Bekijk Volledige Versie : Bedankt kuttekoppen van de zogenaamde mensenrechten organisatie's
door onze correspondent Ad Bloemendaal
TEL AVIV - Israël heeft genoeg van de niet aflatende kritiek van mensenrechtenorganisaties, zeker als het gaat om de oorlog in de Gazastrook. De critici kunnen zich opmaken voor harder weerwerk.
Alweer een rapport over de oorlog in Gaza. Een half jaar na afloop van de strijd kost het de Israëlische media duidelijk moeite nog warm te lopen voor een nieuwe brochure van de Israëlische organisatie Breaking the Silence (De Stilte doorbroken) met getuigenissen van ongeveer dertig anonieme soldaten over geweldsexcessen tijdens het Gaza-offiensief, begin dit jaar.
Het publiek heeft er genoeg van en dat geldt nog meer voor de overheid. De regering van premier Benjamin Netanyahu heeft deze week de oorlog verklaard aan non-gouvernementele organisaties (ngo's) als Breaking the Silence, die met geld uit het buitenland - Nederland is een van de donors - Israël aan de schandpaal nagelen.
Al in maart publiceerden Israëlische kranten verhalen van studenten die hadden meegevochten in Gaza. Hun 'getuigenissen' - over het neerschieten van weerloze burgers en vandalisme - gingen de hele wereld over, ook al berustte veel van wat ze vertelden op verklaringen van derden en geruchten.
In de maanden die volgden bracht iedere zichzelf respecterende ngo een rapport uit over Gaza. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International en het Rode Kruis behoorden tot de laatste. In september volgt nog een onderzoeksrapport van de VN-Raad voor de Mensenrechten (UNHCR), waaraan de voormalige Zuid-Afrikaanse rechter Richard Goldstone nog druk werkt. Israël heeft er bij voorbaat geen vertrouwen in en weigert iedere medewerking.
De indruk die na alle rapporten blijft hangen is in wezen dezelfde die oplettende waarnemers al hadden toen het Israëlische leger de Gazastrook binnentrok. De operatie was vooral een strafexpeditie, bedoeld om de Gazanen een lesje te leren, na acht jaar van raketbeschietingen door Hamas en andere organisaties. Het leger hanteerde daarbij een duidelijke formule: een minimaal aantal slachtoffers aan eigen kant door een maximaal gebruik van vuurkracht. ,,Ik heb het gevoel dat het leger een gelegenheid zocht om zijn kracht te tonen'', is het wat naïeve commentaar van een van de soldaten in het rapport van Breaking the Silence.
Een ander vertelt: ,,We kregen niet de instructie te schieten op alles wat bewoog. Maar er werd wel gezegd: schiet als je je bedreigd voelt.'' De soldaten maken ook melding van zinloze verwoestingen door gigantische D-9 bulldozers, maar net als bij eerdere gelegenheden is een deel van hun verhalen gebaseerd op 'van horen zeggen'.
Burgers
Dat er in de Gaza-expeditie niet meer slachtoffers onder burgers zijn gevallen (Palestijnse organisaties zeggen 925, het leger houdt het op 295) was te danken aan een uitgebreid Israëlisch waarschuwingssysteem, met onder meer pamfletten en telefoontjes.
Voor de rest was het lot van de burgerbevolking in handen van plaatselijke militaire commandanten. Dat pakte vaak goed uit, maar soms was de discipline ver te zoeken.
De soldaten die hun verhalen vertelden, deden dat anoniem. ,,Breaking the Silence moet getuigen aanmoedigen hun stilte te doorbreken en hun beweringen feitelijk te onderbouwen'', aldus het leger. Israëlische regeringen, en zeker die van Netanyahu, ervaren dit soort organisaties als een ernstig probleem. Volgens minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Avigdor Lieberman nemen ze steeds meer de plaats in van diplomaten als het gaat om het bepalen van de internationale agenda. Netanyahu's woordvoerder, Mark Regev, waarschuwt dat de rapporten van ngo's voortaan 'met een stofkam' zullen worden uitgekamd om 'alle tegenstrijdigheden' aan de kaak te stellen.
Naar aanleiding van de publicatie van Breaking the silence en andere organisatie's die zich beroepen op humanrights maar niet werken in opdracht van de VN, hebben er voor gezorgd dat met onmiddelijke ingang Israel alle medewerking stop zet in het onderzoek dat momenteel word uitgevoerd door de VN/UN.
Aldus het mailtje dat ik kreeg van Richard Goldstone leider onderzoekscommissie van de VN-raad voor mensenrechten (UNHCR).
Dus alle NGO's bedankt voor jullie medewerking en het vernietigen van jaren werk en onderzoek.
The_Grand_Wazoo
16-07-09, 09:13
En wat is precies de fout die deze organisaties hebben gemaakt?
Je kunt beter stellen dat omdat zij jaren lang werk ongedaan dreigen te maken, Israel zich met deze vlucht naar voren komt.
Je bent slachtoffers verwijten aan het maken, niet de de daders.
Wat Israël doet heet chantage. Als men daar in Israël niets te verbergen zou hebben zou men dit niet doen.
De supressor laat haar ware gezicht zien.
En wat is precies de fout die deze organisaties hebben gemaakt?
Je kunt beter stellen dat omdat zij jaren lang werk ongedaan dreigen te maken, Israel zich met deze vlucht naar voren komt.
Je bent slachtoffers verwijten aan het maken, niet de de daders.
Wie waren die klokkenluiders ook al weer? Israelische soldaten......
Naar aanleiding van de publicatie van Breaking the silence en andere organisatie's die zich beroepen op humanrights maar niet werken in opdracht van de VN, hebben er voor gezorgd dat met onmiddelijke ingang Israel alle medewerking stop zet in het onderzoek dat momenteel word uitgevoerd door de VN/UN.
Aldus het mailtje dat ik kreeg van Richard Goldstone leider onderzoekscommissie van de VN-raad voor mensenrechten (UNHCR).
Dus alle NGO's bedankt voor jullie medewerking en het vernietigen van jaren werk en onderzoek.
Bullshit. Israel grijpt elk excuus aan om te voorkomen dat haar misdaden aan de kaak gesteld worden.
=The_Grand_Wazoo;4023399]En wat is precies de fout die deze organisaties hebben gemaakt?
Door afzondelijk steeds weer het zelfde nieuws naar buiten te brengen waardoor er steeds weer wrijving ontstaan.
Je kunt beter stellen dat omdat zij jaren lang werk ongedaan dreigen te maken, Israel zich met deze vlucht naar voren komt.
Tja dat zie ik anders, immers ze werkten tot heden volledig mee, de waarnemers hadden inzicht in alle documentatie en schema's.
Je bent slachtoffers verwijten aan het maken, niet de de daders.
Organisatie's die zich beroepen op de mensenrechten zonder enige controlle uit te oefenen of anoniem signalen de wereld instuurt maak zichzelf net zo schuldig aan de rechten.
Organisatie's die zich beroepen op de mensenrechten zonder enige controlle uit te oefenen of anoniem signalen de wereld instuurt maak zichzelf net zo schuldig aan de rechten.
Waaraan maken zij zich schuldig?
Organisatie's die zich beroepen op de mensenrechten zonder enige controlle uit te oefenen of anoniem signalen de wereld instuurt maak zichzelf net zo schuldig aan de rechten.
Ik wou zeggen vrije meningsuiting maar het gaat om bevindingen. Is onderdeel van dictatuur om ondermeer die 2 te verbieden.
knuppeltje
16-07-09, 09:47
=John2;4023416]Door afzondelijk steeds weer het zelfde nieuws naar buiten te brengen waardoor er steeds weer wrijving ontstaan.
Hoe durven ze toch. Ik vrees alleen dat dit slechts het topje van de ijberg is.
Tja dat zie ik anders, immers ze werkten tot heden volledig mee, de waarnemers hadden inzicht in alle documentatie en schema's.
Het eerste hoef je niet meer te vertellen, dat wisten we al.
Meegewerkt heeft Israël nog nooit, dat wieten we ook allang.
Organisatie's die zich beroepen op de mensenrechten zonder enige controlle uit te oefenen of anoniem signalen de wereld instuurt maak zichzelf net zo schuldig aan de rechten.
Ach Sjonny, zo gaat dat nu eenmaal met klokkenluiders zolang hun vijligheid en toekomst niet verzekerd is. Deep Troath bleef decennia annoniem, was Nixon en zijn bende daarom onschuldig?
Tja dat zie ik anders, immers ze werkten tot heden volledig mee, de waarnemers hadden inzicht in alle documentatie en schema's.
Israel werkt niet mee aan VN onderzoeken. In Gaza niet, In Libanon niet.
The_Grand_Wazoo
16-07-09, 11:50
Door afzondelijk steeds weer het zelfde nieuws naar buiten te brengen waardoor er steeds weer wrijving ontstaan.
Tja dat zie ik anders, immers ze werkten tot heden volledig mee, de waarnemers hadden inzicht in alle documentatie en schema's.
Organisatie's die zich beroepen op de mensenrechten zonder enige controlle uit te oefenen of anoniem signalen de wereld instuurt maak zichzelf net zo schuldig aan de rechten.
Wat ben je toch een ontzettende domoor.
Wat Israël doet heet chantage. Als men daar in Israël niets te verbergen zou hebben zou men dit niet doen.
De supressor laat haar ware gezicht zien.
Wie waren die klokkenluiders ook al weer? Israelische soldaten......
Hoezo chantage en hoezo ware gezicht, tot heden hebben ze volledig meegewerkt aan diverse onderzoeken en zijn er ongeveer (kan het opzoeken) 60 mensen veroordeeld voor oorlogsmishandeling, bijna iedere week wordt er wel enkele militairen veroordeeld.
Bullshit. Israel grijpt elk excuus aan om te voorkomen dat haar misdaden aan de kaak gesteld worden.
Lees het bovende stukje even wat ik aan Joesoef schreef, het is immers onlogisch dat een land oorlogsmisdaden goedkeurd, terwijl ze het bestaansrecht hebben door deze zelfde organisatie.
Hoezo chantage en hoezo ware gezicht, tot heden hebben ze volledig meegewerkt aan diverse onderzoeken en zijn er ongeveer (kan het opzoeken) 60 mensen veroordeeld voor oorlogsmishandeling, bijna iedere week wordt er wel enkele militairen veroordeeld.
Waar heb je het toch over? Er is niemand veroordeeld.
De enige soldaat die iets te horen heeft gekregen was een soldaat die een credit card had gejat. Zelfs in Israel zijn credit card bedrijven machtiger dan het leger. Overigens kwam de soldaat er met een tik op de vingers van af en hij moet het geld terug betalen.
Israel werkt niet mee aan VN onderzoeken. In Gaza niet, In Libanon niet.
Ach natuurlijk je woont in T.A. en heb natuurlijk persoonlijk gesproken met Richard Goldstone of trek jij zijn kwaliteit ook al in twijvel.
Wat ben je toch een ontzettende domoor.
Natuurlijk net als deze oude man die samen met Mandela de apartheid op kaart zetten in Zuid Afrika en nu werkzaam is voor de VN en internationaal recht als jurist.
Ik heb geloof ik tegen IbnRushdd weken geleden al eens gezegt dat deze filmpjes op youtube en duistere stukjes nog eens gaan tegenwerken.
Tja en dan ben ik dom, nou als jullie dit onder dom verstaan laat mij dan aub dom zijn en blijven.
Rattling the Cage: Our sons are lying again
First we saw the destruction of Gaza on TV, then we heard about it from Palestinians, then from journalists (mainly foreign), then from the world's leading human rights organizations. We didn't believe it, or we found ways to justify it, but at any rate, we, the Israeli public, made sure the images and words went in one ear and out the other.
Then in March some of our own boys, IDF soldiers, talked about it - the orders that amounted to "when in doubt, shoot," the sniggering contempt for Palestinian life and property, the exhortations to holy war from IDF rabbis. That seemed to make a small dent in our consciousness for a couple days. But then the IDF conducted its brief, naturally closed investigation, announced that the stories were all hearsay and rumor, there was nothing to the accounts of an old woman and a mother getting shot deliberately, nothing to worry about, you can all go back to sleep now, and, of course, we did.
Now comes "Breaking the Silence," an organization of IDF combat reservists, with the testimonies of 26 soldiers who served in Operation Cast Lead, and the stories are very, very familiar, only they're much more detailed than what we've heard before. Over 100 pages of testimony about the extraordinary scale of destruction ("like in those World War II films where nothing remained"); the vandalism ("In one house we entered I saw guys had defecated in drawers"); the shoot-'em-up spirit ("The atmosphere was not one of fear but rather people too eager to shoot other people"); the elastic definition of "legitimate target" ("suspects, lookouts, people standing on roofs and looking towards our forces, making suspect movements on the roof, bending down, looking out beyond the rim"); the firing of napalm-like white phosphorous in thickly-populated areas; the killings of unarmed civilians in no-go zones; the rabbis' anti-Arab pep talks; and much, much more.
There are no stories about atrocities, of classic war crimes - of deliberate massacres of helpless civilians. In fact, there aren't that many Palestinians in these stories at all - most of the civilians had fled their homes after the IDF's warnings and Hamas fighters were mainly hiding, not fighting. The neighborhoods the soldiers entered were largely, though not entirely, deserted.
THE MAIN impression I got from reading the stories (there's also a DVD with videotaped testimonies of four soldiers) is that Operation Cast Lead wasn't a war, it was an onslaught. The IDF basically flattened whole neighborhoods and rural villages outside Gaza City and the refugee camps. (The city and camps were left mainly to the Air Force.)
One soldier, a reserve combat medic, told me his unit spent a week in an abandoned rural village where "about 50" houses had stood; by the time they left, most of the houses were rubble. "I saw every kind of destruction I could think of. Houses were blown up by airplanes, helicopters, artillery, D-9 bulldozers, machine guns, mortars," he said. The plan was to raze them all, he added, but the army had to leave Gaza early, what with Barack Obama getting inaugurated.
Why the deliberate destruction of abandoned homes? "The battalion commander told us there were two reasons: One, to make sure none of the houses could pose a threat to us, and two, for 'the day after.' We wanted to make sure the ground was flat so that after we left, Hamas would have no place to hide."
The combat medic, a young, kippa-wearing father who studies Jewish philosophy at university and whose living room wall is lined with holy books, also said an IDF rabbi told him and a few of his comrades that "this was a war between the children of light and the children of darkness," and that "we would not have to account for our sins." The last thing the rabbi told them, he recalls, was this: "Remember, guys, aim for the torso."
I don't know what depresses me more - these stories or the IDF's reaction to them. You would think that after reading 100-odd pages of such testimony from 26 veterans of the war - 14 conscripts and 12 reservists - the IDF brass would at least say it was disturbing, troubling, something.
No way.
"How do you know it's true?" an IDF spokesman told me over the phone. The soldiers' identities are hidden, there's no way the army can check their stories. Remember the accounts by the soldiers in the Rabin academy? They all turned out to be false. Breaking the Silence has an "agenda," said the spokesman.
I asked him if the IDF considered these fighters' accounts of the war to have any meaning, any value. The spokesman couldn't think of any; instead, he just repeated what he'd said about how the stories couldn't be checked, how Breaking the Silence was "hiding behind the anonymity" of the soldiers, how it has an agenda.
HE'S RIGHT. Breaking the Silence has an agenda - to tell the truth about what the IDF is doing to the Palestinians, worst of all during Operation Cast Lead. The IDF has an agenda, too - to hide it.
The IDF knows very well why those 26 soldiers remained anonymous: because if their identities were known, they would be branded as shtinkerim - informers - in the army, and their lives would become hell.
As for the earlier "debunking" of the Rabin academy soldiers' testimony, only in Israel does anyone believe that the IDF's lightning-fast, closed-door investigation was at all thorough, impartial or well-intentioned. To anyone genuinely interested in the truth, it had all the makings of a whitewash. In particular, the recanting by Danny Zamir, head of the Rabin academy, sounded like something from Arthur Miller's The Crucible.
Now, on top of the TV footage from Gaza, the word of Palestinian victims, journalists, human rights investigators and the Rabin academy soldiers, there are the war stories of 14 conscript and 12 reserve IDF veterans that we have to deny.
In a few weeks we'll be denying another report, that one by a UN committee headed by South Africa's Judge Richard Goldstone, one of the bravest, finest Jewish fighters for justice in modern times.
It doesn't matter who tells us the truth about what we did in Gaza - we'll deny it. If the entire IDF General Staff called a news conference and admitted that the evidence were true, we'd say they're leftists, they're kissing up to Obama, they're lying.
Even if our own sons tell us it's true, we'll tell them they're lying. We're telling that to another 26 of them right now.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=2&cid=1246443820082&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
Waar heb je het toch over? Er is niemand veroordeeld.
De enige soldaat die iets te horen heeft gekregen was een soldaat die een credit card had gejat. Zelfs in Israel zijn credit card bedrijven machtiger dan het leger. Overigens kwam de soldaat er met een tik op de vingers van af en hij moet het geld terug betalen.
Sinds 2004 veroordeeld Israel al zijn militairen de eerste was een officier die in 2002 een 16 jarige jongen doodschoot.
http://buitenland.nieuws.nl/83108
Wederom roep jij maar weer eens wat om de zaak te verdraaien.
Ach natuurlijk je woont in T.A. en heb natuurlijk persoonlijk gesproken met Richard Goldstone of trek jij zijn kwaliteit ook al in twijvel.
U.N. fact-finding commission faces skepticism in Gaza
Reporting from The Gaza Strip -- A novel approach toward injecting international justice into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict got underway Sunday in this embattled enclave, but it left neither side particularly satisfied.
Borrowing from the South African reconciliation experience, a United Nations fact-finding commission opened what it said was the first-of-its-kind public hearing to gather witness testimony about alleged war crimes during Israel's 22-day assault on the Gaza Strip in winter.
But as it has with past inquiries, the Israeli government has refused to cooperate with the United Nations Human Rights Council fact-finding team, calling it hopelessly biased.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-gaza-un-hearing29-2009jun29,0,5558064.story
Een schande. Wanneer een regering kenbaar maakt niet gediend te zijn van bemoeienis van mensenrechtenorganisaties hebben ze daar maar naar te luisteren. Wat denken die mensenrechtenorganisaties wel niet? Volledig terecht dat Israël nu elke medewerking blokkeert. Ze douwen de mensenrechten maar lekker in hun hol.
Sinds 2004 veroordeeld Israel al zijn militairen de eerste was een officier die in 2002 een 16 jarige jongen doodschoot.
http://buitenland.nieuws.nl/83108
Wederom roep jij maar weer eens wat om de zaak te verdraaien.
Jij bent degene die maar wat roept. Geef me een voorbeeld van Israelische soldaten die veroordeeld zijn voor misdragingen tijdens de Gaza operatie.
(overigens dat voorbeeld dat je aanhaalt geeft al aan hoe het IDF omgaat met deze zaken, 6 maanden voor moord....)
Rattling the Cage: Our sons are lying again
First we saw the destruction of Gaza on TV, then we heard about it from Palestinians, then from journalists (mainly foreign), then from the world's leading human rights organizations. We didn't believe it, or we found ways to justify it, but at any rate, we, the Israeli public, made sure the images and words went in one ear and out the other.
Then in March some of our own boys, IDF soldiers, talked about it - the orders that amounted to "when in doubt, shoot," the sniggering contempt for Palestinian life and property, the exhortations to holy war from IDF rabbis. That seemed to make a small dent in our consciousness for a couple days. But then the IDF conducted its brief, naturally closed investigation, announced that the stories were all hearsay and rumor, there was nothing to the accounts of an old woman and a mother getting shot deliberately, nothing to worry about, you can all go back to sleep now, and, of course, we did.
Now comes "Breaking the Silence," an organization of IDF combat reservists, with the testimonies of 26 soldiers who served in Operation Cast Lead, and the stories are very, very familiar, only they're much more detailed than what we've heard before. Over 100 pages of testimony about the extraordinary scale of destruction ("like in those World War II films where nothing remained"); the vandalism ("In one house we entered I saw guys had defecated in drawers"); the shoot-'em-up spirit ("The atmosphere was not one of fear but rather people too eager to shoot other people"); the elastic definition of "legitimate target" ("suspects, lookouts, people standing on roofs and looking towards our forces, making suspect movements on the roof, bending down, looking out beyond the rim"); the firing of napalm-like white phosphorous in thickly-populated areas; the killings of unarmed civilians in no-go zones; the rabbis' anti-Arab pep talks; and much, much more.
There are no stories about atrocities, of classic war crimes - of deliberate massacres of helpless civilians. In fact, there aren't that many Palestinians in these stories at all - most of the civilians had fled their homes after the IDF's warnings and Hamas fighters were mainly hiding, not fighting. The neighborhoods the soldiers entered were largely, though not entirely, deserted.
THE MAIN impression I got from reading the stories (there's also a DVD with videotaped testimonies of four soldiers) is that Operation Cast Lead wasn't a war, it was an onslaught. The IDF basically flattened whole neighborhoods and rural villages outside Gaza City and the refugee camps. (The city and camps were left mainly to the Air Force.)
One soldier, a reserve combat medic, told me his unit spent a week in an abandoned rural village where "about 50" houses had stood; by the time they left, most of the houses were rubble. "I saw every kind of destruction I could think of. Houses were blown up by airplanes, helicopters, artillery, D-9 bulldozers, machine guns, mortars," he said. The plan was to raze them all, he added, but the army had to leave Gaza early, what with Barack Obama getting inaugurated.
Why the deliberate destruction of abandoned homes? "The battalion commander told us there were two reasons: One, to make sure none of the houses could pose a threat to us, and two, for 'the day after.' We wanted to make sure the ground was flat so that after we left, Hamas would have no place to hide."
The combat medic, a young, kippa-wearing father who studies Jewish philosophy at university and whose living room wall is lined with holy books, also said an IDF rabbi told him and a few of his comrades that "this was a war between the children of light and the children of darkness," and that "we would not have to account for our sins." The last thing the rabbi told them, he recalls, was this: "Remember, guys, aim for the torso."
I don't know what depresses me more - these stories or the IDF's reaction to them. You would think that after reading 100-odd pages of such testimony from 26 veterans of the war - 14 conscripts and 12 reservists - the IDF brass would at least say it was disturbing, troubling, something.
No way.
"How do you know it's true?" an IDF spokesman told me over the phone. The soldiers' identities are hidden, there's no way the army can check their stories. Remember the accounts by the soldiers in the Rabin academy? They all turned out to be false. Breaking the Silence has an "agenda," said the spokesman.
I asked him if the IDF considered these fighters' accounts of the war to have any meaning, any value. The spokesman couldn't think of any; instead, he just repeated what he'd said about how the stories couldn't be checked, how Breaking the Silence was "hiding behind the anonymity" of the soldiers, how it has an agenda.
HE'S RIGHT. Breaking the Silence has an agenda - to tell the truth about what the IDF is doing to the Palestinians, worst of all during Operation Cast Lead. The IDF has an agenda, too - to hide it.
The IDF knows very well why those 26 soldiers remained anonymous: because if their identities were known, they would be branded as shtinkerim - informers - in the army, and their lives would become hell.
As for the earlier "debunking" of the Rabin academy soldiers' testimony, only in Israel does anyone believe that the IDF's lightning-fast, closed-door investigation was at all thorough, impartial or well-intentioned. To anyone genuinely interested in the truth, it had all the makings of a whitewash. In particular, the recanting by Danny Zamir, head of the Rabin academy, sounded like something from Arthur Miller's The Crucible.
Now, on top of the TV footage from Gaza, the word of Palestinian victims, journalists, human rights investigators and the Rabin academy soldiers, there are the war stories of 14 conscript and 12 reserve IDF veterans that we have to deny.
In a few weeks we'll be denying another report, that one by a UN committee headed by South Africa's Judge Richard Goldstone, one of the bravest, finest Jewish fighters for justice in modern times.
It doesn't matter who tells us the truth about what we did in Gaza - we'll deny it. If the entire IDF General Staff called a news conference and admitted that the evidence were true, we'd say they're leftists, they're kissing up to Obama, they're lying.
Even if our own sons tell us it's true, we'll tell them they're lying. We're telling that to another 26 of them right now.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=2&cid=1246443820082&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
Ja en zelfs de krant in Israel schrijft erover?
A NEW BOOKLET BY "BREAKING THE SILENCE": 7/15/2009
AROUND 30 ISRAELI SOLDIERS TESTIFY ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCES IN OPERATION CAST LEAD – A NEW BOOKLET BY "BREAKING THE SILENCE":
"You feel like an infantile little kid with a magnifying glass looking at ants, burning them."
Fifty-four testimonies of Israeli combat soldiers who participated in Operation Cast Lead reveal gaps between the reports given by the army following January’s events; the needless destruction of houses; firing phosphorous in populated areas and an atmosphere that encouraged shooting anywhere.
Half a year after Operation Cast Lead, the organization "Breaking the Silence" is announcing the release of a new booklet today (Wed. 7/15) that includes numerous testimonies by soldiers who participated in the operation. The testimonies expose significant gaps between the official stances of the Israeli military and events on the ground.
Among the 54 testimonies are stories revealing the use of "accepted practices," the destruction of hundreds of houses and mosques for no military purpose, the firing of phosphorous gas in the direction of populated areas, the killing of innocent victims with small arms, the destruction of private property, and most of all, a permissive atmosphere in the command structure that enabled soldiers to act without moral restrictions. The booklet compiles the testimonies of about 30 reserve and regular combat soldiers from various units that participated in the fighting. The testimonies demonstrate that the soldiers were not given directives stating the goal of the operation and, as one soldier testifies, "there was not much said about the issue of innocent civilians."
Many soldiers said that they fought without seeing "the enemy before their eyes." "You feel like an infantile little kid with a magnifying glass looking at ants, burning them," one of the soldiers testified that "a 20-year-old kid should not have to do these kinds of things to other people."
"The testimonies prove that the immoral way the war was carried out was due to the systems in place and not the individual soldier," said Mikhael Mankin from "Breaking the Silence." What was proven yesterday is that through the IDF the exception becomes the norm, and this requires a deep and reflective discussion. This is an urgent call to Israel's society and leadership to take a sober look at the foolishness of our policies."
Bron:וhttp://www.shovrimshtika.org/news_item_e.asp?id=30
Maar heeft iemand geprobeerd het boek te bestellen via een uitgever of via deze organisatie?
knuppeltje
16-07-09, 12:19
=John2;4023502]Richard Goldstone of trek jij zijn kwaliteit ook al in twijvel.
Dat misschien niet zozeer, maar wqel dat ie jou gemaild heeft meneer de fanast.
Heeft ie je soms ook even gemaild misschien dat ie tijdens die 5 daagse trip door dat verwoeste Gaza op allerlei mogelijke manieren door Israël gehinderd werd? Hij mocht Gaza niet eens in vanuit Israël en kreeg geen enkele mederwerking om bronnen in Israël te onderzoeken.
knuppeltje
16-07-09, 12:22
=John2;4023506]Sinds 2004 veroordeeld Israel al zijn militairen
Dat is letterlijk voor 100% gelogen.
de eerste was een officier die in 2002 een 16 jarige jongen doodschoot.
Wel heel erg hè, hoe komen ze daar nu weer bij.
Een schande. Wanneer een regering kenbaar maakt niet gediend te zijn van bemoeienis van mensenrechtenorganisaties hebben ze daar maar naar te luisteren. Wat denken die mensenrechtenorganisaties wel niet? Volledig terecht dat Israël nu elke medewerking blokkeert. Ze douwen de mensenrechten maar lekker in hun hol.
Dus als jij morgen een clubje opricht en je noemt het mensenrechten organisatie heeft de overheid maar naar je te luisteren en heb jij het recht om maar van alles en iedereen iets te roepen, zonder je te houden aan internationale wetten en regels zoals deze zijn gesteld in de internationale wetten voor de rechten van de mens.
Je kunt als mensenrechten organisatie een anonime tip onderzoeken, maar nooit op geruchten openbaar maken.
Hij is trouwens ook geen oprichter van deze groep en al vaker veroordeeld voor onjuiste informatie
=Spoetnik;4023513]Jij bent degene die maar wat roept. Geef me een voorbeeld van Israelische soldaten die veroordeeld zijn voor misdragingen tijdens de Gaza operatie.
Deed ik net, dus kom niet met deze retorische opstelling en herhaling van vragen.
Voor de recente operatie in de Gaza, lopen deze onderzoeken nog en zijn strafzaken in voorbereiding.
(overigens dat voorbeeld dat je aanhaalt geeft al aan hoe het IDF omgaat met deze zaken, 6 maanden voor moord....)
Ach, ligt eraan hoe je het bekijkt, in 1979 werd een Nederlandse soldaat vrijgesproken van de zelfde daad en een andere die een verliefd paartje doodschoot tijdens een wachtronde tot twee weken zwaar. (dit in Libanon)
Verder werd in Seedorf in 1978 een korporaal veroordeeld tot één maand licht arrest, nadat hij met een tank 13 huizen vernielden, het gemeentehuis in puin reed en het politie bureau sloopte, waarbij destijds twee doden en enkele gewonden vielen.
Dus als jij morgen een clubje opricht en je noemt het mensenrechten organisatie heeft de overheid maar naar je te luisteren en heb jij het recht om maar van alles en iedereen iets te roepen, zonder je te houden aan internationale wetten en regels zoals deze zijn gesteld in de internationale wetten voor de rechten van de mens.
Je kunt als mensenrechten organisatie een anonime tip onderzoeken, maar nooit op geruchten openbaar maken.
Hij is trouwens ook geen oprichter van deze groep en al vaker veroordeeld voor onjuiste informatie
Welke geruchten? En welke wet is er overtreden?
knuppeltje
16-07-09, 12:47
=John2;4023542]en al vaker veroordeeld voor onjuiste informatie
Geef daar eens een paar voorbeelden van en vertel me ook eens waarom ie in de Jeruzalem Post lange tijd een collum had?
Voor de recente operatie in de Gaza, lopen deze onderzoeken nog en zijn strafzaken in voorbereiding.
Hoe het zo snel mogelijk met een sisser af kan lopen zeker.
Ach, ligt eraan hoe je het bekijkt, in 1979 werd een Nederlandse soldaat vrijgesproken van de zelfde daad en een andere die een verliefd paartje doodschoot tijdens een wachtronde tot twee weken zwaar. (dit in Libanon)
Verder werd in Seedorf in 1978 een korporaal veroordeeld tot één maand licht arrest, nadat hij met een tank 13 huizen vernielden, het gemeentehuis in puin reed en het politie bureau sloopte, waarbij destijds twee doden en enkele gewonden vielen.
Blablabla. Die moord op dat Pallestijnse jongetje was heel duidelijk moord, en dan is 6 maanden veel te weinig.
Dat is letterlijk voor 100% gelogen.
Wel heel erg hè, hoe komen ze daar nu weer bij.
Even googlen knuppelientje.
knuppeltje
16-07-09, 12:49
Even googlen knuppelientje.
Zeker, maar met al jouw gegochel kun jij geen enkele voorbeelden geven, google dus nog maar even verder.
Welke geruchten? En welke wet is er overtreden?
Geef daar eens een paar voorbeelden van en vertel me ook eens waarom ie in de Jeruzalem Post lange tijd een collum had?
Hoe het zo snel mogelijk met een sisser af kan lopen zeker.
Blablabla. Die moord op dat Pallestijnse jongetje was heel duidelijk moord, en dan is 6 maanden veel te weinig.
Jongens, na het mailtje ben ik chagrijnig en heb ik zeker geen zin in dat gezuig, getrek en gezeur van jullie.
Als jullie te beroerd zijn om iets uit te zoeken (al heb je een naam van een persoon) verwacht het dan zeker vandaag niet van mij.
Doe mij momenteel maar een bomgordeltje.
The_Grand_Wazoo
16-07-09, 13:04
Ach natuurlijk je woont in T.A. en heb natuurlijk persoonlijk gesproken met Richard Goldstone of trek jij zijn kwaliteit ook al in twijvel.
Natuurlijk net als deze oude man die samen met Mandela de apartheid op kaart zetten in Zuid Afrika en nu werkzaam is voor de VN en internationaal recht als jurist.
Ik heb geloof ik tegen IbnRushdd weken geleden al eens gezegt dat deze filmpjes op youtube en duistere stukjes nog eens gaan tegenwerken.
Tja en dan ben ik dom, nou als jullie dit onder dom verstaan laat mij dan aub dom zijn en blijven.
Een domoor bovendien met een talent voor het irrelevante en de non-sequitur.
Omdat ik weet dat jullie niet terug lezen, plaats ik het hier nogeens, het stukje zoals de Nederlandse krant het brengt.
door onze correspondent Ad Bloemendaal
TEL AVIV - Israël heeft genoeg van de niet aflatende kritiek van mensenrechtenorganisaties, zeker als het gaat om de oorlog in de Gazastrook. De critici kunnen zich opmaken voor harder weerwerk.
Alweer een rapport over de oorlog in Gaza. Een half jaar na afloop van de strijd kost het de Israëlische media duidelijk moeite nog warm te lopen voor een nieuwe brochure van de Israëlische organisatie Breaking the Silence (De Stilte doorbroken) met getuigenissen van ongeveer dertig anonieme soldaten over geweldsexcessen tijdens het Gaza-offiensief, begin dit jaar.
Het publiek heeft er genoeg van en dat geldt nog meer voor de overheid. De regering van premier Benjamin Netanyahu heeft deze week de oorlog verklaard aan non-gouvernementele organisaties (ngo's) als Breaking the Silence, die met geld uit het buitenland - Nederland is een van de donors - Israël aan de schandpaal nagelen.
Al in maart publiceerden Israëlische kranten verhalen van studenten die hadden meegevochten in Gaza. Hun 'getuigenissen' - over het neerschieten van weerloze burgers en vandalisme - gingen de hele wereld over, ook al berustte veel van wat ze vertelden op verklaringen van derden en geruchten.
In de maanden die volgden bracht iedere zichzelf respecterende ngo een rapport uit over Gaza. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International en het Rode Kruis behoorden tot de laatste. In september volgt nog een onderzoeksrapport van de VN-Raad voor de Mensenrechten (UNHCR), waaraan de voormalige Zuid-Afrikaanse rechter Richard Goldstone nog druk werkt. Israël heeft er bij voorbaat geen vertrouwen in en weigert iedere medewerking.
De indruk die na alle rapporten blijft hangen is in wezen dezelfde die oplettende waarnemers al hadden toen het Israëlische leger de Gazastrook binnentrok. De operatie was vooral een strafexpeditie, bedoeld om de Gazanen een lesje te leren, na acht jaar van raketbeschietingen door Hamas en andere organisaties. Het leger hanteerde daarbij een duidelijke formule: een minimaal aantal slachtoffers aan eigen kant door een maximaal gebruik van vuurkracht. ,,Ik heb het gevoel dat het leger een gelegenheid zocht om zijn kracht te tonen'', is het wat naïeve commentaar van een van de soldaten in het rapport van Breaking the Silence.
Een ander vertelt: ,,We kregen niet de instructie te schieten op alles wat bewoog. Maar er werd wel gezegd: schiet als je je bedreigd voelt.'' De soldaten maken ook melding van zinloze verwoestingen door gigantische D-9 bulldozers, maar net als bij eerdere gelegenheden is een deel van hun verhalen gebaseerd op 'van horen zeggen'.
Burgers
Dat er in de Gaza-expeditie niet meer slachtoffers onder burgers zijn gevallen (Palestijnse organisaties zeggen 925, het leger houdt het op 295) was te danken aan een uitgebreid Israëlisch waarschuwingssysteem, met onder meer pamfletten en telefoontjes.
Voor de rest was het lot van de burgerbevolking in handen van plaatselijke militaire commandanten. Dat pakte vaak goed uit, maar soms was de discipline ver te zoeken.
De soldaten die hun verhalen vertelden, deden dat anoniem. ,,Breaking the Silence moet getuigen aanmoedigen hun stilte te doorbreken en hun beweringen feitelijk te onderbouwen'', aldus het leger. Israëlische regeringen, en zeker die van Netanyahu, ervaren dit soort organisaties als een ernstig probleem. Volgens minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Avigdor Lieberman nemen ze steeds meer de plaats in van diplomaten als het gaat om het bepalen van de internationale agenda. Netanyahu's woordvoerder, Mark Regev, waarschuwt dat de rapporten van ngo's voortaan 'met een stofkam' zullen worden uitgekamd om 'alle tegenstrijdigheden' aan de kaak te stellen.
Bron: Nederlands Dagblad
Jongens, na het mailtje ben ik chagrijnig en heb ik zeker geen zin in dat gezuig, getrek en gezeur van jullie.
Als jullie te beroerd zijn om iets uit te zoeken (al heb je een naam van een persoon) verwacht het dan zeker vandaag niet van mij.
Doe mij momenteel maar een bomgordeltje.
Israël misbruikt breaking the silence als argument om de samenwerking op te zeggen, men zat te wachten op een smoes en zie daar hij dient zich aan.
Israël gebruikt een non-argument.
Als je niets te verbergen hebt en je neemt breaking the silence niet serieus, waarom zou je dan je meewerking opzeggen?
Israël misbruikt breaking the silence als argument om de samenwerking op te zeggen, men zat te wachten op een smoes en zie daar hij dient zich aan.
Israël gebruikt een non-argument.
Als je niets te verbergen hebt en je neemt breaking the silence niet serieus, waarom zou je dan je meewerking opzeggen?
Israel werkte zowiezo niet mee. Dat heeft sjonnie gewoon weer verzonnen.
Als jullie te beroerd zijn om iets uit te zoeken (al heb je een naam van een persoon) verwacht het dan zeker vandaag niet van mij.
Beetje fantasieloos dagje vandaag?
Beetje fantasieloos dagje vandaag?
Gisteren iets te lang doorgezakt.
Israël misbruikt breaking the silence als argument om de samenwerking op te zeggen, men zat te wachten op een smoes en zie daar hij dient zich aan.
Israël gebruikt een non-argument.
Als je niets te verbergen hebt en je neemt breaking the silence niet serieus, waarom zou je dan je meewerking opzeggen?
Waarom zouden ze de samenwerking ineens stoppen en waarom zouden ze geen medewerking willen geven aan een organisatie waar ze zelf lid van zijn?
Israel werkte zowiezo niet mee. Dat heeft sjonnie gewoon weer verzonnen.
En dat is drie, heb jij misschien een betrouwbare bron die dit vermeld zoals bijvoorbeeld de VN of het internationaal strafhof?
Beetje fantasieloos dagje vandaag?
Ja, ben depri :aanwal:
Gisteren iets te lang doorgezakt.
Was het maar waar, dan wist ik waar het van kwam :hihi:
Waarom zouden ze de samenwerking ineens stoppen en waarom zouden ze geen medewerking willen geven aan een organisatie waar ze zelf lid van zijn?
Iets te verbergen.
Iets te verbergen.
Waarom zouden ze iets willen verbergen wat al bekend is?
Laat me een kleine uitleg geven hoe de VN werkt in oorlogsgebieden.
Ten eerste heb je waarnemers logistiek en staf, die eerste zijn vaak mensen buiten het land zelf en logistiek en staf vaak uit mensen uit het land van herkomst.
Daarom heen zijn er ongeveer 750-1000 mensen die hand en spand diensten verlenen aan de VN of in opdracht van de VN (voedsel medici bouw etc.)
Zie het als een rimpel werking als je een steen in het water gooit en hoe verder de rimpels zijn hoe minder de waarde is van een getuige verklaring.
Maar zelfs een verklaring van bijvoorbeeld een vriend of kennis van iemand in de buitenste ring word net zo goed onderzocht op waarde als van iemand in de binnenste ring.
Met uitzondering van de waarnemers die als beedigd BOA een meerwaarde heeft.
Nu heeft bijvoorbeeld waarnemer A iets waargenomen wat niet in de haak (vliegtuig gooit fosphor granaten in woonwijk) is gaat op onderzoek uit vindt enkele getuigen neemt verklaringen op als bijzonder opsporings ambtenaar levert dit verslag in en wordt door waarnemer B een onderzoek ingesteld in bijvoorbeeld Israel, hoe wil dan dit land ontkennen als de feiten kloppen, immers vliegtuig type is bekend, tijdstip is bekend, radar beelden tonen vliegroute aan en er zijn getuige verklaringen.
Het enigste wat er dan ontbreekt is de gene die vloog en de persoon die opdracht gaf tot vrij vuren, dit laatste is makelijk te achterhalen met logboeken wachtstaten en lijsten voor munitie aanvoer.
Aan dit laatste heeft Israel sinds 2002 zijn medewerking verleent tot vandaag.
Maar als je de persoon hebt of personen ben je er nog niet want dan begint pas het echte onderzoek door juridische medewerkers van de VN, die deze personen verhoord en ten einde beslist of het een zaak is of niet.
Uitgaande van het beginpunt tot het einde komt slechts 0,3% tot een echte veroordeling en de rest komt vrij doordat het bewijs niet te leveren was of omdat de getuigen waren beinvloed door berichtgeving op internet waardoor de getuigen onbetrouwbaar werden.
Nee dan hoef jij je als land niet te verbergen en dat zal ook geen land doen fo het moet gaan om de top in een regering, zoals in Sudan of Iraq destijds.
En als je dan het bovenstaande leest en ziet hoeveel werk en tijd er word gestoken in een poging nog iets van recht te halen en dit ongedaan wordt gemaakt door een clubje knuppels die een boek willen promoten onder de mom van mensenrechten organisatie gaan mij de haren overeind staan.
Want tot op heden is het boek op internet niet te vinden of te koop en nog steeds maakt deze organisatie geen melding op hun eigen website over het verschijnen van dit boek of melding van oorlogsmisdaden in deze zaak.
Verder laat ook Israel steken vallen (of hebben ze twijvels) want hun site vermeld dat zij 31 leden hebben, wat mij dan makelijk lijkt om in een verhoor de waarheid boven tafel te krijgen.
En dat is drie, heb jij misschien een betrouwbare bron die dit vermeld zoals bijvoorbeeld de VN of het internationaal strafhof?
Mijn bron is Richard Goldstone.
Head of UN Cast Lead probe vows to try and ensure report will be balanced
The head of the UN fact-finding mission on Operation Cast Lead insists that he will do everything he can to ensure that the report will be balanced and fair.
In an interview with Channel 1 aired on Saturday, former South African judge and human rights expert Richard Goldstone said he had first refused the UN's offer to head the mission, but eventually agreed after the UN Human Rights Council president promised that the probe would be balanced.
He went on to say that the final report would relate to the capture of IDF soldier Gilad Schalit and his captors' refusal to reveal any information about his condition.
In answer to the question of why there was no UN probe into years of rocket attack on southern Israel, Goldstone said that the issue had been raised by non-governmental organizations, but that Israel itself had never asked the Security Council for such an investigation.
He said he had tried to convince Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to allow official Israeli cooperation with the UN mission, but that his requests had fallen on deaf ears.
The final UN report will be published at the end of September.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443777827&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
Waarom zouden ze iets willen verbergen wat al bekend is?
Waarom dan deze reactie van Israël?
Mijn bron is Richard Goldstone.
Head of UN Cast Lead probe vows to try and ensure report will be balanced
The head of the UN fact-finding mission on Operation Cast Lead insists that he will do everything he can to ensure that the report will be balanced and fair.
In an interview with Channel 1 aired on Saturday, former South African judge and human rights expert Richard Goldstone said he had first refused the UN's offer to head the mission, but eventually agreed after the UN Human Rights Council president promised that the probe would be balanced.
He went on to say that the final report would relate to the capture of IDF soldier Gilad Schalit and his captors' refusal to reveal any information about his condition.
In answer to the question of why there was no UN probe into years of rocket attack on southern Israel, Goldstone said that the issue had been raised by non-governmental organizations, but that Israel itself had never asked the Security Council for such an investigation.
He said he had tried to convince Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to allow official Israeli cooperation with the UN mission, but that his requests had fallen on deaf ears.
The final UN report will be published at the end of September.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443777827&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
Ok je hebt gelijk het staat er en ben je nou blij?
Waarom dan deze reactie van Israël?
Misschien een reactie op een actie, soms zijn landen net kleine kinderen en lijkt het internationaal debat op maroc.nl.
Dit is ook wel leuk om te weten.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124528343805525561.html
Human Rights Watch Goes to Saudi Arabia
Seeking Saudi Money to Counterbalance "Pro-Israel Pressure Groups"
BY DAVID BERNSTEIN
A delegation from Human Rights Watch was recently in Saudi Arabia. To investigate the mistreatment of women under Saudi Law? To campaign for the rights of homosexuals, subject to the death penalty in Saudi Arabia? To protest the lack of religious freedom in the Saudi Kingdom? To issue a report on Saudi political prisoners?
No, no, no, and no. The delegation arrived to raise money from wealthy Saudis by highlighting HRW's demonization of Israel. An HRW spokesperson, Sarah Leah Whitson, highlighted HRW's battles with "pro-Israel pressure groups in the US, the European Union and the United Nations." (Was Ms. Whitson required to wear a burkha, or are exceptions made for visiting anti-Israel "human rights" activists"? Driving a car, no doubt, was out of the question.)
Apparently, Ms. Whitson found no time to criticize Saudi Arabia's abysmal human rights record. But never fear, HRW "recently called on the Kingdom to do more to protect the human rights of domestic workers.
There is nothing wrong with a human rights organization worrying about maltreatment of domestic workers. But there is something wrong when a human rights organization goes to one of the worst countries in the world for human rights to raise money to wage lawfare against Israel, and says not a word during the trip about the status of human rights in that country. In fact, it's a virtual certainty that everyone in Whitson's audience employs domestic servants, giving her a perfect, untaken opportunity to boast about HRW's work in improving the servants' status. But Whitson wasn't raising money for human rights, she was raising money for HRW's propaganda campaign against Israel.
Someone who claims to have worked for HRW wrote to me, "I can tell you that the people on the research and policy side of the organization have little, if any, contacts with people on the donor side." If that's true, apparently this is yet another exception HRW makes for Israel: Ms. Whitson, who gave the presentation to potential Saudi donors, is director of HRW's Middle East and North Africa Division.
Also, as a Nathan Wagner comments at Opinio Juris: "Surely there is a moral difference between raising funds in free nations through appeals to ideals of universal human rights and raising money in repressive nations through appeals highlighting pressure brought against their enemies. [Moreover], the former type of fundraising does not imperil the organization's mission, but fundraising Bernstein highlights does, since any significant reliance on such funds will necessarily mute criticism of the repressive government."
Finally, some would defend HRW by pointing it that it has criticized Saudi Arabia's human rights record rather severely in the past. The point of my post, though, is not that HRW is pro-Saudi, but that it is maniacally anti-Israel. The most recent manifestation is that its officers see nothing unseemly about raising funds among the elite of one of the most totalitarian nations on earth, with a pitch about how the money is needed to fight "pro-Israel forces," without the felt need to discuss any of the Saudis' manifold human rights violations, and without apparent concern that becoming dependent on funds emanating from a brutal dictatorship leaves you vulnerable to that brutal dictatorship later cutting off the flow of funds, if you don't "behave."
Mr. Bernstein is a professor of law at George Mason University and the author of "You Can't Say That! The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Anti-Discrimination Laws." This article first appeared on the Volokh Conspiracy web site.
HRW? Exit.
Kom kom, iemand zal nu toch wel het beroemde boek wat een bestseller is gezien de wereldwijde reklame toch wel hebben gevonden?
Navraag bij de grootste boekenspecialist Bol.com, blijkt dat er vele boeken zijn met deze titel en zelfs eentje die is uitgebracht door een mensenrechten organisatie.
Maar helaas ook deze is het niet die ik volgens de link van bol.com kreeg.
http://www.bol.com/nl/p/boeken-engels/breaking-the-silence/1001004005052878/index.html
Zoeken jullie verder naar het enige bewijsmateriaal, die het verhaal enigsinds kan bewijzen???
knuppeltje
17-07-09, 09:21
soms zijn landen net kleine kinderen en lijkt het internationaal debat op maroc.nl.
Goed gezien jochie.
knuppeltje
17-07-09, 09:27
=John2;4023615]Waarom zouden ze de samenwerking ineens stoppen en waarom zouden ze geen medewerking willen geven aan een organisatie waar ze zelf lid van zijn?
Sinds wanneer hebben ze dat serieus gedaan?
En dat is drie, heb jij misschien een betrouwbare bron die dit vermeld zoals bijvoorbeeld de VN of het internationaal strafhof?
Het Strafhof, dat erkennen ze in Israël niet eens
Was het maar waar, dan wist ik waar het van kwam
De vraag is: wat weet jij eigenlijk wel?
http://www.nationalpost.com/related/...id=1799595&p=2
A case study in UN hypocrisy
Hillel Neuer And Marissa Cramer, National Post Published: Friday, July 17, 2009
Justice Richard Goldstone Fabrice Coffrini, AFP, Getty Images Justice Richard Goldstone
Last week, not for the first time, the world witnessed state-sanctioned violence against protesters in Iran and China. Yet the United Nations was instead focused on Israel, due to unprecedented hearings held by a UN inquiry into the Gaza conflict of six months ago. This was precisely the goal of the body that organized the inquiry, the discredited UN Human Rights Council.
The inquiry's lead investigator is former international prosecutor Justice Richard Goldstone. From the beginning, the terms of his mandate have been unclear. The original council resolution in January began by finding Israel guilty of "massive violations," and then created a "fact-finding mission" to support its pre-determined conclusion. At the Human Rights Council, where tyrannies are the majority, such upside-down justice is the norm.
Goldstone, however, claims that he accepted the task -- which had been rejected by former UN rights chief Mary Robinson -- only after the council president expanded the examination to include both sides. In contrast to the original mandate, Goldstone speaks only of "alleged" violations. In other words, he is trying to conduct a genuine inquiry despite having been appointed to a farcical one. It's a tricky feat.
When the inquiry last week invited not only Palestinians to speak, but Israeli victims as well, Goldstone introduced something new to the UN. He deserves particular credit for inviting Noam Shalit, father of abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, held incommunicado by Hamas since 2006, and denied access to the Red Cross.
Yet whatever balance Goldstone may bring, the inherent problem with his mission is that it plays into the collective strategy of the council's repressive regimes, which is to cover up abuses in places such as Iran, China, Pakistan, Russia, Egypt and Zimbabwe -- all ignored this year -- and instead shine a permanent spotlight on Israel.
Consider the council's sense of "proportionality": More than three-quarters of all its condemnatory resolutions have been against one country -- Israel -- as well as five out of its nine emergency sessions on country situations. As a permanent feature of every regular session, it has one agenda item for violations around the world, and another specifically on Israel. Except for a handful of censures of North Korea and Burma, the world body has virtually ignored the UN's 191 other member states.
But didn't the council in May hold a session on Sri Lanka? Yes, but one that actually praised the government, instead of holding it accountable. Comparing the UN session on Sri Lanka with the January session against Israel, the one that created Goldstone's mission, is illustrative of the double standards the plague the 47-nation council.
At first glance, the conflicts this year in Israel and Sri Lanka appear similar. In the backdrop of territorial disputes, both countries fought terrorist groups that target civilians and use them as human shields, and in both cases, innocent civilians became casualties.
But if one examines their actual conduct, the two cases are different.
First, according to the Times of London, the death toll of civilians in Sri Lanka is more than 20,000. By contrast, even according to Palestinian figures, the toll in Gaza was approximately 1,000 -- meaning that Sri Lanka killed over 20 times more civilians.
Second, Israel undertook extensive measures to prevent harming civilians while fighting in a densely-populated region, using leaflets and personal telephone calls to warn civilians to seek shelter. According to British Colonel Richard Kemp, no military in history had ever taken greater precautions. Sri Lanka, by contrast, never claimed to do any of this. And while Israel made humanitarian pauses every day, Sri Lanka failed to do so, and shelled civilians trapped in its self-proclaimed "no-fire zones."
Third, while Sri Lanka cracked down on journalists and doctors who dared to publicize the government's actions against civilians, Israel tolerated vehement criticism every day in newspapers, the Knesset and from pro-Palestinian NGOs.
In sum, the war-time actions by Sri Lanka were far worse than Israel's. Yet at the council, it was Israel that got slammed and Sri Lanka praised.
Though a minority of well-intended democracies forced the council to debate Sri Lanka, the repressive majority determined the outcome. With no shame, they adopted a resolution written by Sri Lanka itself, lauding "the continued commitment of Sri Lanka to the promotion and protection of all human rights." Despite calls for an inquiry into violations by High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, Sri Lanka was completely left off the hook.
The lesson from the Sri Lanka session should not go ignored by Justice Goldstone: The road to harmful council resolutions is paved with good intentions.
Even if his mission presents a somewhat balanced report -- and that does not mean equating a terrorist group that deliberately targets civilians with a democracy that seeks to defend itself while avoiding such casualties -- it is unclear what the council would do with it. Nothing will prevent the majority of Islamic states and their allies from endorsing the inevitable sections on Israeli criminality while ignoring the rest.
One thing is certain: Justice Goldstone's mission has already served the council's rulers by keeping the spotlight where they want it, and by lending the wayward institution, and particularly its handling of Israel, a credibility it most assuredly does not deserve. - Hillel Neuer is executive director of UN Watch, and Marissa Cramer is a Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fellow at UN Watch. www.unwatch.org
Hier is het raport:
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/8632640/BreakingTheSilenceEnglishOperationCastLead
Hier is het raport:
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/8632640/BreakingTheSilenceEnglishOperationCastLead
Je wilt deze presentatie toch geen raport noemen?
Waar zijn de data's, waar zijn de plaatsen delict, waar is de informatie over eenheden, waar is het eventueel bewijs, etc. etc. etc.
De opsommingen van feiten die ik lees in dit 112 pagina's groot stuk die zij een raport noemen lees ik alleen woorden zoals gehoord van, vermoeden van, gezien door "iemand".
Verder zie ik geen verwijzingen naar enig foto of film materiaal (youtube staat er vol mee), verder mis ik iedere vorm van verwijzing van documentatie en of bron.
De enigste bronnen waar deze organisatie (die zegt onafhankelijk te zijn) naar verwijst is waar ze hun geld vandaan halen, zoals Nederland, de EU, enz.
Verder heeft dit "raport" geen enkele toegevoegde waarde, zelfs geen historische.
Hier is het raport:
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/8632640/BreakingTheSilenceEnglishOperationCastLead
Inderdaad, flinterdun.
knuppeltje
22-07-09, 11:08
Waar zijn de data's, waar zijn de plaatsen delict, waar is de informatie over eenheden, waar is het eventueel bewijs, etc. etc. etc..
Groot gelijk Sjonny. Die klootzakken hadden minstens de namen en adressen van die zogenaamde slachtoffers moeten geven, en de straatnamen en huisnummers van al die in puin geschoten huizen moeten vermelden. Zo deugt er geen snars van natuurlijk.
Groot gelijk Sjonny. Die klootzakken hadden minstens de namen en adressen van die zogenaamde slachtoffers moeten geven, en de straatnamen en huisnummers van al die in puin geschoten huizen moeten vermelden. Zo deugt er geen snars van natuurlijk.
Je kunt echt niet zo maar alles geloven, vooral in dit conflict niet, zoals inmiddels overduidelijk is aangetoond.
Groot gelijk Sjonny. Die klootzakken hadden minstens de namen en adressen van die zogenaamde slachtoffers moeten geven, en de straatnamen en huisnummers van al die in puin geschoten huizen moeten vermelden. Zo deugt er geen snars van natuurlijk.
Inderdaad knuppeltje, inderdaad.
Je kunt je als mensenrechten organisatie niet zelf schuldig gaan maken door mensen te beschuldigen zonder enige grond.
En een rapport moet minstens te controleren zijn door bevoegde instantie's en dit vodje is nergens op te controleren.
En een rapport moet minstens te controleren zijn door bevoegde instantie's .
:argwaan: En wie zijn er dan bevoegd?
Tis jammer, maar in Israel als je naar buiten komt met dergelijk materiaal word je leven in het leger onmogelijk gemaakt. Vandaar dat de soldaten anoniem willen blijven. Maar goed nu hebben we dus mensenrechten organisaties zoals HRW en Amnesty, voldoende getuigen aan de palestijnse kant en zelfs Israelische soldaten die liegen volgens het meeste morale leger van de wereld.
Tis jammer, maar in Israel als je naar buiten komt met dergelijk materiaal word je leven in het leger onmogelijk gemaakt. Vandaar dat de soldaten anoniem willen blijven. Maar goed nu hebben we dus mensenrechten organisaties zoals HRW en Amnesty, voldoende getuigen aan de palestijnse kant en zelfs Israelische soldaten die liegen volgens het meeste morale leger van de wereld.
Wat dacht jij anders dan als je aankomt met "van horen zeggen verhalen"? Wat weet jij nou van het leger? Ook "van horen zeggen"? Je luistert geen tel naar wat de bezwaren op dit "rapport" zijn. Maar ik begrijp dat dat er niet toe doet bij jou.
Wat dacht jij anders dan als je aankomt met "van horen zeggen verhalen"? Wat weet jij nou van het leger? Ook "van horen zeggen"? Je luistert geen tel naar wat de bezwaren op dit "rapport" zijn. Maar ik begrijp dat dat er niet toe doet bij jou.
Volgens de legerleiding zijn het "van horen zeggen verhalen". Maar goed ik begrijp dat jij blindelings de leger leiding van het IDF (het meeste morale en vooral minst corrupte legerleiding van de wereld) gelooft.
:argwaan: En wie zijn er dan bevoegd?
Hou jij je nu ineens dom Joesoef?
Ik neem aan dat als je als mensenrechten organisatie een raport opmaakt dat je deze maakt met de bedoeling de schuldigen te vervolgen en daarom zou het logisch zijn dat daar waar deze personen worden aangeklaagd , personen inzage krijgen in de stukken en het bewijsmateriaal.
Normaal zou ik zeggen als ze deze stukken inleveren bij de mensenrechten organisatie van de VN, maar die accepteren geen stukken meer van deze organisatie door eerdere leugen na ik begrepen had, ook het internationaal gerechtshof heeft weinig zin, omdat dan de VN het uitvoerende orgaan zou zijn.
De enigste mogelijkheid is om het aan te kaarten bij het Rode Kruis/ Halve Maan, maar dan wel met een uitgebreid raport en geen vodje zoals deze staat op de site.
Verder betwijvel ik of dit raport authentiek, omdat ik denk dat bij deze organisatie's ook wel advocaten of kandidaat advocaten werken die zeker moeten weten aan welke voorwaarden een raport moet voldoen en wat er als bewijsmateriaal kan worden aangedragen.
Tis jammer, maar in Israel als je naar buiten komt met dergelijk materiaal word je leven in het leger onmogelijk gemaakt. Vandaar dat de soldaten anoniem willen blijven. Maar goed nu hebben we dus mensenrechten organisaties zoals HRW en Amnesty, voldoende getuigen aan de palestijnse kant en zelfs Israelische soldaten die liegen volgens het meeste morale leger van de wereld.
Volgens de legerleiding zijn het "van horen zeggen verhalen". Maar goed ik begrijp dat jij blindelings de leger leiding van het IDF (het meeste morale en vooral minst corrupte legerleiding van de wereld) gelooft.
Één vraag Spoetnik, heb jij het raport gelezen en zo ja mag ik dan van jou weten wat jou persoonlijke indruk is van dit raport als je ook wel eens een raport heb gelezen ongeacht waarover het gaat.
Ik heb behalve de namen van de sponsors verder geen directe aanwijzingen of verwijzingen kunnen vinden dan de Palestijnse bevolking en anonime soldaten, waarbij dan ook nog wordt geput uit het horen zeggen.
Stel jij moet een evaluatie raport maken van een werknemer en je hebt zijn auto zien staan in Amsterdam, is dan deze werknemer in jou raportage een hoeren loper?
Verder ben ik het met jou eens dat bij het IDF net als bij andere leger eenheden tegenwoordig een klimaat heerst van horen zien en zwijgen, maar dit is niet iets van de laatste jaren dit is al eeuwen het geval en zal bij Israel niet anders wezen.
Één vraag Spoetnik, heb jij het raport gelezen en zo ja mag ik dan van jou weten wat jou persoonlijke indruk is van dit raport als je ook wel eens een raport heb gelezen ongeacht waarover het gaat..
Het zijn getuige verklaringing Sjonnie, niets meer, niets minder. Als je denkt dat het IDF ooit iets zal onderzoeken, dan moet je wel een enorme fantast zijn. Owja dat ben jij, was ik even vergeten.
Het zijn getuige verklaringing Sjonnie, niets meer, niets minder. Als je denkt dat het IDF ooit iets zal onderzoeken, dan moet je wel een enorme fantast zijn. Owja dat ben jij, was ik even vergeten.
Getuige verklaringen, van wie, van wat, van waar Spoetnik, dit vind ik namelijk niet terug in de documentatie dan alleen een sumile uitdrukking van Palestijnse burgers en militairen die beiden anoniem hun verhaal vertellen aan deze schrijfster.
Natuurlijk zal er een kern van waarheid inzitten, maar hoe wil je deze waarheden eruit halen indien er geen bronnen zijn en tot op heden hun eigen internet site nog steeds geen melding heeft gemaakt, geen link, geen verwijzing, geen foto's, geen ondertekende getuigenverklaring.
Ik weet niet wat voor een werkzaamheden jij doet, maar als jij een leidinggevende functie bezit, zou jij een werknemer veroordelen op anonime verklaringen, ik denk dat jij net als ik het ter kennis zou nemen en het zou vergelijken met de gegevens die jij reeds bezit en daarmee is de kous af.
Immers ook jij weet dat geen rechtbank iemand zal veroordelen op vermoedens of anonime getuigen.
Al met al had het rapport van zoveel pagina's een beter lot verdiend dan wat het nu krijgt, want nu krijgt het alle schijn van waarheid tegen wat de zaak voor de palestijnen niet veel goeds zal doen, integendeel.
Volgens de legerleiding zijn het "van horen zeggen verhalen". Maar goed ik begrijp dat jij blindelings de leger leiding van het IDF (het meeste morale en vooral minst corrupte legerleiding van de wereld) gelooft.
Bla bla bla... kom eens met echte feiten over dit onderwerp. Snap je niet dat deze zaak rammelt tot en met? Niks gelul over mijn "blindelings vertrouwen in de IDF". Ik ken het leger van Israel in en uit. Directe contacten en jij? Gebla over "van horen zeggen". Lijkt het niveau van de Telegraaf wel.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjNkYzBhMWNjZTNhZmY3ZDc3N2FhM2ViMzE5ODQ3ZWE=&w=MA==
July 21, 2009 4:00 AM
From Gulag Liberators to Saudi Retainers
Human Rights Watch has betrayed its original mission.
By Gerald M. Steinberg
Human Rights Watch was founded in 1978 in New York (as Helsinki Watch) with the mission of using public demonstrations and other forms of “naming and shaming” to free prisoners of conscience in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Many Gulag denizens, including Anatoly (now Natan) Sharansky, later recognized HRW’s role in gaining their freedom. Shortly thereafter HRW began advocating on behalf of political prisoners and torture victims in other totalitarian regimes, including in Chile, Argentina, and Greece.
But since then, HRW has lost its moral compass, and the organization is using its substantial budget ($42 million in 2008) to repeatedly attack Israel by exploiting the language of human rights and international law. Tendentious reports and press conferences, using distorted legal rhetoric in place of credible evidence, target Israeli responses to terror attacks from Arafat, Hamas, and Hezbollah.
My organization, NGO Monitor, annually releases a systematic analysis of HRW’s agenda, and our reports clearly show that HRW singles out Israel in the Middle East. For years, this arbiter of international morality and human rights had very little to say about Libya, Saudi Arabia, or Palestinian terrorists. HRW’s recent cautious criticism of Saudi policy came only after a reorganization of the organization’s board — and then only after receiving unwelcome attention for its see-no-evil treatment of the Kingdom. In May 2009, Arab News reported that HRW officials went to Saudi Arabia to raise funds, advertising the numerous condemnations and pseudo-research reports against Israel in the Gaza war. Some of the founders, including Robert Bernstein, are in strong disagreement with the organization they built.
How and why did this human-rights superpower turn into a major Israel-basher, along with London-based Amnesty International (which began with a similar mission at about the same time)? And why do such groups appear to be credible and moral — if not as vocal — only when it comes to human-rights violations outside the Middle East, such as those in China?
Part of the answer is the addiction to the influence, power, and money that lies just below the moral façade. The collapse of the Soviet empire forced groups like HRW to create new objectives if they wanted to keep the donations coming (and they succeeded; HRW executive director Ken Roth has a $350,000 salary package). The struggle against South African apartheid was but a short-lived substitute.
HRW and Amnesty transformed from human rights groups to “research organizations,” claiming expertise in the complexities of international law and armed conflict. They added a few self-proclaimed experts in these fields, and began producing impressive-looking battlefield reports based on unverifiable “eyewitness testimony” and emotive graphics. The Arab-Israeli conflict was a prime target — and HRW’s agenda fit directly into the Palestinian political strategy of isolating and demonizing Israel through the vocabulary of human rights.
The campaign to label Zionism as racism, endorsed by the U.N. in the mid-1970s, returned in the late 1990s as the Oslo process exploded, giving the NGO network a powerful platform. For the Arabs and Iran, anti-Israel NGO activists who labeled Zionism as “neo-colonialism” and the “new apartheid” became convenient allies. Double standards promoting anti-Israel positions provided direct access to the United Nations Human Rights Commission (now Council), led by moral stalwarts such as Iran, Libya, Pakistan, and Cuba. In every round of violence, including the 2002 Jenin “massacre” myth, the 2006 Lebanon war, and numerous others, HRW officials called for international investigations of Israeli “war crimes” and “violations of international law.” Meanwhile, HRW’s annual income grew as fast as Bernie Madoff’s balance sheets.
Most recently, during the Gaza war, the U.N. Human Rights Council appointed HRW board member Richard Goldstone to head the inquisition. This highlighted the symbiotic relationship between powerful political NGOs and the anti-Western and anti-Israel regimes that control the relevant U.N. frameworks. And as a U.S.-based NGO with many Jewish donors, HRW was a welcome ally in Israel-bashing. (Goldstone resigned from HRW, and his name was quickly removed from the website, after NGO Monitor highlighted the conflict of interest.)
Because the U.N. amplifies the role of NGOs, these organizations receive enhanced media coverage and exercise “soft power.” Journalists usually accept and repeat the obsessions and automatic condemnations published by human-rights superpowers, without bothering to check the “evidence” presented. And this media attention, in turn, helps the top NGOs get more money from foundations promoting radical agendas (like George Soros’s Open Society Institute, and the Ford Foundation), naïve donors, and now, perhaps, the Saudis. (HRW has also established a relationship with Qaddafi in Libya, praising the “spirit of reform.”)
But power and money are only part of the explanation for the radical political agenda. HRW, like other once-liberal organizations, has been captured by activists with anti-democratic ideologies, strong egos, and major chips on their shoulders. Following Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, Joseph Massad, and others, the NGO world is filled with anti-nationalists and anarchists who define military power as inherently evil and victimhood as moral, regardless of context or behavior. Thus, an Israel that can defend itself is on the bad side of the moral ledger, along with the United States; Palestinians — the world’s most successful victims — are patronizingly excused from all responsibility to act morally.
Another factor in HRW’s disproportionate emphasis on Israel is the number of anti-Israel Jews among its top officials, beginning with Executive Director Kenneth Roth. Roth has often held press conferences in Jerusalem’s American Colony Hotel, home base for the pro-Palestinian media, in order to attack Israel. As suicide bombers were slaughtering hundreds of Israelis, Roth’s solution was to call for sending police into Gaza’s slums to arrest the perpetrators and bring them to trial. In 2006, Roth condemned Israel’s response to Hezbollah rocket attacks and kidnapping of soldiers as an “eye for an eye” approach resulting from “the morality of some more primitive moment.”
Reed Brody, another Jew, led the HRW delegation to the infamous 2001 NGO Forum of the U.N. Durban Conference, which labeled Israel “an apartheid state.” Brody was also active in the case brought against Prime Minister Sharon in a Belgium court while hundreds of Israelis were being killed in Arafat’s terror campaign.
For many years, HRW’s founders and board members paid little attention to these dimensions, relying instead on Roth’s cool assurances, stage presence from the NPR studios to the salons of Davos, and unprecedented fundraising success. Some minor obsessions over Israel could be overlooked when measured against HRW’s status as an NGO superpower and moral arbiter.
But now the façade is thinning, and HRW has become a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia, one of the top human-rights abusers in the world. According to Arab News, Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of HRW’s Middle East and North Africa (MENA) division, and Hassan Elmasry, a member of both the HRW Board of Directors and the MENA advisory committee, attended a “welcoming dinner” and encouraged “prominent members of Saudi society” to make up the “shortage of funds” due to the global financial crisis “and the work on Israel and Gaza, which depleted HRW’s budget for the region.” Whitson has reportedly sought to reel in the Saudis by touting HRW’s (invented) “evidence of Israel using white phosphorus and launching systematic destructive attacks on civilian targets,” and by invoking the “pro-Israel pressure groups” that “strongly resisted the report and tried to discredit it.”
In response to extensive ridicule, Whitson and Roth lashed out at their critics (they accused NGO Monitor of lying), but they have not offered any details to contradict this version of events or the systematic analysis exposing HRW’s targeting of Israel. They have also tried to sell a distinction between soliciting the Saudi regime for money, and wooing wealthy private individuals and Wahhabi religious officials in Saudi Arabia who, we are assured, are genuinely concerned about human rights. Right.
In terms of its budget and ideological agenda, HRW’s embrace of the Saudis makes sense, because it can compensate for the group’s loss of support from liberal Jews. In addition, this new partnership is based on a shared agenda of attacking Israel and the legitimacy of a Jewish nation-state — while more than 50 officially Islamic countries are universally accepted.
But as a result, HRW’s halo has been tarnished, perhaps beyond repair. The long history of cynical manipulation of moral rhetoric notwithstanding, the absurdity of a Saudi-supported human-rights organization that targets Israel may be a step too far. For the first time, Roth and Whitson find themselves being held accountable and answering charges, rather than playing prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner. If this also becomes true of Amnesty International and the other human-rights superpowers that have gone bad, this will mark a major step in restoring the moral foundation of universal human rights.
— Prof. Gerald Steinberg is executive director of NGO Monitor and chair of political science at Bar Ilan University.
HRW ? = exit.
Getuige verklaringen, van wie, van wat, van waar Spoetnik, dit vind ik namelijk niet terug in de documentatie dan alleen een sumile uitdrukking van Palestijnse burgers en militairen die beiden anoniem hun verhaal vertellen aan deze schrijfster.
Zoals ik al eerder zei, in Israel is het helaas niet meer mogelijk om als soldaat naar buiten te komen met verklaring. Zijn leven in het IDF wordt dan onmogelijk gemaakt.
Natuurlijk zal er een kern van waarheid inzitten, maar hoe wil je deze waarheden eruit halen indien er geen bronnen zijn en tot op heden hun eigen internet site nog steeds geen melding heeft gemaakt, geen link, geen verwijzing, geen foto's, geen ondertekende getuigenverklaring.
Waarom zou het uberhaupt tot een veroordeling komen? De methodes toegepast zijn door de hoogste leger leiding toegestaan en zelfs aangemoedigd. De reden dat de Israelische regering en het IDF dit soort verklaring niet wil zien is dat het slecht is voor het imago.
Ik weet niet wat voor een werkzaamheden jij doet, maar als jij een leidinggevende functie bezit, zou jij een werknemer veroordelen op anonime verklaringen, ik denk dat jij net als ik het ter kennis zou nemen en het zou vergelijken met de gegevens die jij reeds bezit en daarmee is de kous af.
Immers ook jij weet dat geen rechtbank iemand zal veroordelen op vermoedens of anonime getuigen.
Wie heeft het over voordelingen? Niemand toch. Israels imago is het probleem. De strafexpeditie in Gaza was gericht tegen de Palestijnse bevolking en dit soort getuige verklaringen maken dat duidelijk.
Al met al had het rapport van zoveel pagina's een beter lot verdiend dan wat het nu krijgt, want nu krijgt het alle schijn van waarheid tegen wat de zaak voor de palestijnen niet veel goeds zal doen, integendeel.
Je doet alsof de organisatie claimt dat dit een officieel raport is waarmee mensen kunnen veroordeeld worden. Integendeel, BreakingTheSilence heeft tot doel om de stilte te doorbreken. De strafexpeditie in Gaza is hier namelijk alweer verre geschiedenis.
Bla bla bla... kom eens met echte feiten over dit onderwerp. Snap je niet dat deze zaak rammelt tot en met? Niks gelul over mijn "blindelings vertrouwen in de IDF". Ik ken het leger van Israel in en uit. Directe contacten en jij? Gebla over "van horen zeggen". Lijkt het niveau van de Telegraaf wel.
Oh jij bent nu sjonnie de tweede, in en uit. Het zijn getuige verklaringen van soldaten die anoniem willen blijven, uit vrees voor de legerleiding. Niks geen "van horen zeggen", het was de legerleiding die deze verklaringen zo kwalificeert, ze moeten toch iets verzinnen...
Dit raport is precies wat ardente zionisten vrezen, het schijnt licht waar het heel donker is. Daar hebben mensen als jou geen verdediging voor, dus dan moeten de mensen die het zeggen maar zwart worden gemaakt. Jij noemt IDF soldaten leugenaars, precies dezelfde mensen die dit land en familie van jou verdedigen.. Dat noem ik laf.
Authors Oz, Grossman sign petition calling for external probe of Gaza op
A week after activist group "Breaking the Silence" published testimonies of IDF soldiers who said they were urged by commanders to shoot first and worry later about sorting out civilians from combatants, the Rabbis for Human Rights organization called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak to launch an external investigation into the army's conduct during the recent offensive in Gaza.
"Since February our organization, along with a number of other human rights groups, turned to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz a number of times and asked that he order an investigation (into the Gaza op)," said Rabbis for Human Rights Director Rabbi Arik Asherman on Tuesday.
"We regret that he chose not to do so while claiming that the military probes were sufficient."
The petition was also signed by authors Amos Oz and David Grossman, as well as by former leftist Knesset members Shulamit Aloni, Yossi Sarid and Naomi Chazan.
"There is no doubt that we have a right to defend ourselves, and there is no country in the world that would allow rocket attacks on its civilian population if it had the power to prevent them. We hoped the soldiers' testimonies would stir existential feelings (among Israelis) in the face of the military's denial," Rabbi Asherman said.
According to him, "there is no doubt that some of the soldiers who had testified were afraid to reveal their identity to the army, but 'Breaking the Silence' has already announced that it would ask the witnesses to reveal their identity in case an independent investigation is launched.
"They have all of the names and details; there's no censorship or anything of that nature; it's just a matter of preventing acts of revenge by certain elements," he said.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3750232,00.html
Oh jij bent nu sjonnie de tweede, in en uit. Het zijn getuige verklaringen van soldaten die anoniem willen blijven, uit vrees voor de legerleiding. Niks geen "van horen zeggen", het was de legerleiding die deze verklaringen zo kwalificeert, ze moeten toch iets verzinnen...
Dit raport is precies wat ardente zionisten vrezen, het schijnt licht waar het heel donker is. Daar hebben mensen als jou geen verdediging voor, dus dan moeten de mensen die het zeggen maar zwart worden gemaakt. Jij noemt IDF soldaten leugenaars, precies dezelfde mensen die dit land en familie van jou verdedigen.. Dat noem ik laf.
Oh...gaan we op die toer? Pure onzin wat je hier allemaal neerkalkt. Zulk een algemeen geblabla en nog steed gebaseerd op "van horen zeggen" en suggestieve denkbeelden. Kom eens met wat feiten ipv sissy-talk. Weet jij niet wat "van horen zeggen" betekent? Niks legerleiding. Ik kan wel 50 soldaten laten verklaren dat het tegenovergestelde was dan dat deze "van horen zeggen" beweren maar dat kwalificeer je in je onwetendheid en vooroordelende gedachte toch onwaar. Je maakt gebruik de apathie die er al heerdt en dat moet dan wel overtuigend zijn. Kom op zeg. En dan probeer je je vuile suggestieve manier van redeneren nog maals door te stellen dat ik "IDF soldaten" leugenaars noem? Ik ken er meer dan jij blijkt wel en ik heb het hier over "van horen zeggen" IDF soldaten...als ze ook werkelijk soldaten waren en niet een of andere kantoorpik in legeruniform, een zg jobnik. Je bent hondengedrag in je discussie-voeren aan het introduceren...."precies dezelfde mensen die dit land en familie van jou verdedigen". Ben je helemaal gek geworden? Pis maar in het wilde weg.
Authors Oz, Grossman sign petition calling for external probe of Gaza op
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3750232,00.html
Zijn dat nu de animeermeisjes in gogo-tenue die het geheel opluisteren? Wat een slappe hap.
deze "van horen zeggen" beweren
Dat stel jij, maar is niet zo. Deze soldaten hebben gediend tijdens in Gaza strafexpeditie in Gaza. Soldaten die dit land verdediging. En jij noemt ze leugenaars dat is pas vuil.
Zijn dat nu de animeermeisjes in gogo-tenue die het geheel opluisteren? Wat een slappe hap.
Ze vragen om een openbaar onderzoek en aangezien jij wel 50 soldaten kent die het tegendeel kunnen beweren lijkt het mij een goede zaak om dat onderzoek uit te voeren. Licht in de duisternis.
Dat stel jij, maar is niet zo. Deze soldaten hebben gediend tijdens in Gaza strafexpeditie in Gaza. Soldaten die dit land verdediging. En jij noemt ze leugenaars dat is pas vuil.
En dat jij dat niet stelt is dat dan meteen waar? Waar praat je over? Het is overduidelijk dat zij er zelf niet aanwezig waren. Dienen...ja aardappels koken is ook in de IDF dienen. Op de volgende site zijn tientallen met precies een tegenover gestelde verklaring. Die liegen allemaal. Zo kan ik er nog eens 20 erbij opvoeren uit eerste hand die er wel zijn geweest. Jij bent een leugenaar en pure manipulator. Dat het IDF nog eens jouw kloten zitten te beschermen daar in Tel Aviv.
http://www.soldiersspeakout.com/
Ze vragen om een openbaar onderzoek en aangezien jij wel 50 soldaten kent die het tegendeel kunnen beweren lijkt het mij een goede zaak om dat onderzoek uit te voeren. Licht in de duisternis.
http://www.soldiersspeakout.com/
Maar volgens de gogo-danseresjes zijn het natuurlijk gemanipuleerde scheiterds bang voor sancties. Hoepel op.
=Spoetnik;4027024]Zoals ik al eerder zei, in Israel is het helaas niet meer mogelijk om als soldaat naar buiten te komen met verklaring. Zijn leven in het IDF wordt dan onmogelijk gemaakt.
Klinklare onzin Spoetnik, ook Israel is aangesloten bij de VN/UN en ieder soldaat weet dat hij ten alle tijden een verklaring kan afleggen omtrend gedrag bij ieder willekeurig consulaat die de VN zal inlichten, ook weet iedere soldaat/militair het hoofdgebouw te vinden in welk land dan ook.
En sommige soldaten weten ook deze mensen binnen de VN te bereiken waardoor er een stroom op gang komt en bewijs materiaal valt te vergaren.
Waarom zou het uberhaupt tot een veroordeling komen? De methodes toegepast zijn door de hoogste leger leiding toegestaan en zelfs aangemoedigd. De reden dat de Israelische regering en het IDF dit soort verklaring niet wil zien is dat het slecht is voor het imago.
Als er voldoende bewijs is en het tot een rechtzaak kan komen is Israel dit verplicht volgens internationaal recht, zou Israel hieraan niet voldoen zou deze gene kunnen worden vervolgd door ICJ.
Dat een regering een fout van het leger niet zou willen toegeven is onzin, maar dan moet je wel met feiten komen en niet met zo'n lullig vodje wat er nu op tafel ligt en alleen maar wrijving geeft bij alle partijen die in het geding zijn.
Wie heeft het over voordelingen? Niemand toch. Israels imago is het probleem. De strafexpeditie in Gaza was gericht tegen de Palestijnse bevolking en dit soort getuige verklaringen maken dat duidelijk.
Onzin wederom, de inval in Gaza gebeurde helemaal volgens artikel 49 van het internationaal recht waarbij Israel als bezettende macht verantwoordelijk is voor de orde.
Daar er dagelijks raket aanvallen waren is deze aanval tot stand gekomen.
Je doet alsof de organisatie claimt dat dit een officieel raport is waarmee mensen kunnen veroordeeld worden. Integendeel, BreakingTheSilence heeft tot doel om de stilte te doorbreken. De strafexpeditie in Gaza is hier namelijk alweer verre geschiedenis.
Wederom onzin, iedereen weet wat er gebeurde in deze strijd, de toevoeging van deze organisatie was dus overbodig geweest.
Verder stel je een raport op om er iets mee te willen doen, ander noem je het een persbericht en geen raport van een "mensenrechten clubje" die nog kant nog wal raakt en zelf met dit rapport zelf de rechten met voeten treedt.
Ze vragen om een openbaar onderzoek en aangezien jij wel 50 soldaten kent die het tegendeel kunnen beweren lijkt het mij een goede zaak om dat onderzoek uit te voeren. Licht in de duisternis.
"Zij"? Wie zij? Die gogo-danseresjes? Rabbijn Arik Asherman van Rabbis for Human Rights bood de petitie aan. Zij ondertekend het alleen en doen vanuit hun eigen positie er beter aan een Asa Kasher te lezen.
Operation Cast Lead and the Ethics of Just War
By Asa Kasher
Editor’s Note:
On Saturday, December 27, 2008, after eight years of continuing rocket attacks on its territory by Islamic terrorist organizations, Israel launched a full-scale military operation against the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip. Officially named Operation Cast Lead, it began with massive air-strikes against Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets, and continued with a ground incursion in which thousands of Israeli soldiers participated. After twenty-two days of fighting, Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire, which became effective on January 18, 2009.
While the political and military achievements of the operation are contested, the damage it left in its wake is undisputed. Ten Israeli soldiers and three Israeli civilians were killed. Due to the asymmetry of forces, the Palestinian side sustained especially heavy casualties: According to Palestinian sources in the Gaza Strip (whose credibility, it must be noted, is questionable), more than one thousand people were killed and much of Gaza’s infrastructure was destroyed. Humanitarian relief agencies estimate that nearly 100,000 Palestinians were left homeless.
The destruction caused by the Gaza operation, as well as the disturbing pictures of it broadcast around the world, incited violent international protest and a public debate within Israel itself. The most outspoken critics of the operation accused the Jewish state of engaging in excessive and indiscriminate aggression, as well as committing war crimes against the Palestinians. More moderate commentators questioned the necessity of some of the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) actions during the fighting, and wondered whether the operation could have been brought to a close without causing such widespread carnage.
Though understandable and perhaps inevitable, this heated debate is unfortunately founded, in most cases, on insufficient and flawed information, semantic confusion, and the misuse of moral principles. The main purpose of this article, written by one of Israel’s leading philosophers, is to try to deal with some of these shortcomings. At the very least, it points us toward the proper moral, ethical, and legal standards by which the Gaza operation should be evaluated.
***
A properly functioning state should plan its actions carefully, execute them appropriately, and examine them scrupulously afterwards. A military operation is an important and complex act of state, and it is not exempt from proper planning, execution, and examination.
Whenever a state conducts a military operation outside of its borders, it engages in a political action. In a democratic state, the government must rigorously examine the political considerations and decisions that led to this action. A military operation also involves the deployment of armed forces and the cooperation of intelligence agencies. Each of these institutions is also expected to undertake a professional, methodical, and searching post-hoc inquiry into the considerations taken and decisions made in every professional locus of control that has had an effect on the operation—including those of operative planning, tactical performance, and intelligence. A responsible inquiry into these loci may then lead to a professional investigation of other loci of influence, such as those involved in capability building (i.e., developing military doctrines, practical training, etc.).
These political investigations and professional inquiries must pay special attention to every aspect of the operation that is related to moral and ethical values. Decisions, commands, and actions should be closely examined in order to determine whether they appropriately manifested the moral principles of the State of Israel, the ethics of the IDF and the General Security Service, and the laws to which Israel is subject.
There are two stages to such an analysis: First, one must determine the requirements that every military operation must fulfill in light of Israel’s moral principles as a Jewish and democratic state;1 the ethical codes of the IDF and the General Security Service;2 the laws that Israel must observe as a state in which the rule of law prevails; and the laws it must observe as a properly functioning state subject to both jus gentium (the “law of nations,” i.e., international norms which apply to all states) and jus inter gentes (the “law between the peoples,” i.e., treaties and agreements entered into by sovereign nations). Second, one must ascertain whether the decisions made, orders issued, and actions performed in the course of the operation fulfilled these moral, ethical, and legal requirements. In order to do this, one needs as reliable, full, thorough, and accurate an account of the relevant facts as possible. It is impossible to complete any moral, ethical, or legal evaluation of an operation before an investigation of its political background and an inquiry into the military’s professional performance are completed. During and after Operation Cast Lead, many people, both in Israel and abroad, made statements about it as if this kind of examination had already been completed and its findings were at their disposal. Since it is reasonable to assume that not a single one of them had a reliable, full, thorough, and accurate account of the facts, their assertions can carry no moral, ethical, or legal significance at this stage.
For the time being, then, we should focus on the first stage of investigation mentioned above and restrict ourselves to examining the moral, ethical, and legal requirements to which decisionmakers and participants in military actions are bound. These requirements predate and are not dependant on the specific facts of Operation Cast Lead. However, though we are not in a position to provide a comprehensive answer to all the questions raised about what took place in the Gaza Strip during January 2009, the data collected so far permits us to conclude that a significant part of the criticism directed at Israel and the IDF during and after the operation was, to say the least, based on flimsy evidence.
***
The first factor one needs to consider when analyzing a military operation undertaken by a democratic state outside its own borders is the political decision to initiate the operation, and the circumstances under which this decision was taken. In order to evaluate such a decision properly, it is necessary to do so from two separate viewpoints: external and internal.
We will begin with the external viewpoint. From this point of view, we will morally evaluate the political decision to wage war or carry out a military operation based on considerations of international relations. The question we face at this point is the following: Does a state have a moral justification for taking military action against another state under the circumstances in question? We can pose similar questions about a military action against a non-state entity with a ruling body that, to a significant extent, effectively governs a specific territory (such as Hamas in the Gaza Strip); an organization that operates from within the territory of another state, and enjoys so much freedom of action that it effectively governs part of that state (such as Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon); and finally, an organization that operates from within the territory of a non-state entity (such as terrorist organizations operating in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority). Even at this early stage of the discussion, it is already necessary to note not only the similarities between these situations, but also the differences between them, each of which requires a separate moral discussion.
The basis for any such discussion is the moral conception known as just war theory.3 This term does not designate a doctrine that has a single, authoritative form or interpretation. It is, rather, a family of concepts (e.g., “combatants” or “proportionality”), distinctions (e.g., between military and nonmilitary targets), and principles (e.g., that it is forbidden to harm enemy soldiers once they have surrendered). Moreover, scholars of just war theory often disagree about the meanings of its concepts, the considerations underlying its distinctions, and the specific consequences of its practical principles.4 Over time, however, just war theory has developed an accepted set of eight principles, which form the basis of the standard moral discussion of war.5 In addition, a framework of international law has emerged that constitutes the basis of customary legal discourse on the subject.6
Just war theory, as expressed in its moral principles and in international law, makes certain assumptions about the warring parties and the circumstances of their conflict. Usually, it is assumed that the warring parties are sovereign states and that, most of the time, circumstances permit a differentiation between combatants and non-combatants that is not too complicated. These assumptions, however, do not hold with regard to Israel’s military confrontations with Palestinian terrorist organizations, Hezbollah in Lebanon, or the Hamas regime in Gaza. In order to apply the principles of just war theory to these engagements, it is necessary to widen its scope. For the purposes of the present discussion, however, we will abstain as much as possible from theoretical innovations, instead supporting our claims using the theory in its traditional form.
The first principle of just war theory in the circumstances under discussion is the principle of just cause. A state must have a compelling justification for taking military action against a state, entity, organization, or individuals outside its borders. From a moral standpoint, the only compelling justification for such action is self-defense. A state, therefore, can only justify military action if it can demonstrate that it acted on the basis of its right to self-defense.
No one can honestly dispute that, for years, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist organizations in Gaza have launched thousands of rockets at Israel’s population. Therefore, we can present a responsible answer to the question: Was the decision to take military action against those terrorist organizations, at that particular time, justified on the basis of the right to self-defense? The answer is self-evident: Firing rockets at Israel is an attack on the state and a constant endangerment of the life, health, security, and well-being of the citizens under attack.
Nevertheless, just war theory makes it clear that it is not enough for military action to be justified on the basis of self-defense. Though self-defense is a necessary condition for the justification of war, it is not a sufficient one. The moral considerations behind this assertion are clear: Military action poses a grave danger to human life, health, well-being, property, and liberty. If effective self-defense can be guaranteed by other means, this is clearly preferable to a course of action that involves destruction, suffering, and death. The use of military force is, therefore, justified only if all other alternatives have been exhausted. In just war theory, this is known as the principle of last resort.
Was the decision to launch Operation Cast Lead justified under the principle of last resort?
In order to answer this question in a responsible manner, it is necessary to understand the threats facing Israel’s citizens, the possible alternatives to military action, the various attempts to pursue them, and the outcome of each attempt. Within the spectrum of threats, the rocket attacks initiated by terrorist groups—not only Qassam rockets but also longer-range missiles and more destructive weapons—must be considered. Alternatives to military action could include indirect negotiations for a ceasefire, international diplomatic pressure, and the imposition of a blockade. Israel, along with other international actors, pursued these options without success while Hamas and Islamic Jihad continued their rocket attacks on Israel’s southern population.
The continued rocket attacks on Israel by the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip, as well as Israel’s continued abstention from any large-scale military response in the face of this aggression, give rise to a presumption of justification regarding the state’s decision to take military action as a last resort. Those who argue otherwise bear the burden of proof, and would need to demonstrate that: (a) there was a non-military alternative that Israel did not pursue; (b) had Israel pursued this alternative, its citizens would have been immediately and effectively protected from the threat of rocket attacks; and (c) this would have made military action unnecessary. To date, no alternatives that would have fulfilled these conditions have been proposed.
Some people claim that a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians would provide Israeli citizens with the best protection against rockets and missiles, suicide attacks, and other horrors of terrorism. It is true that a democratic state is required to seek peace agreements with neighboring states and peoples.7 However, the idea that it is possible to reach a political settlement with the Palestinians that would be upheld by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist organizations is quite doubtful. Even if we accepted the plausibility of such a claim, it is all but certain that rocket attacks on Israel would continue throughout the negotiations. In fact, they would likely increase. Leaving a state’s citizens vulnerable to persistent threat is not morally justified by the mere fact of ongoing negotiations. Nor can the fact that negotiations are taking place justify avoiding the last-resort option after all alternative courses of action have failed. As long as a state’s citizens are under attack, even during a negotiation process, that state has an obligation to provide them with adequate protection.
There are those who call on Israel to engage in direct negotiations with Hamas, in order to rid its citizens of the threats posed to them by rocket attacks and other kinds of terrorist activity. This argument warrants a similar response. From a moral standpoint, demanding that Israel engage in direct negotiations with a terrorist organization that does not recognize its right to exist cannot be justified. While indirect negotiations through some sort of mediation are a possibility, there is no basis for the supposition that this alone would be enough to achieve protection for Israel’s citizens. Indeed, as we have already seen, rocket attacks continued while Israel was engaged in indirect negotiations with Hamas. Neither direct nor indirect negotiations can fulfill the three requirements mentioned above and cannot, therefore, be seen as effective alternatives to military action.
While a state entering into a war or embarking on a military operation must do so in self-defense and in the absence of other alternatives, these conditions alone do not suffice according to just war theory. A state may have other intentions—historical revenge, for example—which can alter the course of the war or its political aftermath, and which are not morally justified. Such motives can lead to excessive death and destruction, beyond what self-defense would require. The principle of right intention demands that a state not only wage war in a just cause, but that all of its intentions, on every level, be equally justifiable.
The aims of Operation Cast Lead included deterring Hamas and other terrorist organizations from launching rockets into Israel. Such deterrence is, in and of itself, morally desirable, because it can effectively prevent terrorist operations (or even war itself, as in the case of a state such as Syria). Nevertheless, measures taken in order to establish deterrence must meet certain moral requirements.8
The best method of achieving deterrence in a morally acceptable way is to achieve it as a side effect of some other action. Targeted killings of terrorists, for instance, not only offer immediate protection to a state’s citizens. They also achieve deterrence, because the enemy becomes aware of the state’s ability to detect threatening activities, identify the perpetrators and their whereabouts, and attack them. Deterrence is not the primary goal of targeted killings, however, but rather a welcome side effect. The intention to deter the enemy as a side effect of military activity constitutes a right intention.9
The difference between deterrence as a goal and deterrence as a side effect is essential. An operation whose goal is to thwart terrorist attacks should not be influenced by the likely possibility that it will also create deterrence. Theoretically, an operation can include the use of measures whose purpose is not to foil terrorist attacks but only to create deterrence. To the extent that injury or even death is caused as a result of these measures, they are morally unjustified. For example, killing someone who is essentially harmless in order to deter others from possibly posing a threat cannot be morally justified. A democratic state is required to protect human dignity as such. It cannot use human beings as mere tools to create deterrence. Human beings are not tools to be used.
Generally speaking, it is reasonable to ascribe to Operation Cast Lead the intention of achieving deterrence as a side effect of an act of self-defense. Likewise, descriptions of the operation as “disproportionate” in the Israeli and international media are problematic, because they appear to presume that deterrence was the main purpose of the operation, rather than a side effect of it. A description of the operation in terms of “powerful response” is more appropriate.10
One of the lesser-known principles of just war theory prohibits a state from embarking on a military campaign if it does not have a reasonable chance of winning it. War, by definition, involves the loss of human life, as well as suffering and destruction on a massive scale. The probability of success principle prohibits taking military action—which inevitably involves death, suffering, and destruction—if it is certain to fail. Therefore, it is impossible to justify a war that serves only a “symbolic” purpose.
This principle deserves our renewed attention in regard to military actions such as the Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead, which were undertaken against guerrilla, terrorist, or terrorist guerrilla organizations. In conflicts of this kind, the definition of “victory” is different from that of “classic” wars between states and their armies. As we witnessed in the Second Lebanon War, a state’s military action against a terrorist guerrilla organization can kill many of the group’s combatants and destroy a significant part of its infrastructure without eliminating its ability to carry out terrorist activities and attack the state’s citizens. During Operation Cast Lead, we realized that the same holds true in conflicts with urban terrorist organizations.
While the term “victory” may be emotionally satisfying, it is problematic from a professional military point of view. This is because it does not enable a clear distinction between the goals of a “classic” war and the goals of different kinds of wars or campaigns such as Operation Cast Lead. In these new contexts for the use of military force, it is best to replace the elusive term “victory” with the notion of “achieving specific goals by accomplishing the missions.” This concept is easier to evaluate with precision and to use in professional employment of military forces.11
The primary goal of Operation Cast Lead was described as “improving the security situation” in the areas of the state under rocket attack. This is a proper objective, not only because it stems from the right to self-defense, but also because it is attainable. “Improving” the situation does not mean the elimination of all threats. An improvement can be attained by killing many terrorists, destroying much of their available weaponry, and causing heavy damage to their armaments infrastructure.
“Proportionality”—a term raised many times in the context of Operation Cast Lead—actually refers to two different principles of just war theory: The principle of macro-proportionality, which applies to the overall decision to take military action, and the principle of micro-proportionality, which applies to specific military actions. I will now turn to the first principle, and address micro-proportionality later in our discussion.
In order to clarify the issue, we must examine some of the commonplace accusations of disproportionality made regarding the Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead. The most common charge raised by critics of these campaigns concerns the number of casualties. They argue that, since very few people are killed by rocket attacks on Israel’s population, while many people are killed by the Israeli response, this response is disproportionate and, therefore, both morally unjustified and contrary to international law. This claim is both invalid and groundless. It is invalid because the number of Israeli casualties is not a reliable measure of the threat posed by enemy rockets. Let us recall the Grad rocket that hit an Ashkelon classroom on February 28, 2009, which happened to be a Saturday morning. Had the missile hit the school on a day when classes were in session, dozens of school children would have been killed. The good fortune of these children does not diminish the threat posed by the attack itself. Aresponsible comparison between Hamas attacks and Israeli action during Operation Cast Lead would not distinguish between “hits” and “close calls.” It would take into account the thousands of rockets that have been fired into Israeli towns and cities, and would reach the conclusion that the Palestinian threat to Israeli citizens is greater than the Israeli threat to residents of the Gaza Strip who reside in the vicinity of the terrorists.
Furthermore, no principle of proportionality entails a demand for numerical equivalence. A moral evaluation of proportionality in military action should focus on the question of whether the positive results of the operation on one front outweigh the negative results on another. Macro-proportionality requires that this condition be met. The positive results of the operation should be measured in terms of the protection it has provided to the state and its citizens at the conclusion of the military campaign and its aftermath. The negative results should be measured in terms of the death, suffering, and destruction inflicted on the other side. Once again, this is not a numerical comparison, but rather an assessment of existing threats and the measures that must be taken in order to avert them.
Let us examine, for example, the circumstances of the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War. During the first stage of the war, Hezbollah fighters killed eight Israeli soldiers and kidnapped two who died of their wounds. At this point, Israel was faced with two threats: First, that Hezbollah would carry out another operation in which they might succeed in killing or kidnapping more Israeli soldiers. Second, were Israel to take military action in order to avert the first threat, Hezbollah might respond by barraging the north of Israel with Grad rockets. In order to protect itself from both of these dangers, Israel needed to launch a strike against the sources of the second threat, both in South Lebanon and in certain neighborhoods of South Beirut. Whether or not Israel could have minimized the damage inflicted on a specific site in South Beirut or any other area without diminishing the security of its citizens is a legitimate question. But most of the accusations of disproportionality during the Second Lebanon War were more generalized and thus invalid and unsubstantiated.
Similar charges were made about Operation Cast Lead. For example, the Spanish author Javier Marםas told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that Israel “drew a gun in response to a slap in the face.”12 This is a colorful expression, but it is also an invalid and unsubstantiated claim. The cause of Operation Cast Lead was not a “slap in the face,” but a very long series of thousands of slaps. After how many slaps and attempted slaps and threats of slaps is it time to draw a gun? I assume that the author did not mean to say that Israel should have turned the other cheek, so it seems reasonable to assume that he thinks Israel should have responded to a slap with a slap, or a punch at most. He thus missed the major point: Israel’s response was not undertaken simply for the sake of responding, but to obtain genuine protection for itself and its citizens. One is permitted to ask: How can we know that an Israeli slap would prevent the next Hamas slap? It seems reasonable to assume that even a punch would not have prevented future slaps or lowered the threat they posed—which is not the case with “drawing a gun.”
Moreover, accusations that Israel “drew a gun in response to a slap in the face” entirely miss another essential point: In this context, proportionality is not assessed by simply comparing the Israeli military response to a specific enemy operation (“the slap”). Instead, it involves a comprehensive assessment of Operation Cast Lead in light of the ongoing actions that the enemy has committed for many years and will continue to commit for the foreseeable future (“endless repeated slaps”). Such an assessment should take into account the enemy’s desire and ability to inflict continuous harm on Israeli citizens. After all, Israel did not draw a “gun” in response to one “slap in the face,” but in response to constant slapping, attempts to slap, and threats to inflict stronger and more powerful slaps.
Accusations of disproportionality in war often refer to the “use of excessive force.” To justify these claims, one would need to offer alternatives in which the use of force (a) would not be excessive; (b) would be effective, i.e., provide the required protection from specific threats;13 and (c) would be available when the circumstances require it. Considering these conditions, it is not surprising that we have yet to encounter any defensible criticisms of the use of overwhelming force. Indeed, they are quite difficult to make from the comfort of one’s armchair.
***
So far, we have discussed the principles of just war theory from the external viewpoint, which focuses on the interaction between the state and outside bodies and forces. Now we will turn to the internal viewpoint, which is concerned with the relations between the state, its institutions and basic arrangements, and the citizenry.
The most important aspect of the relationship between a state and its citizens is the obligation of self-defense. This is one of the highest duties of a properly functioning democratic state. It requires the state to protect its citizens—indeed, anyone under its effective control—from any danger to their life, health, security, and well-being resulting from acts of violence, both in the short and long term. As a democratic state, it must fulfill this obligation with proper respect for the human dignity of all people.
The distinction between the external viewpoint and the internal viewpoint becomes apparent when one considers the difference between a state’s right of self-defense, which relates to what is beyond its confines, and a state’s obligation of self-defense, which relates to what is within its confines.
A state must protect its citizens from acts of violence, whether from a foreign state or from a terrorist or guerrilla organization. This obligation is binding whether its citizens are threatened by an external source or an internal source; whether the cause is criminal activity or political subversion. The obligation of self-defense is based is a simple rationale: A democratic state is characterized by a system of fair arrangements of civic life. In order to uphold this system, the state must preserve and defend the conditions that enable it to exist. The most important of these conditions, without which the citizen cannot enjoy the arrangements of democracy, is the very fact that the citizen is alive. A democratic state is therefore under an obligation to defend its citizens’ lives. (The same principle guides the state’s obligation to defend its citizens’ health, security, and well-being. For the purposes of this discussion, however, we will not deal with these considerations, and will restrict our analysis to life-threatening dangers.)14
A state’s obligation of self-defense grants each of its citizens the right to ask it the following question: “What have you done to protect me from a given violent threat that endangers my life?” (The citizen’s question.) Every citizen has the right to receive a satisfactory response to this question, a response that will refer him to the institutions, arrangements, policies, and actions that are charged with protecting him against the threat he has in mind.
A state is never exempt from its responsibility to give a satisfactory answer to the citizen’s question. This also holds true when the citizen is serving in the military, for the simple reason that soldiers are citizens. The state owes them a satisfactory answer just as much as it owes one to every other citizen. At times, the soldier’s question will be more challenging and the state’s answer will be more complex. Usually, a properly functioning state does not intentionally design a situation that will endanger the lives of its citizens. When a citizen is put in harm’s way, the state ought to defend that citizen in an effective manner. However, a citizen in military service may find himself in an extremely dangerous situation because the state has knowingly sent him to risk his life on its behalf. The soldier’s question will therefore be twofold: “First, what justification do you have for sending me into a life-threatening situation? Second, once I am in this situation, what are you doing to protect me from the danger I am in?”
We will not give a full account here of the state’s response to the soldier’s question. Such a response would have to justify conscription and reserve military service, insofar as they are rooted in the fair arrangements befitting a democratic state under present conditions. Instead, we will only mention one key component of Israel’s reply to the first part of the soldier’s question: “We have no choice,” or, in other words, “It is necessary to do so under the circumstances in which we find ourselves.” Because of the threats facing Israel and its citizens, the state cannot fulfill its obligation of self-defense without imposing conscription and reserve military service. When a threat to its security is not imminent, the state is required to develop its military capabilities. When the threat is imminent, it must exercise its military power. While preparing for conflict, the state places severe restrictions on the liberties of its uniformed citizens. When using military force, the state may send them into battle and thus endanger their lives. “Being forced by circumstances,” the state must impose conscription and reserve military service in order to fulfill its obligation of self defense.
Just war theory distinguishes between jus ad bellum and jus in bello, that is, between the moral justification for war—which we have already discussed—and the moral justification for actions taken during a war. The question of moral conduct in war, upon which we will now focus, must be evaluated according to the proper relationship between the state and what is outside of it (the external viewpoint), as well as between the state and its citizenry, including its soldiers (the internal viewpoint).
The distinction between jus ad bellum and jus in bello is manifest in the difference between the principle of macro-proportionality explained above, and the principle of micro-proportionality to which we now turn. Just war theory requires that all actions conform to the principle of proportionality, not only with regard to the decision to wage war or a military operation, but also in regards to specific military actions that endanger harmless enemy non-combatants. Similar to macro-proportionality, the principle of micro-proportionality concerns the question of whether or not the positive consequences of actions on one front morally justify the negative consequences on another.
It is easy to answer this question affirmatively when military action, in terms of both its goals and the means of achieving them, is unavoidable. In other words, the action is of military necessity in the strict sense of the word.15 The aim of such an action is to fulfill the state’s absolute duty to defend its citizens, given the dangers they face. The means employed to meet this requirement must be those which can most successfully fulfill the obligation to protect the citizens of the state as well as the human dignity of all people. When security conditions make it a necessity, military action accompanied by a genuine effort to minimize harm to enemy non-combatants can be justified under the micro-proportionality principle, because its positive consequences outweigh the negative ones.
Many military actions, however, do not fall strictly within the scope of military necessity. Often, the means required to carry out various actions are not, in a sense, unavoidable. Sometimes a military commander can choose between achieving the mission’s objectives through a difficult, slow, and problematic process, and doing so in a simple, fast, and easy way. Let us assume that these two options do not diverge in terms of the degree to which they endanger the lives of the soldiers involved, but only in terms of the length of time and the magnitude of the effort required to achieve the objective. The micro-proportionality principle demands that the positive consequences of employing the faster and less demanding option justify its negative consequences, namely, inflicting death, suffering, and destruction on enemy non-combatants. There is, obviously, no ready answer to the question of which option is preferable in some cases, because we usually possess only a partial picture of the facts, and have to take into account multiple factors and conditions. Take, for example, situations in which soldiers are required to carry out a specific mission and, afterward, must continue immediately to another urgent and difficult mission. If both missions are militarily necessary, then it is preferable for them to carry out the first mission in what they consider the easiest way, despite the fact that it may be more harmful to enemy non-combatants. On the other hand, if the soldiers do not expect the first assignment to be followed by another urgent and complex mission, then it is better for them to take the more difficult course of action, thus causing less harm to enemy non-combatants.
In order to know whether the micro-proportionality principle was upheld during Operation Cast Lead, it is necessary to be familiar in a full and detailed way with the specific actions taken during the operation. One cannot judge the operation in a serious, professional, and responsible manner without having adequate knowledge of the actions in question, and one should therefore resist the political and emotional temptation to do so.
Just war theory also demands that combatants respect the principle of distinction. This is a key principle in moral discussions of military actions, and it ought to be properly understood. A crude and superficial presentation of the principle of distinction often creates a slippery slope that leads to conclusions that cannot stand up to moral scrutiny. Therefore, we will exercise special caution in presenting and explaining it. Though the main elements of the principle of distinction were formulated with the classic concept of war in mind, they will be described here so as to be applicable to the “newer” context of fighting terrorism.
The principle of distinction presents the combatant with three different standards of conduct to guide him in any military action: (a) a standard he should follow when facing a group comprising enemy combatants and no one else; (b) a standard he should follow when facing a group of enemy non-combatants who are not participating in the fighting and are not in proximity to enemy combatants; (c) a standard he should follow when facing a mixed group of combatants and non-combatants.
It is important to understand that we are not drawing a distinction between different kinds of people, but rather between different standards of conduct to be applied in different situations. The first standard of conduct permits soldiers to attack enemy combatants freely without considering the immediacy of the danger they pose—with the exception of wounded persons, prisoners of war, medical teams, and clergy.17 The second standard of conduct prohibits attacking enemy civilians who are not involved in hostilities and are not in proximity to enemy combatants. This restriction is absolute. Under certain conditions that we shall elucidate at length, the third standard of conduct permits attacking enemy combatants even if this endangers non-combatants in their vicinity.
The moral rationale behind the principle of distinction, which institutes multiple standards for military action, is self-evident: Military conduct that complies with the principle of distinction greatly reduces the horrors of war. Nevertheless, the question must be posed: Does this principle possess a deeper moral justification? Furthermore, is the framework of standards that it establishes of the highest moral standing, or is it simply superior to circumstances in the past, in which armies freely and equally harmed combatants and non-combatants? This question reveals a fundamental dispute that need not be resolved here in order to evaluate Operation Cast Lead.18 Even those—and I am among them—who hold that the standards of conduct delineated by the principle of distinction do not offer an ideal moral solution to the problem will nevertheless respect them, and seek to replace them with arrangements that are better both in theory and practice.
Operation Cast Lead mostly took place under conditions that required the application of the third standard of conduct, as well as considerations of micro-proportionality. The above-mentioned third standard enables us to answer the difficult question of what should be done when dealing with a group of people that includes both terrorists who pose a threat to the safety of Israelis and enemy non-combatants who do not threaten anyone. In a situation such as this, we face a dilemma: If the terrorists remain unharmed, they will continue to threaten Israelis. Attacking these terrorists, however, is likely to injure or even kill their non-combatant neighbors. Either way, people who should not be harmed and whom the circumstances of combat do not justify harming will be hurt.
The first way to attempt to resolve a dilemma is by altering the situation so that there will be no need to choose between alternatives, all of which involve undesirable consequences. In the situation we just described, it would be necessary to separate the people who pose a threat from those who do not. Efforts to do this may include scattering leaflets notifying people about the impending attacks, contacting specific places by phone in order to issue a warning, using non-lethal weapons, etc.19 If enemy combatants and non-combatants are successfully separated, there is no need to use the third standard of conduct, since the first standard will be employed against the terrorists and the second will protect their neighbors from being injured. The trouble is that, despite all efforts, such a separation is not always possible, frequently because warnings would alert the terrorists to a coming attack and thus make it more difficult to defend people from them. What, then, should be done when the dilemma cannot be eliminated, and soldiers are faced with a heterogeneous group of hostile terrorists and harmless non-combatants?
The third standard of conduct allows combatants in such situations to make a double effort: They should try to ensure that they strike the terrorists with high probability, and they should try to minimize harm to harmless civilians. Whenever these two demands are incompatible, the first is preferable to the second, but never overrides it entirely.
Discussions of just war theory relate the above-mentioned third standard of conduct to the double effect principle. According to this principle, when we are seeking a goal that is morally justified in and of itself, then it is also morally justified to achieve it even if this may lead to undesirable consequences—on the condition that the undesirable consequences are unavoidable and unintentional, and that an effort was made to minimize their negative effects. Micro-proportionality is also a required condition.
Thus, civilian casualties—though an undesirable, painful, and troubling reality—are an acceptable outcome of a military action if they cannot be avoided. During Operation Cast Lead, it was claimed that it is prohibited to attack one hundred terrorists if one child might be harmed along with them. This claim is both morally indefensible and utterly irresponsible. No one wants to harm a child, but refraining from attacking one hundred terrorists because of the child they hold means allowing them to continue attacking Israeli civilians—including children. Is it justified to allow a child—or an adult, for that matter—to be harmed in Israel in order to avoid harming a child in Gaza?
Israeli historian Zeev Sternhell raised an equally weak argument when he severely criticized Operation Cast Lead and warned that “the Israelis… by wreaking havoc on a civilian population… remove themselves from the family of civilized Western nations.”20 In response to this claim, we should first recall that Israel was fighting Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization by many among the “family of civilized Western nations.” Destruction, suffering, and casualties are, unfortunately, inevitable during urban warfare against such groups. The moral question, then, is whether the destruction, suffering, and casualties were justified in light of the continuing attacks by Hamas and other organizations against Israel and its citizens. The mere fact that destruction, suffering, and casualties were inflicted in the Gaza Strip in no way answers this question.
Secondly, if we wish to evaluate Israel’s place among the “family of civilized Western nations” in the context of “wreaking havoc in a civilian population,” we might learn a great deal from comparing Operation Cast Lead to Operation Phantom Fury, which the United States Marines launched in the city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, during November and December 2004. According to a report published by the United States Army Combat Studies Institute, many of Fallujah’s 350,000 residents fled the city before the operation, leaving an estimated number of 3,000 insurgents behind. During the operation, about 6,000 Iraqis and 1,200-2,000 insurgents were killed. Of the city’s 50,000 buildings, some 10,000 were destroyed, including 60 mosques, each of which was used to store substantial quantities of armaments and munitions. Over half of the city’s buildings were substantially damaged.21
The Gaza Strip is home to a population five times larger than the number of people that lived in Fallujah prior to Operation Phantom Fury, and about twenty times larger than the population that remained in the Iraqi city after the mass flight. The number of terrorists in Gaza was more than five times the number of insurgents in Fallujah. We do not yet know with certainty how many people were killed in Gaza, but even the terrorist organizations and their supporters do not claim that it was five times the number killed in Fallujah—which would be 30,000 dead. We also do not know with certainty how many buildings were destroyed in Gaza, but no one claims that the number is anywhere close to 50,000. Thus, a simple calculation shows that the United States, a senior member of the “family of civilized Western nations,” left a trail of destruction in Fallujah that was at least twenty-five times greater than anything Israel inflicted on Gaza during Operation Cast Lead.22
It is important to note, however, that such a comparison cannot serve as a valid basis for reaching moral conclusions. American actions in Fallujah and Israeli actions in Gaza may both be morally justified; and, possibly, neither of them is morally justified. It is also possible that Operation Cast Lead was justified, but Operation Phantom Fury was not, or vice versa. I mention the American operation only to demonstrate that there is no basis to the claim that Israeli conduct of anti-terrorist urban warfare is worse than that of other enlightened states.
We have emphasized the fact that harmless civilian casualties may be an unavoidable consequence of military action in defense of a state’s citizens against terrorists. How does one defend the claim that a particular outcome is “unavoidable”? The first step is to review the various courses of action that were available to the military forces. The second step is to assess the effectiveness of each of these options in terms of the probability of successfully striking the terrorists. Third, it is necessary to evaluate the potential consequences of each course of action that are both possible and undesirable. These considerations should point us toward the preferable approach. For example, attacking a building in which dangerous terrorists and harmless civilians are present is likely to cause harm to non-combatants even if the preferred method of action is used. Harming these civilians would be considered unavoidable only if all other alternative courses of action are less desirable, whether because they present an even graver danger to the terrorist’s neighbors or because they are ineffective against the terrorists themselves.
16 The principle of distinction presents the combatant with three different standards of conduct to guide him in any military action: (a) a standard he should follow when facing a group comprising enemy combatants and no one else; (b) a standard he should follow when facing a group of enemy non-combatants who are not participating in the fighting and are not in proximity to enemy combatants; (c) a standard he should follow when facing a mixed group of combatants and non-combatants.
It is important to understand that we are not drawing a distinction between different kinds of people, but rather between different standards of conduct to be applied in different situations. The first standard of conduct permits soldiers to attack enemy combatants freely without considering the immediacy of the danger they pose—with the exception of wounded persons, prisoners of war, medical teams, and clergy.17 The second standard of conduct prohibits attacking enemy civilians who are not involved in hostilities and are not in proximity to enemy combatants. This restriction is absolute. Under certain conditions that we shall elucidate at length, the third standard of conduct permits attacking enemy combatants even if this endangers non-combatants in their vicinity.
The moral rationale behind the principle of distinction, which institutes multiple standards for military action, is self-evident: Military conduct that complies with the principle of distinction greatly reduces the horrors of war. Nevertheless, the question must be posed: Does this principle possess a deeper moral justification? Furthermore, is the framework of standards that it establishes of the highest moral standing, or is it simply superior to circumstances in the past, in which armies freely and equally harmed combatants and non-combatants? This question reveals a fundamental dispute that need not be resolved here in order to evaluate Operation Cast Lead.18 Even those—and I am among them—who hold that the standards of conduct delineated by the principle of distinction do not offer an ideal moral solution to the problem will nevertheless respect them, and seek to replace them with arrangements that are better both in theory and practice.
Operation Cast Lead mostly took place under conditions that required the application of the third standard of conduct, as well as considerations of micro-proportionality. The above-mentioned third standard enables us to answer the difficult question of what should be done when dealing with a group of people that includes both terrorists who pose a threat to the safety of Israelis and enemy non-combatants who do not threaten anyone. In a situation such as this, we face a dilemma: If the terrorists remain unharmed, they will continue to threaten Israelis. Attacking these terrorists, however, is likely to injure or even kill their non-combatant neighbors. Either way, people who should not be harmed and whom the circumstances of combat do not justify harming will be hurt.
The first way to attempt to resolve a dilemma is by altering the situation so that there will be no need to choose between alternatives, all of which involve undesirable consequences. In the situation we just described, it would be necessary to separate the people who pose a threat from those who do not. Efforts to do this may include scattering leaflets notifying people about the impending attacks, contacting specific places by phone in order to issue a warning, using non-lethal weapons, etc.19 If enemy combatants and non-combatants are successfully separated, there is no need to use the third standard of conduct, since the first standard will be employed against the terrorists and the second will protect their neighbors from being injured. The trouble is that, despite all efforts, such a separation is not always possible, frequently because warnings would alert the terrorists to a coming attack and thus make it more difficult to defend people from them. What, then, should be done when the dilemma cannot be eliminated, and soldiers are faced with a heterogeneous group of hostile terrorists and harmless non-combatants?
The third standard of conduct allows combatants in such situations to make a double effort: They should try to ensure that they strike the terrorists with high probability, and they should try to minimize harm to harmless civilians. Whenever these two demands are incompatible, the first is preferable to the second, but never overrides it entirely.
Discussions of just war theory relate the above-mentioned third standard of conduct to the double effect principle. According to this principle, when we are seeking a goal that is morally justified in and of itself, then it is also morally justified to achieve it even if this may lead to undesirable consequences—on the condition that the undesirable consequences are unavoidable and unintentional, and that an effort was made to minimize their negative effects. Micro-proportionality is also a required condition.
Thus, civilian casualties—though an undesirable, painful, and troubling reality—are an acceptable outcome of a military action if they cannot be avoided. During Operation Cast Lead, it was claimed that it is prohibited to attack one hundred terrorists if one child might be harmed along with them. This claim is both morally indefensible and utterly irresponsible. No one wants to harm a child, but refraining from attacking one hundred terrorists because of the child they hold means allowing them to continue attacking Israeli civilians—including children. Is it justified to allow a child—or an adult, for that matter—to be harmed in Israel in order to avoid harming a child in Gaza?
Israeli historian Zeev Sternhell raised an equally weak argument when he severely criticized Operation Cast Lead and warned that “the Israelis… by wreaking havoc on a civilian population… remove themselves from the family of civilized Western nations.”20 In response to this claim, we should first recall that Israel was fighting Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization by many among the “family of civilized Western nations.” Destruction, suffering, and casualties are, unfortunately, inevitable during urban warfare against such groups. The moral question, then, is whether the destruction, suffering, and casualties were justified in light of the continuing attacks by Hamas and other organizations against Israel and its citizens. The mere fact that destruction, suffering, and casualties were inflicted in the Gaza Strip in no way answers this question.
Secondly, if we wish to evaluate Israel’s place among the “family of civilized Western nations” in the context of “wreaking havoc in a civilian population,” we might learn a great deal from comparing Operation Cast Lead to Operation Phantom Fury, which the United States Marines launched in the city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, during November and December 2004. According to a report published by the United States Army Combat Studies Institute, many of Fallujah’s 350,000 residents fled the city before the operation, leaving an estimated number of 3,000 insurgents behind. During the operation, about 6,000 Iraqis and 1,200-2,000 insurgents were killed. Of the city’s 50,000 buildings, some 10,000 were destroyed, including 60 mosques, each of which was used to store substantial quantities of armaments and munitions. Over half of the city’s buildings were substantially damaged.21
The Gaza Strip is home to a population five times larger than the number of people that lived in Fallujah prior to Operation Phantom Fury, and about twenty times larger than the population that remained in the Iraqi city after the mass flight. The number of terrorists in Gaza was more than five times the number of insurgents in Fallujah. We do not yet know with certainty how many people were killed in Gaza, but even the terrorist organizations and their supporters do not claim that it was five times the number killed in Fallujah—which would be 30,000 dead. We also do not know with certainty how many buildings were destroyed in Gaza, but no one claims that the number is anywhere close to 50,000. Thus, a simple calculation shows that the United States, a senior member of the “family of civilized Western nations,” left a trail of destruction in Fallujah that was at least twenty-five times greater than anything Israel inflicted on Gaza during Operation Cast Lead.22
It is important to note, however, that such a comparison cannot serve as a valid basis for reaching moral conclusions. American actions in Fallujah and Israeli actions in Gaza may both be morally justified; and, possibly, neither of them is morally justified. It is also possible that Operation Cast Lead was justified, but Operation Phantom Fury was not, or vice versa. I mention the American operation only to demonstrate that there is no basis to the claim that Israeli conduct of anti-terrorist urban warfare is worse than that of other enlightened states.
We have emphasized the fact that harmless civilian casualties may be an unavoidable consequence of military action in defense of a state’s citizens against terrorists. How does one defend the claim that a particular outcome is “unavoidable”? The first step is to review the various courses of action that were available to the military forces. The second step is to assess the effectiveness of each of these options in terms of the probability of successfully striking the terrorists. Third, it is necessary to evaluate the potential consequences of each course of action that are both possible and undesirable. These considerations should point us toward the preferable approach. For example, attacking a building in which dangerous terrorists and harmless civilians are present is likely to cause harm to non-combatants even if the preferred method of action is used. Harming these civilians would be considered unavoidable only if all other alternative courses of action are less desirable, whether because they present an even graver danger to the terrorist’s neighbors or because they are ineffective against the terrorists themselves.
The task of examining possible courses of action in terms of their potential consequences, both desirable and undesirable, with respect to the above-mentioned moral principles (the principle of distinction and the double effect principle), should be reserved for professionals. In regard to one point, however, an additional moral consideration is involved: Imagine that a military force is dealing with a situation in which dangerous terrorists and their harmless civilian neighbors are inside the same building. Let us assume that the military force arrayed against the terrorists has already invested considerable efforts in attempting to separate enemy combatants from non-combatants by issuing warnings in writing, by phone calls, by loudspeaker announcements, by using non-lethal weapons, etc. Nevertheless, a mixed group of terrorists and their harmless neighbors still remain in the building. We will also assume that the preferred course of action, from a professional military point of view, is to fire at the building from the ground or from the air, which is likely to harm the terrorists and some of their neighbors. At this juncture, it would be apparently reasonable to offer an alternative course of action: sending soldiers into the building in order to separate the terrorists from their neighbors. If this is successful, then the soldiers can retreat from the building and the attack will only target the terrorists. If, however, the soldiers’ attempt to separate the terrorists from their neighbors is unsuccessful, then the military force will have no choice but to fire at the building despite the possibility of harming non-combatants. It is self-evident that such a course of action presents a greater risk to the lives of the soldiers who are to be sent into the building than a course of action that does not send them in.
There are those who claim that this is a proper risk if it will reduce civilian casualties. In my opinion, however, there is no moral justification for favoring the lives of a terrorist’s neighbors over the lives of soldiers. In what follows, I shall raise three points to support my position.
First, we must recall the moral challenge of the soldier’s question: “I am a citizen of the state. I enter combat in uniform because it is my duty to participate in defending other citizens of the state from a danger they face. It is for lack of any other choice that I am put into dangerous situations in order to attack terrorists and thereby defend my fellow citizens. These dangerous situations inevitably threaten my life. To send me into a building in order to reduce the chances of injuring enemy non-combatants will significantly increase the threat to my own life, and not for the purpose of carrying out the mission of eliminating terrorists, but rather for the purpose of protecting their neighbors. What justification is there for increasing the threat to my life?” I am not aware of a compelling response to the soldier’s question and the moral challenge it presents. I am familiar with several attempts to formulate such a response, but they are unsuccessful, unpersuasive, and do not justify endangering soldiers’ lives in this manner.23
Second, the suggested solution we just described is a good example of the slippery slope down which a careless presentation of the principle of distinction can lead. If this principle is used in order to draw a distinction between different types of people, it will inevitably lead to preferring some people over others in a sweeping and unjustified manner. An accurate presentation of the principle of distinction would avoid this slippery slope. Although we have two different military standards of conduct—the permissibility of attacking combatants during war and the impermissibility of attacking non-combatants—we cannot deduce from these a third standard of conduct that requires a state to prefer protecting the lives of enemy civilians over the lives of its own soldiers.
Third, and perhaps most important, we must consider the special duties principle. While morality demands that the human dignity of all people be protected, the provisions regulating this protection are not necessarily universal. Canada’s obligation of self-defense, for example, is Canada’s obligation toward Canadian citizens just as Israel’s obligation of self-defense is Israel’s obligation toward Israeli citizens. Canada does not have a duty to defend Israelis who are not in Canada, and Israel does not have a duty to defend citizens of Canada who are not in Israel. Israel is expected to offer assistance when a natural disaster hits another state because of its obligation to protect the human dignity of all people, but it is obviously required to invest greater efforts when such a disaster hits within its own borders than when it hits elsewhere. Israel’s special obligations toward its citizens far exceed its duties toward all human beings as such.
Israel, like every other democratic state, is bound by a hierarchy of duties toward different populations. On the first, and highest, tier of this hierarchy, we find Israeli citizens. Just below them, on the second tier, are residents of the state who are not citizens, such as permanent residents, foreign workers, visiting tourists, etc. These are all the people who are found within Israel’s international borders (the “Green Line”). On the third tier are the residents of the territories over which Israel has had effective control since the Six Day War and who are not Israeli citizens. On the fourth tier, which lies far below the preceding tier, are residents of territories that Israel does not effectively control and are not Israeli citizens. There is a decisive difference separating the first, second, and third tiers from the fourth. Israel is accountable for actions within its borders and in territories that it effectively controls; it is not accountable for actions that take place in territories in which it has no effective control, such as Gaza, Greece, or Canada.24
Where do Israeli soldiers stand in this hierarchy? Being Israeli citizens, they belong to the first tier of the state’s hierarchy of duties. When they are not serving in the IDF, they are full citizens and the State of Israel is duty-bound to them, just as it is to all of its citizens. However, when they are in military uniform and engaged in military activity, special obligations and restrictions imposed on them lower their place in the hierarchy to somewhere between the third and fourth tiers. The state has a duty to protect its non-combatant citizens and the rest of the people under its responsibility with its uniformed, combatant citizens; consequently, the lives of its soldiers are often jeopardized. It is important to emphasize that the state must come up with a compelling justification for endangering the lives of its soldiers. In principle, it should do so only under the necessity of self-defense.
Therefore, in the dilemma at hand, the state should favor the lives of its own soldiers over the lives of the neighbors of a terrorist when it is operating in a territory that it does not effectively control, because in such territories it does not bear the responsibility for properly separating between dangerous individuals and harmless ones. Once it has exhausted its efforts to separate terrorists from non-combatants, not only is the state no longer obligated to endanger the lives of its own soldiers in order to attempt to further such a separation, it is forbidden from doing so. (Some micro-proportionality considerations have to be mentioned in the full description of the decision we recommend, but since they do not change our practical consequences we will not presently describe them.)
The position presented here is also formulated in the IDF’s ethical code of conduct.25 Though the values outlined in the code, known as the “Spirit of the IDF,” are presented in an abstract and abridged form, it is nevertheless possible to derive clear conclusions from them with regard to our discussion.
First, the definition of the value of purity of arms in the IDF code states: “A soldier will not use his weapon and force to harm non-combatants or prisoners of war.” In line with the double effect principle mentioned above, when a soldier uses his weapon to attack a terrorist and unavoidably harms non-combatants at the same time, he is not using his weapon “to harm non-combatants.” He is acting the way he does in order to harm other, dangerous individuals, whom it is his duty to attack under the circumstances, in order to protect his fellow citizens from them.
Secondly, the value of purity of arms includes the demand that IDF soldiers “will do all in their power to avoid causing harm to the lives, bodies, dignity, and property [of non-combatants].” In order to properly understand the phrase “do all in their power,” let us examine the following example: Terrorists have taken over a residential building in Gaza, owned by a harmless non-combatant. Only terrorists are present in the building. They can be attacked in two ways: One possibility is to bomb or shell the building and topple it with its present inhabitants—who are solely terrorists—still inside. The other possibility is to send soldiers in to kill the terrorists without demolishing the building. The first option will, of course, “cause harm to… [the] property” of the non-combatants who live there, as opposed to the second possibility, which will not cause the same degree of destruction, but will gravely endanger the lives of the soldiers involved. The professional and moral solution to this problem is self-evident: It is not acceptable to risk soldiers’ lives in order to avoid damaging the property of non-combatants.
Such a decision coincides with the demand that soldiers “do all in their power,” because a soldier’s courses of action are not determined by the physical options available to him, but rather by professional ethical considerations. The limits placed on a soldier’s conduct are dictated by the values and principles that he must uphold. Among these is the value of human life, which asserts that, “During combat, [a soldier] will endanger himself and his comrades only to the extent required to carry out their mission.” When a soldier enters a building, his mission is to attack the terrorists inside. He thus puts himself at risk. If he is a commander, he endangers his soldiers “to the extent required to carry out the mission.” A soldier will not endanger himself or other soldiers in order to avoid damaging the property of enemy civilians.
The value of human life delineates the limits of a soldier’s conduct not only in regard to damaging the property of non-combatants, but also to harming their “lives, bodies, [and] dignity.” We have already seen that soldiers are required to endanger themselves only “to the extent required to carry out the mission.” Soldiers are not required to endanger their own lives in order to reduce the risk of harming a terrorist’s neighbors. They “will do all in their power to avoid causing harm” to non-combatants, but without risking their own lives and the lives of their comrades.26
Over the course of Operation Cast Lead, questions arose regarding situations in which soldiers’ lives were endangered due to causes other than enemy action. For instance, four Israeli soldiers fell in the course of the operation in “friendly fire” incidents. In another case, IDF soldiers were wounded by an Israeli mortar shell that landed near their position.27 In a third incident, one Israeli force fired at another, though the episode ended without casualties.28 There is no need to repeat here that such incidents are unwarranted. At the conclusion of the operation, when asked how to avoid “friendly fire” incidents, Colonel Ilan Malka, commander of the Giv’ati Brigade, noted the importance of the value of professionalism, and immediately added an insight into the appropriate attitude toward soldiers’ lives. He said, “We have to explain [to the commanders] that even if they lose a bunch of terrorists, it is no big deal. Don’t shoot if you are not sure you know where your troops are.” In this context, Malka pointed out a clear failure in the preparations for the operation. “We did not discuss this enough when going over the procedures of the fighting…. It did not come up as much as the other topics came up. We went in without being sufficiently prepared on this issue.”29 “Friendly fire” is not unavoidable, and some of the confusion that happens during combat is indeed unnecessary. This confusion can be ameliorated, and Israeli casualties from “friendly fire” can thereby be reduced. When it comes to military action, the value ofprofessionalism requires showing proper respect for the value of human life.
Another danger that faced Israeli soldiers during Operation Cast Lead was the possibility of being kidnapped by the enemy and being used later as a bargaining chip against their own country. IDF soldiers are supposed to be trained in precautionary steps to prevent abduction and to properly respond to kidnapping attempts. The Hannibal Procedure Rules of Engagement, drafted prior to 2000 while the IDF was still present in Lebanon, instruct a soldier how to act professionally in order to preempt an attempted abduction. Unfortunately, this order was misinterpreted by both commanders and the media, who believed that it sanctions the killing of a soldier, either by his own hand or at the hands of his comrades, in order to prevent him from being taken alive by a terrorist organization. This is, of course, unacceptable both ethically and morally. The purpose of the Hannibal Procedure is first and foremost to retrieve the abducted soldier and return him safely to his home and army unit. It is inconceivable that a military order would require IDF soldiers to kill one of their comrades or require an Israeli soldier to commit suicide when abducted.30
***
All military actions carried out during Operation Cast Lead should undergo a professional, thorough, and detailed investigation, just like any other non-routine and complicated professional operation. Moral, ethical, and legal evaluations of specific actions can only be undertaken through the methodical and systematic framework of a professional inquiry. Only on the basis of these inquiries will it be possible to arrive at a general conclusion regarding Operation Cast Lead. Allegations of war crimes against Israel or its soldiers, which started at the time of the operation and continue today—long before these inquiries have been completed and the lessons drawn from them made public—are neither objective nor serious. The ease with which they are made serves as sufficient proof that they draw their inspiration from the deceitful propaganda of Israel’s enemies.
I shall conclude my essay with two comments. In his Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle wrote, “it is for a noble end that the brave man endures and acts as courage directs,” which, according to a Jewish commentator, refers to “those who endanger their lives in war to save the community.”31 I am deeply impressed with the courage displayed by each and every one of the soldiers who participated in Operation Cast Lead and their commanders. They acted and suffered “for a noble end,” and endangered their lives “in war to save the community.” I would like most of all to commemorate the four officers and six soldiers who died in combat, along with the three civilian casualties, and to pay my respects to their families. At the same time, I am deeply grieved on behalf of each and every one of the harmless Palestinians who were not involved in terrorism, but nonetheless died during the operation due to the malicious designs of Hamas.
Asa Kasher is Laura Schwarz-Kipp Professor Emeritus of Professional Ethics and Philosophy of Practice at Tel Aviv University. He is editor of Philosophia: Philosophical Quarterly of Israel, published in English by Springer; co-founder of the Journal of Military Ethics, published by Routledge; and co-author of the first IDF code of ethics.
Notes
Voor de noten raadpleeg je maar
http://www.azure.org.il/article.php?id=502
Jezus Ronald dat is een heel boek wat je plakt.
Jezus Ronald dat is een heel boek wat je plakt.
Alleen een artikel uit http://www.azure.org.il/article.php?id=502 Krijgen we misschien wat minder last van slap commentaar op "van horen zeggen" verhaaltjes.
knuppeltje
23-07-09, 09:21
Je kunt echt niet zo maar alles geloven, vooral in dit conflict niet, zoals inmiddels overduidelijk is aangetoond.
Daarom geloof ik dan ook het Israëlische leger niet.
Daarom geloof ik dan ook het Israëlische leger niet.
Ik begrijp dat jij zelf uitkiest wie je gelooft. Ik wist al lang dat je daarin heel erg subjectief bent. Het hangt nauw samen met je politieke voorkeuren en vooroordelen. Het zou beter zijn als je wat meer objectief was. Misschien zou je dan wat dichter bij de waarheid kunnen komen.
knuppeltje
23-07-09, 12:16
Ik begrijp dat jij zelf uitkiest wie je gelooft. Ik wist al lang dat je daarin heel erg subjectief bent. Het hangt nauw samen met je politieke voorkeuren en vooroordelen. Het zou beter zijn als je wat meer objectief was. Misschien zou je dan wat dichter bij de waarheid kunnen komen.
Hear hear, real breaking news from our expert.
Daarom geloof ik dan ook het Israëlische leger niet.
Daar heb jij gelijk in knuppeltje, het is immers ook veel makelijker een leugen te verbergen in een wisselende groep van 30.000 militairen dan in een groep van 5 bestuursleden van deze organisatie die dit rapport uit brengt waarin ze zeggen dat ze 50 mensen hebben gehoord, hier onderzoek naar hebben gedaan en dan binnen 6 maanden een kant en klaar raport op de markt brengen.
knuppeltje
24-07-09, 09:11
Daar heb jij gelijk in knuppeltje, het is immers ook veel makelijker een leugen te verbergen in een wisselende groep van 30.000 militairen dan in een groep van 5 bestuursleden van deze organisatie die dit rapport uit brengt waarin ze zeggen dat ze 50 mensen hebben gehoord, hier onderzoek naar hebben gedaan en dan binnen 6 maanden een kant en klaar raport op de markt brengen.
Je lult maar een eind weg hoor Sjonny. Niemand hier die daar nog van opkijkt.
Je lult maar een eind weg hoor Sjonny. Niemand hier die daar nog van opkijkt.
Dus jij vindt dat je binnen enkele maanden een raport kunt uitbrengen van 50 getuigen verklaringen?
En in hoeverre had Sjonnie hier gelijk?
Hoewel ik ze niet allemaal geteld heb , is dit mogelijk de 10.000 topic overIsrael.
Terwijl de wereld onderhand op instorten staat zijn er nog steeds mensen die PALESTINA en ISRAEL het NIEUWS VAN DE DAG VINDEN !
:schreeuw:
Dus als jij morgen een clubje opricht en je noemt het mensenrechten organisatie heeft de overheid maar naar je te luisteren en heb jij het recht om maar van alles en iedereen iets te roepen, zonder je te houden aan internationale wetten en regels zoals deze zijn gesteld in de internationale wetten voor de rechten van de mens.
Je kunt als mensenrechten organisatie een anonime tip onderzoeken, maar nooit op geruchten openbaar maken.
Hij is trouwens ook geen oprichter van deze groep en al vaker veroordeeld voor onjuiste informatie
Hij zegt niets anders als deze organisaties: Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Rode Kruis en het UNHCR. Dus waarom zijn die nu ineens niet betrouwbaar? Alleen maar omdat ze iets stellen wat jou niet bevalt zeker. Maar als deze organisaties iets over Hamas zeggen dan keer je ineens om? Tijd voor je om eens in een spiegel te kijken als dat nog kan zonder dattie barst.
Hoewel ik ze niet allemaal geteld heb , is dit mogelijk de 10.000 topic overIsrael.
Terwijl de wereld onderhand op instorten staat zijn er nog steeds mensen die PALESTINA en ISRAEL het NIEUWS VAN DE DAG VINDEN !
:schreeuw:
Maakt niets uit wat er voor nieuws is, zelfs als er weer een aardbeving ergens plaatsvind ver daar vandaan komt binnen twee paginas de discussie toch weer hierop uit.
Ik begrijp dat jij zelf uitkiest wie je gelooft. Ik wist al lang dat je daarin heel erg subjectief bent. Het hangt nauw samen met je politieke voorkeuren en vooroordelen. Het zou beter zijn als je wat meer objectief was. Misschien zou je dan wat dichter bij de waarheid kunnen komen.
Laten we nu gewoon voorop stellen dat noch Hamas, noch het IDF als betrokken partijen objectief in deze (kunnen) zijn.
Hij zegt niets anders als deze organisaties: Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Rode Kruis en het UNHCR. Dus waarom zijn die nu ineens niet betrouwbaar? Alleen maar omdat ze iets stellen wat jou niet bevalt zeker. Maar als deze organisaties iets over Hamas zeggen dan keer je ineens om? Tijd voor je om eens in een spiegel te kijken als dat nog kan zonder dattie barst.
De organisatie's die jij noemt doen geen anoniem een rapport in elkaar flansen waarin zei zich beroepen op anonieme bronnen, binnen een anonieme groep strijders.
En het enigste wat mij niet beviel is;
1. Er wordt een rapport naar buiten gebracht naar aanleiding van een boek dat op de markt zou komen.
2. Nog het boek, nog deze groep anonieme personen heeft niemand nog iets gehoord.
3. Israel direct als reactie de kop in de wind gooide en diverse waarnemers van de VN het land uit smeet.
4. Je niet anoniem iets de wereld in moet helpen op bronnen die niet te vinden zijn.