Editor’s Note: In the first part of this series, Rabbi Arik Ascherman, director of Rabbis for Human Rights, explained why he holds Israel responsible for civilian deaths in last summer’s Gaza War. In this second part, author Seth Moreida explains why he rejects many of Ascherman’s positions.
-Second of a two-part series-
By Seth Moreida
JERUSALEM — Peace talks are not nearly as simple to start up as the NGO Rabbis For Human Rights (RHR) claims they are. The problem is the unreasonable preconditions that P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas announced in May 2015 that must be met by Israel before he will engage in peace negotiations. They include halting all Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria (West Bank), Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria by 2017, the release of many terrorist prisoners, and certainty that talks will last for a minimum of a year[i].
Of course, the second issue is whether the parties Israel would be negotiating with would be committed to honoring the terms of any established peace agreement. Israel would demand that Palestinian parties officially recognize the legitimacy of the Jewish state of Israel. At the current time, much of the Arab world, including our intended “peace partners” and the rulers of Gaza, do not accept Israel’s existence. They have declined to recognize the presence of a Jewish state time and time again: the Arab states’ rejection of the 1948 UN partition plan and former P.A. President Yasser Arafat’s decision not to officially ratify the 1993 Oslo Accords are just two of the best known examples. Furthermore, the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s (PLO) charter reads, “The partitioning of Palestine…and the establishment of Israel are illegal and null and void …”
Blaming Israel for Arab aggression against her and claiming that “illegal settlement-building” prevents peace, a view that Rabbis for Human Rights holds, is a fallacy. Between the creation of Israel in 1948 and its victory in the Six Day War of 1967, when there were no Jewish settlements in Gaza or Judea and Samaria, Arabs launched terror attacks against Israel. Thus, the claim that Israel’s construction of Jewish settlements is the reason why its people are attacked and efforts are made to destroy it are incorrect.
A tale of two different blockades
A fact that is strategically hidden and conveniently not mentioned by many organizations and countries that aim to blame Israel for any and all suffering in Gaza is that Egypt has instituted a blockade that is many times more severe than Israel’s naval restrictions. The Egyptian blockade of Gaza has significantly reduced the importation of much-needed medicine and aid materials. In contrast, the Israeli partial blockade does not stand in the way of medical supplies moving into Gaza. While the Egyptian blockade effectively prevents Gazans from reaching hospitals in Egypt to receive treatment, Israel has frequently taken Gazans into the very same hospitals that treat Israelis. Thus, Ascherman’s claim that the Israeli blockade caused the summer 2014 war is highly questionable.
If Hamas rulers in Gaza were genuinely concerned about the humanitarian conditions of its people and the economy, it would have chosen to invest money it receives from Arab states into industry instead of investing in weapons to attack Israel or launch a war against Egypt.
For these reasons, it is clear that any individuals or organizations that are genuinely concerned with the well-being of Gazans will focus the majority of their energies on working to have the Egyptian blockade eased. Attempts to claim that the Israeli naval restrictions imposed on Gaza singlehandedly brought about the conflict last summer are incorrect.
For those who wish to blacken the reputation of the state of Israel, the Israeli blockade is something they can use to make the false case that Israel is both responsible for creating and maintaining the poverty that exists in Gaza.
Israel’s quest to end the summer’s hostilities
Far from being a warmongering aggressor, Israel made many attempts throughout the nearly two month-long conflict to put an end to the hostilities. In many instances, Israel agreed to ceasefires that were later broken by Hamas resuming firing missiles at Israel. At other times, Israel did not accept ceasefire proposals because Hamas posed unrealistic demands on her. This was the case when Hamas posed the following conditions for a ten-year truce with Israel: removal of Israeli tanks from the border, releasing those who were arrested following the killing of the three Israeli teenagers, removing naval restrictions, building an airport and seaport, expanding the permissible fishing zone, putting the Rafah border crossing under UN jurisdiction, putting international forces along all borders, making it easier for Gazans to pray at the Al-Aqsa mosque, rebuilding an industrial base in Gaza, and barring Israeli interference in a reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Fatah[ii].
On the other hand, Israel’s only request was that Hamas disarm. Neither side agreed to these proposals, and Hamas terminated the 72-hour ceasefire by renewing strikes at Israel. Israel’s proposed ceasefires illustrate that Israel made concentrated efforts to end the fighting, and along with it, civilian casualties in Gaza. Thus, how can it be suggested that Israel sought to prolong the conflict in order to inflict additional damage in Gaza?
The disastrous effects of RHR’s proposed policies
One of Ascherman’s central points regarding the limits of how the IDF should engage in warfare is that it should restrict itself to solely targeting terrorists who are not surrounded by civilians. However, an unfortunate fact of warfare is that accomplishing military goals is sometimes made impossible if enemy civilian deaths need to be avoided in nearly all circumstances. Thus, when the Purity of Arms principle prevents the IDF from accomplishing a mission that is deemed to be crucial for the safety of Israeli civilians, the policy has overstepped its purpose and should be cast aside.
The major question regarding the proper implementation of this principle is where one draws the all-important distinction between precautions that protect enemy civilians at a reasonable cost and those that significantly impair a country’s ability to carry out an operation effectively and successfully. Therefore, although Rabbis for Human Rights says it believes in Israel’s right to defend itself, in many instances, it puts so many constraints on the way Israel can fight its enemies that it essentially deprives Israel of that right. If RHR’s policies would have been implemented and many of Hamas’ military sites were not targeted, Hamas would have been able to increase its capabilities to harm Israeli infrastructure and civilians. This could have brought about unnecessarily high and preventable deaths of both soldiers and civilians on the Israeli side.
Clearly, well-intentioned restraint by the IDF can allow Hamas the opportunity to inflict greater damage to Israelis than it would have been able to if Israel had acted more forcefully to accomplish its military goals. Thus, IDF efforts to protect enemy civilians can lead to increased Israeli civilian casualties in the long-term.
If Israel has the ability to carry out its mission and protect its soldiers simultaneously, then IDF soldiers should not have to suffer unnecessarily. Ascherman’s conclusion that civilians on the other side are worth more than Israelis in the IDF is unfounded.
A users’ manual on how to interpret casualty statistics
The number of Gazan deaths can only be understood once Hamas’ tactics are examined; had Hamas not used human shields, then the approximately 1,000 Gazan civilian casualties might have been laid at the feet of Israel. However, the strategy of a country’s enemy must be taken into account when determining whether that country waged an operation that utilized excessive force. Israel, or any nation for that matter, cannot be expected to alter its war plans so significantly as a result of its enemy’s war crimes as to render its operation ineffective. This is exactly what the organization is suggesting the IDF should have done. If this were expected of countries, then the army that commits war crimes would be rewarded for its transgressions and would be more successful militarily than if it hadn’t committed war crimes. This will only encourage groups to commit more abuses in the future.
Ascherman’s suggesting that Israel not kill known terrorists when the opportunity arises has enormous negative repercussions for the citizens of Israel. Beyond the fact that the spared terrorist can now kill IDF soldiers, it remains a possibility that he will engage in additional attacks against Israel in the future. Hamas puts itself into a win-win situation: either Israel kills civilians to defend itself, or it can take so many precautionary measures to protect Gazan civilians that Hamas members have more opportunities to kill Israelis. Ascherman prefers that Israel choose the second option.
It is true that in situations when the enemy army is making even slight efforts to keep its civilians safe, Israel has the technology needed to precisely strike targets while sparing nearby civilians. However, Hamas had a strategy of putting their own citizens in danger in order to maximize Gazan casualties; they did this to gain political support for their effort to delegitimize Israel internationally. Hamas accomplished this strategy by setting up military sites in densely populated and residential areas in urban neighborhoods; for example, homes were used as command centers, schools became weapon warehouses, and tunnel entrances were made directly below peoples’ homes. It is unfair for the organization to blame Israel for the high number of Gazan civilian deaths when Hamas literally killed its own citizens. While Gazans tried to flee areas where terrorist infrastructure was being held, Hamas kept them hostage. Hamas’ use of human shields cancelled out Israel’s ability to precisely avoid causing civilian casualties.
The most extreme example of Hamas’ using human shields was its stationing both its political and military leaders, as well as supplies, in Gazan hospitals. Hamas’ major center of operations throughout the 2014 summer conflict was in an underground bunker below the Al-Shifa hospital, the largest medical center in all of the Gaza Strip[iii]. This, coupled with the fact that Islamist terrorists were also stationed at the Al-Wafa hospital in Eastern Gaza City, demonstrates Hamas’ desire to put Israel in a precarious situation. Israel’s not bombing the Al-Shifa hospital, despite the enormous military, strategic, and security gains it would have obtained from doing so, illustrates its reluctance to harm civilians. Also, this demonstrates that Hamas has no regard whatsoever for the survival of its own citizens. Hamas intentionally acted to kill both Israeli civilians and its own civilians, while Israel took action to safeguard both Gazan and Israeli civilians. It seems clear that one side rightly holds the moral high ground.
Making the best of the tragic situation one is in
Had Hamas not positioned its people at known Israeli targets, Israel would have been able to conduct operations without inflicting nearly as many civilian casualties as it did. Despite Israel’s aims to minimize enemy casualties, taking this too far would have left Israel unable to carry out its war effort. When RHR denounces Israel’s actions, is it taking into account the precautions that Israel instituted to save Gazan lives at the expense of its own military machine?
The IDF dropped leaflets in Arabic on residential buildings that gave a time when the Gazans should have left the area by; therefore, Israel gave its enemy, Hamas and Islamist groups, advanced warning of its strikes. Also, Israel even called off air strikes targeting Hamas terrorists and weapons warehouses when civilians were in the area; in doing so, it sacrificed opportunities that it may never get again. Additionally, the IDF sent text messages and phone calls to Gazans; in many cases, voicemails were left on both the landlines and cell phones of Gazan residents. To institute another precautionary measure, the IDF used a technique called “roof knocking,” which is when a bomb is dropped that makes a loud noise but does not actually have a destructive effect upon impact. By doing so, Israel sacrifices the strategic and important element of surprise to save Gazans. This preventative tactic puts Israelis in danger by giving terrorists more opportunity to evacuate the targeted area.
It is not logical that an inhumane army, as RHR suggests the IDF sometimes is, would willingly save Gazan civilians by informing its enemy that it is going to strike an area or by cancelling a planned strike.
Clearly, Israel was faced with the precarious dilemma last summer of how to defend its citizens against an enemy that cares nothing about its own people. What more could Israel possibly have done to prevent Gazan casualties that wouldn’t have hindered its ability to carry out a war?
Operation Protective Edge and Judaism
The organization claims to support Israel’s right to defend itself and notes that Judaism “is not a pacifist religion.” Nevertheless, it only supports this right in theory. Rabbis for Human Rights is so stringent on when and how Israel can take action and use force that it actually denies Israel of this right. RHR’s claiming that the leaflets were not sufficient to justify Israeli strikes demonstrates that the standards they set are unrealistically high for wartime; if the IDF were to abide by RHR’s standard, the quantity of targets it would be permitted to strike would be radically reduced.
The time-old Jewish Torah value of the importance placed on all human life certainly applies to Gazan civilians, and pursuing efforts to conduct a war while protecting them is a noble pursuit. However, when its application leads to the preventable deaths of Israeli soldiers and civilians, one must wonder if this principle is being applied correctly.
Of course, if Israel finds itself in the luxurious situation of being able to accomplish the same military goal in a variety of different ways that all lead to the same number of IDF casualties, then it should choose the strategy that minimizes Gazan civilian casualties. However, Israel was not presented with this unrealistic scenario last summer.
Why is this war different from (or the same as) all other wars?
While wrongdoings and crimes carried out by one country does not give other countries the right to commit them, it is important to compare the number of civilian casualties from Operation Protective Edge with other wars that Western nations have carried out against Middle Eastern nations. Throughout the 10-year American invasion of Iraq, more than 100,000 civilian Iraqis were killed. While Operation Protective Edge lasted for approximately 1/60th the time as the American war with Iraq, the number of civilian casualties killed per unit of time are nearly the same. Thus, it can be concluded that civilian casualties are not at all exclusive to operations waged by Israel. Did the world condemn the 2003 American invasion of Iraq to the extreme extent that it has lambasted Israel’s 2014 Operation Protective Edge?
It is important to recognize that while Israelis and Israeli land were the targets of attacks and are located in close proximity to its enemy, America waged this war thousands of miles apart from its enemy by sea. America was much less vulnerable to direct attacks by its enemy than was Israel, which was bombarded by thousands of rockets. Even given this sensitive position, Israel had impressive accuracy with its targets; approximately half of the supposed Gazan 2,100 civilians killed last summer were actually Hamas members or independent terrorists. Given Hamas’ use of human shields and the urban environment of the fighting, these statistics are anything but a failure by the IDF; it is a achievement that the IDF managed to safeguard as many Gazan lives as it did!
An internationally-recognized, unbiased expert speaks out
British colonel Richard Kemp, who led British forces in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, defends Israel’s actions in Gaza last summer. Interestingly, he does not consider himself to be pro-IDF or pro-Israel. Rather, he sees past the anti-Israel propaganda that condemns Israel’s attempts to defend itself. During the 2014 operation, he said that “no other army in the world has ever done more than Israel is doing now to save the lives of innocent civilians in a combat zone[iv].” He has defended IDF activities in front of the United Nations Human Rights Council and uses his personal experiences fighting Islamic extremist forces in the Middle East—such as the Taliban—to explain the security challenges that Israel faces; importantly, he utilizes his personal experiences to emphasize how incredibly difficult it is for Israel to spare enemy civilians when it is fighting enemies such as Hamas. With the knowledge of how precarious this task is, he applauds Israel and the IDF for doing an outstanding job of protecting Gazan civilians.
To support a strong Israel or a weak Israel: Where do you stand?
Rabbis’ for Human Rights looks to twist situations in such a way as to cast Israel as a sinful antagonist, an all-powerful bully that refuses to bow to world opinion; in doing so, it ignores the righteousness and humanitarianism embodied in Israel’s Declaration of Independence and that is still inherent in Israeli society today. Simultaneously, the organization turns a blind eye to the forces of barbarity that surround it on the map. RHR’s applying unrealistic standards for Israel and ignoring reality as it is on the ground ensures that implementing its proposals would be disastrous for Israel. While Rabbis for Human Rights is correct that the number of Gazan casualties, many of which were not civilian, is at first glance a painful statistic, analyzing civilian casualties on either side is not a method by which one can assess whether a party committed war crimes. RHR downplays the countless risks Israel took to save Gazan civilians and does not give the IDF the credit it deserves for its restraint.
Before 1948, Jews had no army to defend themselves against the many ugly faces of anti-Semitism raging throughout the world; this becomes most apparent when one examines how defenseless Jews were against the Nazi regime between 1933 and 1945. The Jews now have an army and the political infrastructure to protect themselves against the threats they have been facing for thousands of years and which are currently resurging worldwide. Never again should Jews be at the mercy of those who wish to destroy them.
Rabbis for Human Rights says we should not fight back to truly defend our Jewish brothers and sisters; I say we should. What do you think?
[i] http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Abbas-sets-preconditions-for-new-Netanyahu-government-to-return-to-peace-talks-403188
[ii] http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/report-israel-conditions
[iii] http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/sources-hamas-leaders-hiding-in-basement-of-israel-built-hospital-in-gaza-1.26740
[iv] http://www.israeltoday.co.il/Default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=24780
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Moreida is a student of political science and international relations at Tufts University. He spent the summer on assignment in Israel as a reporter for San Diego Jewish World.