit that the warnings were used extensively. The passage quoted by Anonymous goes so far as to suggest that the warnings were a plot to make the Gazans more fearful. That doesn't seem like a serious contribution to the discussion to me.
I don't think anybody claims to begin with that Hamas policemen were treated as mere civilians. "Where could they have gone?" sounds like the sort of rhetorical question that leftists often append to observations that Gaza is very crowded.
In general, defenders of Israel's actions in Gaza agree that some deaths were tragic. I don't think asking "where could such-and-such have gone?" contributes to the discussion. What were Israel
s prospects for reducing civilian casualties while still achieving its military goals and how do the actual results compare to what could have been achieved? That's the real question. And it is going to come down largely to a matter of opinion. I don't think there are quotas for these sorts of things. This isn't the case with Hamas, by the way. Nobody could reasonably argue that Qassam fire is anything other than utterly indiscriminate.
My currently ongoing exchange with Ernie bears on the question of whether it was legitimate to target the Hamas policemen.
If Yitzchak thinks fair warning eradicates, or even mitigates, culpability, he’s on very shaky ground. I can’t remember the last time I heard a defendant claim, ‘But I told her I’d kill her if she burnt my eggs one more time’ and the judge said, ‘Oh, that’s alright then. You’re free to go’. If it’s only the case when Israel does the warning, then he’s a fucking hypocrite. But of course it’s much worse than that. Nizar Rayyan defied ‘a warning that could have been life-saving’. So it’s all his fault. This is a recurring trope in hasbara discourse, and it’s nothing but undisguised racism.
ReplyDeleteBut the real issue is not whether Israel gave fair warning or what ‘Israel’s prospects for reducing civilian casualties while still achieving its military goals’ were, but precisely its military goals. According to Tzipi Livni, speaking a year ago today, ‘Israel had a list of targets that are related directly to Hamas...we are talking about all of the places that are connected to Hamas as a government, not legitimate, but a government as a terrorist organization. All of these attacks are directly targeted at places that we know are part of Hamas...’ (http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Speeches+by+Israeli+leaders/2008/FM_Livni_press_conference_IDF_operation_Gaza_31-Dec-2008.htm; cf. http://bureauofcounterpropaganda.blogspot.com/2009/01/have-your-cake.html) It’s always been obvious and is now incontestable that Israel’s objective was to destroy not just ‘the infrastructure of terror’, but infrastructure of all kinds, to make life in Gaza as miserable as possible, to reduce Gaza’s people to complete dependency on a trickle of charity, and to expunge any hope that things would ever improve. Certainly, if Israel’s concern was to stop Qassam launches, they could have secured that objective by simply adhering to the terms of the tahadiya.
I don’t know about anybody else around here, but red herring is off my diet.
This article is such a silly piece, betraying its author's TOTAL ignorance of Israeli military doctrine. This is simple: when Israel is the occupying power it has certain duties and responsibilities under international law to the occupied population -- as it recognized in Jenin during Cast Lead. However, when Israel is no longer the occupying power but is fighting a terrorist organization on foreing soil -- land that it has officially renounced claim to -- then it is no longer bound by the same obligations -- and thus can bomb Gaza from the air.
ReplyDeletePractically speaking, as someone who has seen combat, I can tell you of the immense difference it makes to have checkpoints, police stations, control of the roads and telecommunications, local intelligence and boots on the ground -- what Israel did not have and therefore couldn't use in Gaza.
really, the difference here is almost childishly simple and if the author could only remove his thick head from his antisemitic ass long enough to see reality for what it is, he might have perceived this obvious distinction.
Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteThank you for your input. Unfortunately, your explanation is different from the one given by mainstream Zionists. I'm responding to what they said back then, not to this new theory of yours.
The stark difference in "operations", if you could call it that, is the desirability of land that would potentially be expropriated back to Israel when they "negotiate" a final solution and its "borders" (which has TWO Eastern borders if you can believe it). Simply put, Cast Lead was the blitzkreig because the IDF were faced with an enemy on a territory which it has allayed as useless, or simply given up for the grandeur of the West Bank. Reconstruction was left entirely upon Hamas and the Gazans.
ReplyDeleteJenin is another case, especially when it is still under "control" of a client authority known as the PA which is meant to buttress every Israeli action to "police" Palestinians. More or less it was facing a population which was supposed to be an ally, whereas Hamas is easily labeled the villians of this tragedy. When you think even bigger about it, Hamas delegates and officials who are situated in the West Bank have been herded by both the IDF and the PA police without a bomb in near sight, whereas they would not even think twice if they were in Gaza. All of other pieces do fit the puzzle but the last thing Israel wants is to have land uninhabitable that even their ideologues can't settle in.
I can’t remember the last time I heard a defendant claim, ‘But I told her I’d kill her if she burnt my eggs one more time’ and the judge said, ‘Oh, that’s alright then. You’re free to go’.
ReplyDeleteIf you understand what your own analogy means, you are arguing that Israel was not entitled to destroy Rayyan's stores of weapons and that supporters of Israel are merely arguing that it is OK to do something wrong if you warn the victim first. Is this what you intended to argue?
if Israel’s concern was to stop Qassam launches, they could have secured that objective by simply adhering to the terms of the tahadiya.
Because a hudna has an expiration date, but a tahadiya is forever? Are you serious?
I'm responding to what they said back then, not to this new theory of yours.
ReplyDeleteHe has a point. Your post assumed that Jenin and Gaza are very similar from a standpoint of military logistics. That's obviously not the case, even leaving aside the matter of Israeli military doctrine.
Let’s see now. Here’s a strip of desert surrounded on three sides by walls and fences. The former occupier has declared a free fire zone 300m deep from the borders on the two sides it controls. The neighbour on the third side has agreed to keep that border sealed, as well, not by arrangement with the ‘government’, but with the former occupier. There is an airport, but the former occupier has demolished it and prohibits flights in or out. There is a seacoast, but the former occupier patrols it and prohibits all shipping and most fishing and periodically shells the beach. The ‘government’ cannot import or export anything, everything that goes in or out is universally acknowledged to be smuggled. The skies are patrolled 24/7 by the former occupier. Oh, and all the occupants of this foreign soil are stateless. On the occasions they’re allowed to travel, guess who gives them permission. It’s childishly simple. Nothing could be more obvious than that the Gaza Strip is a completely independent sovereign country whose vast arsenal poses an existential threat to the Jewish and demographic state.
ReplyDeleteErnie, what if Germany offered a ceasefire in 1943 and -- Jesus Christ I have to stop reading EoZ.
ReplyDeleteHuh? Yeah, maybe you should. I had a look once and couldn't think of any reason to go back.
ReplyDeleteVisit www.lomdimbahia.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteThe horror with which the Qibya massacre was greeted in Israel did not prevent its perpetrator from becoming Prime Minister.
ReplyDelete