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Go Home The Goldstone Illusion

WORLD NOVEMBER 6, 2009

The Goldstone Illusion

BY MOSHE HALBERTAL

I.

In 2000, I was asked by the Israel Defense Forces to join a group of philosophers, lawyers, and generals for the purpose of drafting the army’s ethics code. Since then, I have been deeply involved in the analysis of the moral issues that Israel faces in its war on terrorism. I have spent many hours in discussions with soldiers and officers in order to better grasp the dilemmas that they tackle in the field, and in an attempt to help facilitate the internalization of the code of ethics in war. It was no wonder that, when the Goldstone Report on the Gaza war was published, I was keen to read it, with some hope of getting a perspective on Israeli successes or failures in this effort to comprehend war, and to fight it, morally. Unlike many who responded to the report, in praise or in blame, I gave this immensely long document a careful reading.

Let us begin with a sense of the moral stakes. Since the early 1990s, the nature of the military conflict facing Israel has been dramatically shifting. What was mainly a clash between states and armies has turned into a clash between a state and paramilitary terror organizations, Hamas in the south and Hezbollah in the north. This new form of struggle is now called “asymmetrical war.” It is defined by an attempt on the part of those groups to erase two basic features of war: the front and the uniform. Hamas militants fight without military uniforms, in ordinary and undistinguishing civilian garb, taking shelter among their own civilian population; and they attack Israeli civilians wherever they are, intentionally and indiscriminately. During the Gaza operation, for example, some Hamas militants embedded in the civilian population did not carry weapons while moving from one position to another. Arms and ammunition had been pre-positioned for them and stored in different houses.

In addressing this vexing issue, the Goldstone Report uses a rather strange formulation: “While reports reviewed by the Mission credibly indicate that members of the Palestinian armed groups were not always dressed in a way that distinguished them from the civilians, the Mission found no evidence that Palestinian combatants mingled with the civilian population with the intention of shielding themselves from the attack.” The reader of such a sentence might well wonder what its author means. Did Hamas militants not wear their uniforms because they were inconveniently at the laundry? What other reasons for wearing civilian clothes could they have had, if not for deliberately sheltering themselves among the civilians?

As for the new “front” in asymmetrical warfare, we read in another passage, which is typical of the report’s overall biased tone, that, “On the basis of the information it gathered, the Mission finds that there are indications that Palestinian armed groups launched rockets from urban areas. The Mission has not been able to obtain any direct evidence that this was done with the specific intent of shielding the rocket launchers from counterstrikes by the Israeli armed forces.” What reason could there possibly be for launching rockets from urban centers, if not shielding those rockets from counterattack? And what is the moral distinction that is purportedly being established here?

By disguising themselves as civilians and by attacking civilians with no uniforms and with no front, these paramilitary terrorist organizations attempt nothing less than to erase the distinction between combatants and noncombatants on both sides of the struggle. Suicide bombers exploded themselves on buses and in restaurants in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Dimona, Eilat, and many other places. Qassam rockets and Katyushas were fired randomly at various Israeli civilian centers, as far as their range allowed. So the war had no defined place and was waged by unidentified murderers. It justifiably felt like a change in the very nature of warfare. The goal of this momentous transformation was to create a war of all against all and everywhere. It aimed at shifting the Israeli population from a healthy sense of cautious fear attached to a particular place-a border, a security zone--to a generalized panic that has no location. Everywhere and everyone is now regarded as dangerous. This is not paranoia. It has a basis in a new reality, and is the outcome of a new strategic paradigm.

Faced with this unprecedented and deeply perplexing situation, two extreme positions have emerged in Israel. The radical left claims that, since such a struggle necessarily involves the killing of innocent civilians, there is no justifiable way of fighting it. Soldiers ought to refuse to engage in such a war, and the government has only one option, which is to end the occupation. This view is wrong, since Israel has the right and the obligation to protect its citizens, and without providing real security, it will fail also to achieve peace and to put an end to the occupation. The radical right claims that, since Hamas and Hezbollah initiated the targeting of Israeli civilians, and since they take refuge among their own civilians, the responsibility for harming Palestinian civilians during Israel’s attempt to defend itself falls upon the Palestinians exclusively. This approach is also wrong. The killing of our civilians does not justify the killing of their civilians. Civilians do not lose their right to life when they are used as shields by Hamas and Hezbollah. In fighting the militants, Israel must do as much as it possibly can do to avoid and minimize harm to civilian life and property.

The aim of the IDF ethics code is to strike a coherent and morally plausible position that provides Israel with the effective tools to protect its citizens and win the war while also setting the proper moral limits that have to be met while legitimately securing its citizens. In debating the code, I heard many times that it imposes constraints upon Israeli action that would limit the capacity of the army to win the battle and to provide security. In fact, the moral constraints and the strategic goals are mutually reinforcing. Radical groups such as Hamas start their struggle with little support from their population, which tends to be more moderate. They increase their base of support cynically, by murdering Israeli civilians and thereby goading Israel into an overreaction (this is not to deny, of course, that Israel can choose not to overreact) in a way that ends up causing suffering to the Palestinian civilians among whom the militants take shelter. The death and the suffering of the civilian Palestinian population, in the short run, is a part of the Hamas strategy, since it increases the sympathy of the population with the movement’s aims. An Israeli overreaction also leads to the shattering of Israel’s moral legitimacy in its own struggle. In a democratic society with a citizen’s army, any erosion of the ethical foundation of its soldiers and its citizens is of immense political and strategic consequence.

And so, Israel’s goal in its struggle with Hamas and Hezbollah is to reverse their attempt to strengthen themselves politically by means of their morally bankrupt strategy. Rather than being drawn into a war of all against all and everywhere, Israel has sought to isolate the militants from their environment: to mark them and “clothe” them with a uniform, and to force them to a definite front. The moral restraints in this case are of great strategic value. I am convinced, for this reason, that targeted killing, especially of the militants’ leadership, is an effective and legitimate endeavor. It is for this same reason that I believe that Israel’s siege of Gaza, and its harsh effect upon general civilian life, is morally problematic and strategically counterproductive.

 

II.

In accordance with the just war tradition in Western history and philosophy, three principles are articulated in the IDF code concerning moral behavior in war. The first is the principle of necessity. It requires that force be used solely for the purposes of accomplishing the mission. If, for example, a soldier has to break down the door of a home in order to search for a suspected terrorist, he has no right to smash the TV set on his way in: Such gratuitous use of force has no relation to the mission. This is a straightforward principle, professionally and morally, though its implementation might be complicated if the mission is not well-articulated or if there are serious arguments about what kind of force is necessary to accomplish a given mission. In ordinary war, the collapse of the enemy’s army is a more or less clear event; but in an asymmetrical war, victory is never final--the mission seems not so much to end as to shift; and so it may be difficult to apply the necessity principle.

The second principle articulated in the code is the principle of distinction. It is an absolute prohibition on the intentional targeting of noncombatants. The intentional killing of innocent civilians is prohibited even in cases where such a policy might be effective in stopping terrorism. At the height of the violence in 2002, some suggested that the only deterrence against suicide bombers who wish to die anyway is the killing of their families. But such a policy is blatantly murderous, and it is prohibited. An Israeli soldier is prohibited from intentionally targeting noncombatants, and, in the event that he is given such an order, he must refuse it. He is obligated to engage in fighting only those who threaten his fellow soldiers and civilians.

The implementation of the principle of distinction is also very difficult in an asymmetrical war. Since the enemy does not appear in uniform and there is no specified zone that can be described as the battlefield, the question of who is a combatant becomes crucial. In the process of identifying combatants, a whole causal chain must be established and marked as a legitimate target. This “food chain” of terrorism is made up of people whose intentional actions, one after the other, will end up threatening Israeli civilians or soldiers. This chain includes the one who plans the attack, the one who recruits the bomber, the one who prepares the bomb, the driver of the car that transports the bomber to his or her target, and so on. It is clear that such an attempt gives rise to difficult cases, and even the most scrupulous effort will leave some room for doubt. What about the financer of the bombing, for example?

It is also clear that applying the international law of war to this new battlefield is fraught with problems. Consider a painful issue that comes up in the Goldstone Report--the matter of the Gaza police force. In the first minutes of the war, Israel targeted Hamas police, killing dozens. There is no question that, in an ordinary war, a police force that is dedicated to keeping the civilian peace is not a military target. The report therefore blames Israel for an intentional targeting of noncombatants. But such a charge is only valid concerning a war against a state with a clear and defined military institution, one that therefore practices a clear division of labor between the police and the army. What happens in semi-states that do not have an institutionalized army, whose armed forces are a militia loyal to the movement or party that seized power? In such situations, the police force might be just a way of putting combatants on the payroll of the state, while basically assigning them clear military roles. Israeli intelligence claims that it has clear proof that this was the case in Gaza. This is certainly something that Israel will have to clarify. But it is clear to me that Goldstone’s accusation that targeting of the police forces automatically constitutes an attack on noncombatants represents a gross misunderstanding of the nature of such a conflict.

The third principle,the most difficult of all, is the principle of proportionality, or the principle of avoidance. Its subject is the situation in which, while targeting combatants, it is foreseeable that noncombatants will be killed collaterally. In such a case, a proportionality test has to be enacted, according to which the foreseeable collateral death of civilians will be proportionate to the military advantage that will be achieved by eliminating the target. If an enemy sniper is situated on a roof, and 60 civilians live under the roof, and the only way to kill the sniper is to bomb the roof, which is to say, bomb the house, such bombing is prohibited. The military advantage in eliminating the sniper is disproportionate to the probable cost of civilian life.

In discussing the proportionality constraint, there emerges a natural pressure to provide an exact criterion for measuring the proper ratio between collateral deaths and military advantage. I must admit that I do not know the formula for such a precise calculation, and I do not believe that a clear-cut numerical rule can be established. Different people have different intuitions about strategic value and moral cost. And yet, the Israeli army has traditions and precedents that can be relied upon. In 2002, for example, Israel bombed the Gazan home of Salah Shehadeh, who was one of the main Hamas operatives responsible for the deaths of many Israeli civilians. Fourteen innocent people were killed along with Shehadeh. The Israeli chief of staff, Moshe Yaalon, claimed that the collateral deaths were not only unintentional, they were not even foreseeable. The innocent people who were killed lived in shacks in the backyard of the building, which, in aerial photographs, looked like storage units. Yaalon claimed that, had Israel known about this collateral harm, it would not have bombed Shehadeh’s hiding place. It had already aborted such an operation a few times because of concern with foreseeable civilian death. I believe that such care is right. It is better to err on the side of over-cautiousness concerning collateral damage.

Besides the difficulties that are raised by the proportionality test, there is a far greater and more momentous issue at stake in the principle of avoidance. The IDF code states that soldiers have to do their utmost to avoid the harming of civilians. This principle states that it is not enough not to intend to kill civilians while attacking legitimate targets. A deliberate effort has to be made not to harm them. If such an active, positive effort to avoid civilian harm is not taken, in what serious way can the claim be made that the foreseeable death was unintended? After all, the death occurred, and could have been expected to occur. So the proper ammunition has to be chosen to minimize innocent deaths; and, if another opportunity is expected to arise for eliminating the target, the operation must be aborted or delayed. Civilians have to be warned ahead of time to move from the area of operation if this is possible, and units have to be well aware that they must operate with caution, even after warning has been given, since not all civilians are quick to move. A leaflet dropped from the sky warning of an attack does not matter to the people--the sick, the old, the poor--who are not immediately mobile.

In line with such principles, the Israeli Air Force developed the following tactic. Since Hamas hides its headquarters and ammunition storage facilities inside civilian residential areas, the Israeli army calls the residents’ telephones or cell phones, asking them to move immediately out of the house because an attack is imminent. But Hamas, in reaction to such calls, brings the innocent residents up to the roof, so as to protect the target from an attack, knowing that, as a rule, the Israeli army films the target with an unmanned drone and will avoid attacking the civilians on the roof. In response to this tactic, Israel developed a missile that hits the roof without causing any actual harm in order to show the seriousness of its intention. The procedure, called “roof-knocking,” causes the civilians to move away before the deadly attack.

It is rather a strange point in the Goldstone Report that this practice, which goes a long way to protect civilians, is actually criticized. Concerning such a practice, the report states that, “if this was meant as a warning shot, it has to be deemed reckless in the extreme.” The truth is that this is an admirable and costly effort to avoid civilian collateral harm. As is true with many of its criticisms, the report does not state what the alternative should be. What should Israel do in such a case? Attack the house without calling on its residents to move, or attack it while they are gathered on the roof? Or maybe avoid attacks altogether, allowing the enemy to take effective shelter among civilians?

 

In the deliberations about the Israeli army’s code of military conduct, a crucial question emerged in connection with the requirement that efforts be made to avoid harming civilians. For such efforts surely must include the expectation that soldiers assume some risk to their own lives in order to avoid causing the deaths of civilians. As far as I know, such an expectation is not demanded in international law--but it is demanded in Israel’s military code, and this has always been its tradition. In Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, for example, Israeli army units faced a tough battle in the Jenin refugee camp. The army refused to opt for the easy military solution--aerial bombardment of the camp--because it would have resulted in many civilian deaths, and it elected instead to engage in house-to-house combat, losing 23 soldiers in the battle. This norm of taking risks with soldiers’ lives in order to avoid civilian deaths came under criticism in Israel, but I believe that it is right. Innocent civilian lives are important enough to obligate such risks. And, if commanders are told that they do not have to assume such risk, then they will shoot at any suspicious person, which will result in widespread killing.

Yet the application of such norms in battle raises difficult moral quandaries. One of them comes up in the Goldstone Report. When the operation started, Hamas militants mostly avoided face-to-face battles with Israeli soldiers. They withdrew into the civilian heartland and fired mortar rockets from within their own population, targeting Israeli units. Mortar locations can be detected by radar, but the crew can move the mortar to a new location in a few minutes, and then fire from there. It is therefore impossible to target these mortars and their crews with a helicopter or in any other way that would provide a direct visual of the target and use accurate ammunition: Such means simply take too much time to deploy. The only option is to fire back with mortars that can be quickly and accurately directed at the coordinates of the mortars on the other side.

The problem with such a tactic is that such mortars are of 120 millimeter caliber and the radius of their hit is 50 meters. This means that collateral damage to civilians might occur while hitting the legitimate target. Of course, the commanding officer can choose not to fire back and put his soldiers at risk from the next rounds of mortar shots. It is important also to note that, when returning fire, the commanding officer cannot know whether there are civilians in that radius and how many of them are there. In “fog of war” conditions, and under pressure to react, such information is not available.

The Goldstone Report claims that the shooting of mortars caused disproportionate collateral harm, which is, of course, an empirical matter; but it is important to understand that this can be known only after the fact. So what to do? My own view is that, if the fire that the unit is taking is not accurate, and if the commander can move his own unit to another location, he should do so rather then fire back and endanger civilians. But this is a very difficult choice, and sometimes this choice might not be available. It is wrong to give the commanding officer a blank check to shoot anytime his soldiers are at probable risk--but he must be given the means of protecting them as well. The Goldstone Report is very critical about the firing of the Israeli mortars, but it does not take seriously into account the problems that such a situation imposes.

It is my impression that the Israeli army in Gaza did not provide clear guidance on the matter of whether soldiers have to assume risk. Some units took risks in the Gaza in order to avoid the collateral killing of civilians, while some units accepted the policy of no risk to soldiers. This does not amount to a war crime, but it is a wrong policy. It also might be a cause of unnecessary civilian deaths: It could inspire a reason for a misguided order to shoot whoever crosses a certain line on the map in proximity to an Israeli unit. Given the fact that anyone in the battle zone could be a militant, and that warnings were given, such an order might make sense--and yet, the order should refer to someone who seems to pose a threat rather than to anyone who crosses the line, since fear and confusion might cause innocent civilians to move too close to the line and even to cross it.

These are not simple issues. They are also not political issues. They are the occasions of deep moral struggle, because they are matters of life and death. If you are looking for an understanding of these issues, or for guidance about them, in the Goldstone Report, you will not find it.

 

III.

In discussing the code of ethical conduct with Israeli officers, many times I encounter the following complaint: “Do you want to say that, before I open fire, I have to go through all these moral dilemmas and calculations? It will be completely paralyzing. Nobody can fight a war in such a straitjacket!” My answer to them is that the whole point of training is about performing well under pressure without succumbing to paralysis. This is the case with battlefields that have nothing to do with moral concerns. Do I attack from the right or from the left? How do I respond to this new tactic, or to that? And so on. This is why moral considerations have to be an essential part of military training. If there is no time for moral reflection in battle, then moral reflection must be accomplished before battle, and drilled into the soldiers who will have to answer for their actions after battle.

Besides the great difficulty of adjusting the norms of warfare--the principles of necessity, distinction, proportionality, and avoidance--to a non-traditional battlefield without uniforms and without a front, there is still another pedagogical challenge. In a traditional war, the difficult moral choices are made by the political elites and the high command, such as whether to bomb Dresden or to destroy Hiroshima. But in this new kind of micro-war, every soldier is a kind of commanding officer, a full moral and strategic agent. Every soldier must decide whether the individual standing before him in jeans and sneakers is a combatant or not. What sorts of risks must a soldier assume in order to avoid killing civilians while targeting a seeming combatant? The challenge is to make these rules part of the inner world of each soldier, and this takes more than just formulating the norms and the rules properly. It is for this reason that I looked to the Goldstone Report to learn whether these norms were in fact applied, and in what way Israeli soldiers did or did not succeed in internalizing and acting upon them.

The commission that wrote the report could have performed a great service if it had concentrated on gathering the testimonies from Gaza and assessing them critically, while acknowledging (as it failed to do) that they are partial and incomplete. This would have forced Israel to investigate various matters, provide answers, and take appropriate measures. (I do not imagine Hamas engaging in such an investigation of its own crimes. This is yet another asymmetry.) But instead the commission opted to add to its findings three unnecessary elements: the context of the history that led to the war; its assessment of Israel’s strategic goals; and long sections on Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. Why should a committee with a mandate to inquire into the operation in Gaza deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at large?

The honest reader of these sections cannot avoid the impression that their objective is to prepare a general indictment of Israel as a predatory state that is geared toward violating human rights all the time. It will naturally follow from such a premise that the Gaza operation was yet another instance of Israel’s general wicked behavior. These long sections are the weakest, the most biased, and the most outrageous in this long document. They are nothing if not political. In Goldstone’s account of the history that led to the war, for example, Hamas is basically described as a legitimate party that had the bad luck to clash with Israel. The bloody history of the movement--which, since the beginning of the Oslo accords, was determined to do everything in its power, including the massacre of civilians, to defeat the peace process--is not mentioned.

The Israeli reader who actually experienced the events at the time remembers vividly that Hamas terrorists murdered Israeli men, women, and children all over Israel while a peace process was underway. Hamas was doing all this in accordance with its religious ideology, which is committed to the destruction of Israel and is fueled by Iranian military and financial support. In the supposed context that the report analyzes, there is no mention of Hamas’s role and its ideology as reflected in its extraordinary charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel and the genocidal killing of Jews. In its attempt to stop Hamas’s vicious attacks on Israel’s citizens, Israel built a long fence--an obstacle to prevent a suicide bomber in Kalkilya from rolling out of bed and driving to the heart of Kfar Saba and Netanya in five or ten minutes. (The distances between life and death are really that short.) The Goldstone Report mentions the fence, of course--but as a great violation of human rights, as motivated sheerly by predatory desires.

Hamas was responsible in many ways for torpedoing the next opportunity for ending Israel’s occupation. After the collapse of the Oslo agreement, Ariel Sharon, then the prime minister, decided to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza, in the belief that there was no reliable partner on the Palestinian side and that Israel had to start putting an end to its control of the Palestinian population. Ehud Olmert, Sharon’s successor, was elected on a platform that committed him to unilateral withdrawals from the West Bank. But the implementation of this policy of continued Israeli withdrawal was cut short by the unrelenting shelling of Israeli cities and villages from recently vacated Gaza. Such ongoing attacks made Israelis rightly concerned that an evacuation of the West Bank would expose Israel’s population centers to such attacks, and the possibility of unilateral evacuation from the West Bank collapsed.

In the last ten years, Israel has withdrawn unilaterally from south Lebanon and Gaza. In both cases, the vacuum was filled by militant Islamic movements religiously committed to the destruction of Israel. Anyone who supports a peaceful two-state solution must ponder the role of Hamas in destroying such a prospect--and yet, quite astonishingly, nothing of this is mentioned in the Goldstone Report. It also avoids mentioning the legitimate concern of Israel about the ongoing rearmament of Hamas in Gaza, which supplies them with more lethal long-range missiles to wreak destruction on Israeli population centers. The commission should not have dealt with the context leading to the war; it should have concentrated on its mandate, which concerned only the Gaza operation. By setting its findings about the Gaza war in a greatly distorted description of the larger historical context, it makes it difficult for Israelis--even of the left, where I include myself--to take its findings seriously.

Then there is the report’s conclusion concerning Israel’s larger aims in the Gaza war. It claims that Israel’s objective in Gaza was a direct and intentional attack on civilian infrastructure and lives: “In reviewing the above incidents the mission found in every case that the Israeli armed forces had carried out direct intentional strikes against civilians.” In another statement, intentional destruction of property and attacks against civilians are lumped together: “Statements by political and military leaders prior to and during the military operations in Gaza leave little doubt that disproportionate destruction and violence against civilians were part of a deliberate policy.” Now, there is a huge moral difference between the accusation that Israel did not do enough to minimize collateral civilian death and the claim that Israel targeted civilians intentionally. It might well be that Israel should have done more than it did to minimize collateral deaths--it is a harsh enough claim, and it deserves a thorough examination. But the claim that Israel intentionally targeted civilians as a policy of war is false and slanderous.

There are different accounts of the numbers of civilian deaths in Gaza, and of the ratio between civilian and militant deaths. B’Tselem, the reliable Israeli human rights organization, carefully examined names and lists of people who were killed and came up with the following ratio: Out of the 1,387 people killed in Gaza, for every militant that was killed, three civilians were killed. This ratio--1:3--holds if you include the police force among the civilians; but if you consider the police force as combatants, the ratio comes out to 2:3. There are 1.5 million people in Gaza and around 10,000 Hamas militants, so the ratio of militants to civilians is 1:150. If Israel targeted civilians intentionally, how on earth did it reduce such a ratio to 1:3 or 2:3?

The commission never asks that question, or an even more obvious one. In operating under such conditions--Gaza is an extremely densely populated area--is such a ratio a sign of reckless shooting and targeting? One way to think about this is to compare it with what other civilized armies achieve in the same sort of warfare. I do not have the exact numbers of the ratio of civilian to militant deaths in NATO’s war in Afghanistan, but I doubt that it has achieved such a ratio. Is it ten civilians to one combatant, or maybe 20 civilians to one combatant? From various accounts in the press, it certainly seems worse. The number of collateral deaths that are reported concerning the campaign to kill Baitullah Mehsud, one of the main Pakistani militant operatives, is also alarming: In 16 missile strikes in the various failed attempts at killing him, and in the one that eventually killed him (at his father-in-law’s house, in the company of his family), between 207 and 321 people were killed. If such were the numbers in Israel in a case of targeted killing, its press and even its public opinion would have been in an uproar.

Besides the 500 civilians who were killed in the bombing of Serbia, how many militants were killed? The inaccurate high-altitude bombings in Serbia, carried out in a manner so as to protect NATO pilots, caused mainly civilian deaths. What would have been the ratio of deaths if NATO forces were fighting not in faraway Afghanistan, but while protecting European citizens from ongoing shelling next to its borders? And there are still more chilling comparisons. If accurate numbers were available from the wars by Russia in Chechnya, the ratio would have been far more devastating to the civilian population. Needless to say, the behavior of the Russian army in Chechnya should hardly serve as a standard for moral scrupulousness--but I cannot avoid adducing this example after reading that Russia voted in the United Nations for the adoption of the U.N. report on Gaza. (The other human rights luminaries who voted for the Goldstone Report include China and Pakistan.) So what would be a justified proportionality? The Goldstone Report never says. But we may safely conclude that, if the legal and moral standard is current European and American behavior in war, then Israel has done pretty well.

 

IV.

So a good deal of the outrage that has greeted the Goldstone Report is perfectly justified. And yet its sections devoted to the Gaza war do make claims and cite testimonies that no honest Israeli can ignore. They demand a thorough investigation, and I will enumerate them in their order of severity.

The worst testimonies are of civilian deaths, some of which sound like cold-blooded murders. In the report, such cases amount to a few individual incidents, and they call for criminal investigation of particular soldiers. Was there indeed a killing at close range of a mother and her three daughters carrying white flags? Then there are a few cases of alleged civilian deaths that are the result of the reckless use of firepower. The most disturbing of them is the testimony about the Al Samouni neighborhood in Gaza City, in which 21 members of a family were killed in an attack on a house. The place and the names are given in the report, and Israel will have to provide answers. Was it a mistake? Were some of the family members Hamas fighters? Did someone shoot at the soldiers from the house? Or was this an act of unjustified homicide?

The testimonies in the Goldstone Report are Palestinian testimonies. They were collected in Gaza, where the watchful eye of Hamas authorities always looms, rendering them vulnerable and partial. Israel chose not to cooperate with the commission, and so the Israeli version of events is not here. It was a mistake on Israel’s part not to participate in the inquiry--though, after reading the report, I am more sympathetic to Israel’s reluctance. This commission that describes its mission as fact-finding treats the missing Israeli testimonies as if they are Israel’s problem, rather than a methodological and empirical shortcoming in the report itself. Whatever one thinks about Israel’s refusal to cooperate, the Goldstone Report is still only 452 pages of mostly Palestinian testimony, and this grave limitation must be acknowledged.

Yet the allegations have now been made, and Israeli answers must be given. The next issue that Israel will have to deal with is the use of what the report calls “human shields,” which seems to have been an Israeli practice on some occasions. In justifying such a practice, Israeli commanders claim that they forced Palestinian civilians to go to certain homes to warn other civilians before attacking the houses. This might be justified, but the testimonies sound different. They sound as if Israeli soldiers were using civilians to gather information. After attacking a certain building, a civilian was allegedly forced to go and check whether the Hamas militants were dead or not. This is a troubling testimony. Was this done, or not? If it was done, then it is in violation of Israel’s own Supreme Court ruling on the matter of human shields.

Other testimonies pertain to the destruction of civilian property. One of the most disturbing is the report of the flattening with bulldozers of the chicken farm at Zeytoun, in which 31,000 chickens were killed. Such destruction, like other reported destructions of agricultural and industrial facilities, does not seem to serve any purpose. The accusation concerning the destruction of civilian property pertains as well to the large-scale destruction of homes. According to the commission, aerial photographs show that, of the total number of homes that were destroyed in two of the hardest-hit neighborhoods, about half were destroyed in the last three days of the operation. If so, then such destruction cannot be justified as in the heat of the battle. It was done to leave a brutal scar as proof of the Israeli presence, as immoral and illegal instruments of deterrence. If this were the case, then reparations should be made to the families whose homes were destroyed.

Next in order of severity comes the bombing of civilian infrastructure. According to the report, the Israeli Air Force bombed the flour mill, the water wells, and the sewage pipes in Gaza. It is possible that the flour mill was strategically located and was used as a perch for snipers or as a launching facility for Qassam rockets fired in the war. This would be the only justification for such a bombing. Israel should now provide its version of these events. If indeed these facilities were attacked as part of a premeditated policy, then this was wrong, and Israel should say so.

I do not see much substance in the complaint against Israel’s bombing of the Hamas parliament and other offices while they were empty. A persuasive case can be made that an organization such as Hamas does not have a division of labor between its military and civilian functions. The report’s long section on the attack on the prison in Gaza also seems to me a mistaken accusation. The commission notes that only one guard was killed in the bombing, but it blames Israel for endangering the prisoners in attacking a target that has no military use. It did not occur to the commission that Israel attacked the prison to allow Fatah prisoners to escape harsh treatment at the hands of Hamas. (The commission is well-aware that this was the population of the prison.) Some of them did escape, and some were subsequently shot by Hamas militants.

The Goldstone Report as a whole is a terrible document. It is biased and unfair. It offers no help in sorting out the real issues. What methods can Israel--and other countries in similar situations--legitimately apply in the defense of their citizens? To create standards of morality in war that leave a state without the means of legitimate self-protection is politically foolish and morally problematic; but real answers to these real problems cannot be found in the Goldstone Report. What should Israel do when Hezbollah’s more lethal and accurate missiles strike the center of Tel Aviv, causing hundreds of civilian deaths? It is a well-known fact that these missiles are in Hezbollah’s possession, and, when they are fired, it will be from populated villages in Lebanon.

It is important, for this reason, that Israel respond to the U.N. report by clarifying the principles that it operated upon in Gaza, thus exposing the limits and the prejudices of the report. A mere denunciation of the report will not suffice. Israel must establish an independent investigation into the concrete allegations that the report makes. By clearing up these issues, by refuting what can be refuted, and by admitting wrongs when wrongs were done, Israel can establish the legitimacy of its self-defense in the next round, as well as honestly deal with its own failures.

Moshe Halbertal is a professor of philosophy at the Hebrew University and the Gruss Professor at New York University School of Law.

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From direct contacts, I am stating that many Palestinians - spread over Gaza, West Bank, USA, Germany - are very nice people. The close influence of Israel was also a mostly positive factor in the development of the Palestinian society. The religious and political leaders of Palestine have to gather honesty and start a constructive attitude without listening to the incitement of the foreign interventionists. The Hamas leaders, Haniya and Meshal are enemies of progress. Goldstone made a mistake. He had to expose the barbarism of Hamas leaders' policies. Running kindergardens, and clinics during the day, is nice, but digging tunnels for terror acts, or shooting missiles during the night, still makes them criminals.

- conefor4200

November 6, 2009 at 3:38pm

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Marty Peretz: I want to thank you for whatever role you played in having this essay published in TNR. It's exemplary in its no nonsense, lucid and balanced reasoning. What a pleasure it is to read! What a breath of fresh air it is! I'll be interested to read comments people make and maybe get into some of that discussion.

- basman

November 6, 2009 at 5:21pm

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Ditto basman. Nice work. A couple of quibbles: On the issue of Goldstone's lengthy focus on the "context of the history that led to the war", it was indeed done with remarkable shoddiness, but the basic necessity of providing an accurate and appropriate context seems to me unavoidable. Lack of recognition of basic historical reality has been one of the most significant factors in perpetuating this conflict. Encouraged by everyone from do-gooders like Goldstone to the Soviet KGB, the Pals have, as a function of their relatively recent invention as a discreet nation (as opposed to the traditional identification as more generally simply "Arabs"), come to except themselves from one of the more robust rules of history--if you launch an unprovoked war of aggression and lose, there are going to be negative consequences. The idea that the Arabs deserve some sort of special "justice" unavailable to, for example, the German former residents of Eastern Europe, is a hugely destructive absurdity. Second, by any reasonable definition ALL the Pals are "civilians". Since they are not a real country, and have no formal armed forces, every gunman and bomb-maker that's killed is strictly speaking a civilian criminal. In this context, the Hamas "police" are about the most clearly identifiable combatants in Gaza.

- Robert Powell

November 7, 2009 at 4:35am

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No surprise to see yet another attack on the Goldstone report in TNR... but beyond the polutical manoeuvering here, Halbertal makes some specific claims that are pretty easy to dismiss: (1) Moshe Yaalon may have claimed that the collateral deaths in the assassination of Salah Shehadeh were unforeseeable, but if so, he's lying. The IDF dumped a 2000-lb bomb on Shehadeh's house, in a densely-settled part of Gaza. The computed danger zones for a US Mk 84 2000-lb bomb extend out to just about 250 metres. There were obviously-occupied houses just metres from the bomb's impact point: see the photo at http://www.life.com/image/1177666, for example. It was _entirely_ foreseeable that innocent people were going to be killed in that attack. Yaalon lied, and Halbertal is either ignorant of the case or lying as well. (2) The claim that mortar crews can set up, fire and be gone so quickly that the only way to attack is with counterfire from other mortars is, quite frankly, bullshit. Setting up a mortar and aiming it to hit a specific point where Israeli units are operating would take at least as much time as to set up a Qassam. In both cases, and with utter air superiority, Israel invested a great deal of effort in monitoring movements on the ground and using both drones and helicopters in quick reaction attacks against Hamas militants: people in Gaza testified to the ubiquity of drone and manned aircraft over the city during the attacks. The actual reason that radar is used in counterfire against mortars is simply because mortar round are high-trajectory and relatively slow, and thus easy to spot. There's similarly no necessity to use 120mm mortars, with their larger blast radius, in such cases: it would be perfectly possible to use 81mm mortars instead, for example. (3) 'Roof-knocking' hasn't involved a "...missile that hits the roof without causing any actual harm..." - such a concept is ludicrous, how would it work? 'Roof-knocking' has used the missiles that Israel uses in individual assassinations in public areas, probably a low-collateral-damage version of the Spike missile. Such a missile will do less damage than the 2000-lb bomb used in the Salah Shehadeh attack, but it's certainly not true that no damage will be caused. Halbertal's paper includes what passes for 'balance' in TNR on this issue: yes, a few individual Israeli soldiers may have killed civilians wantonly, and that's just awful, isn't it? but investigation should proceed no further than that. Luckily, Judge Goldstone himself was more balanced.

- SMacEachern2

November 7, 2009 at 2:57pm

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With all due respect Mac, the Mk. 84 is a 500 not a 2000 pounder. And if I felt I had to order counterfire on a mortar position, I'd much rather have the option of the 120. The Goldstone Report has enough obvious holes in it to make "attack" the wrong description of efforts to point some of them out. Goldstone is "balanced" in the same way the UN was in Bosnia, excellently described by Paddy Ashdown: "We had a clear case of good v. evil, and we tried to split the difference."

- Robert Powell

November 7, 2009 at 4:14pm

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Nope, sorry, a Mk. 84 is a 2000-lb bomb, it's the Mk. 82 which is a 500lb bomb, and it was the former that was dropped on Salah Shehadeh's house. And certainly, a 120mm mortar will make a bigger bang... which is the whole issue in a built-up area with a lot of civilians around. Bigger bang = more dead civilians, all other things being equal. The great sin of the Goldstone Report was an attempt to be even-handed, to look at the conduct of war on both sides - and not to assume that the conduct of one side (or, as Halbertal claims, the conduct of Russia in Chechnya) excuses the conduct of the other. In a situation where the lives of Arabs are assumed to be worth less than those of Israelis, that obviously can't be accepted.

- SMacEachern2

November 7, 2009 at 6:05pm

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SMacEachern2 “No surprise to see yet another attack on the Goldstone report in TNR... but beyond the polutical manoeuvering here,” No surprise to see yet another attack on Israel by one of the the mac team (MacEachern2 and mackenzie) is no surprise. What is surprising is that maceachern2 bothers to subscribe to a magazine he hates. Is he is paid to do so? Any way his “critique of the Halbertal is easy to dismiss: “(1) Moshe Yaalon may have claimed that the collateral deaths in the assassination of Salah Shehadeh were unforeseeable, but if so, he's lying.” And of course Mac is munitions expert and he knows that for sure that Yaalon was lying (rather than mistaken) when he said the “deaths were unforeseen.” No army person can tell for sure how a certain mission will turn out. If they could there would be no such thing as deaths from “friendly fire.” “(2) The claim that mortar crews can set up, fire and be gone so quickly that the only way to attack is with counterfire from other mortars is, quite frankly, bullshit.” Here again the same criticism holds. I would like to know how much war experience, our poster who claims to be an archeologist, has had? Later on he Mac says: “Halbertal's paper includes what passes for 'balance' in TNR on this issue: yes, a few individual Israeli soldiers may have killed civilians wantonly, and that's just awful, isn't it? but investigation should proceed no further than that. Luckily, Judge Goldstone himself was more balanced.” The report’s imbalance goes beyond the claims made about Israeli tactics. Its imbalance in the way it was written. Israeli is mentioned often by name in the report but when it comes to the other side Hamas is never mentioned. You could hardly tell from the report who Israel was fighting never mind why? Even Goldstone has had a hard time answering such basic questions about the report. He said in fact that the report is only a preliminary investigation a sort of pretrial assessment and not a final conclusion about guilt. This is lost on Israel haters like MacEachern2. There is more, but never mind. It’ll be lost on the macattackers. Halbertal’s article was first rate as some other posters have said.

- jacksondyer

November 7, 2009 at 7:19pm

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Richard Landes did a thorough job critquing the Goldstone report: "Fisking Goldstone’s Response to Berman: Whereas Clause #3" by Richard Landes http://www.theaugeanstables.com/ The article is in many parts. Scroll down the thread till you get to the first article.

- jacksondyer

November 7, 2009 at 8:55pm

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An example of Godstone's dishonesty: "Whereas clause #3: “Whereas the mandate of the `fact-finding mission’ makes no mention of the relentless rocket and mortar attacks, which numbered in the thousands and spanned a period of eight years, by Hamas and other violent militant groups in Gaza against civilian targets in Israel, that necessitated Israel’s defensive measures; [Goldstone:] “2. Paragraph 4: This is factually incorrect. Chapter XXIV of the Report considers in detail the relentless rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel and the terror it caused to the people living within their range. The finding is made that they constituted serious war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity.” [Berman Response]: Paragraph 4 [Whereas #3] of H.Res.867 is addressing the mandate, not the Report. It reads as follows: “Whereas the mandate of the ‘‘fact-finding mission’’ makes no mention of the relentless rocket and mortar attacks, which numbered in the thousands and spanned a period of eight years, by Hamas and other violent militant groups in Gaza against civilian targets in Israel, that necessitated Israel’s defensive measures”. That statement is an accurate characterization of both the formal mandate, as passed by the UNHRC, and of the broadened mandate requested by Justice Goldstone." http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2009/11/05/fisking-goldstones-response-to-berman-whereas-clause-3/

- jacksondyer

November 7, 2009 at 8:57pm

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I think it may be a bit unrealistic to expect that any side in any war is going to value the lives of the enemy, even if it's only the most active and dangerous enemies' family members, supporters, and neighbors, the same as its own citizens and soldiers. The value of the lives of Israeli citizens to Hamas, not to mention the lives of the Arabs they regularly kill, torture, use as hostages, etc., is pretty clear That said, I don't think there is an example in all of history when an army defending its home and people has taken greater and more costly measures to safeguard the lives of enemy civilians who are not actively firing on them than Israel's.

- Robert Powell

November 8, 2009 at 2:12am

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Illuminating to the extent that it reveals the largely irreconcilable ethical quandaries which exist as a result of the status quo. The author tries to discount the report (with sound argument) but proceeds in an attempt to narrow accountability to individual circumstance. More revealing, though, is a general lack of accountability, a purposeful ambiguity meant to allow the conflict to be fought on a microcosmic level. This code allows for a flexibility as demanded by a particular situation, but doesn't give much in the way of establishing a universal code and accordingly abandons a need for specialized ethical training and decentralizes decision making, all of which are mutually supportive elements in Israeli military policy. Highlighted by the extant technical barriers is the need for a paradigm shift, not in policy but in a larger political context...it is precisely that to which Halbertal consistently alludes but is shy of stating outright. Even going as far as to criticize the Goldstone Report for analyzing the "bigger picture" (again, he does so with force and a well-articulated POV), it seems that this piece, while addressing many exceedingly relevant issues regarding Israel's military campaign against asymmetrical warfare, is nothing but another reactionary piece to emerge from the Zionist camp (his association is with the Zionist left wing which is notably progressive and academic-minded but plagued by an unfortunate disclarity of reflexive reactionism). Being so articulate and having an unusual degree of acuity in his perspective it is unbecoming that he should neglect to mention the need for a sweeping change in the status quo, whether that be a 2 state solution, a tristate confederacy (I'm just joking here), or a binational state (and here).

- Josh Milstein

November 8, 2009 at 4:05am

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Josh Milstein “Illuminating to the extent that it reveals the largely irreconcilable ethical quandaries which exist as a result of the status quo. The author tries to discount the report (with sound argument) but proceeds in an attempt to narrow accountability to individual circumstance. More revealing, though, is a general lack of accountability, a purposeful ambiguity meant to allow the conflict to be fought on a microcosmic level. This code allows for a flexibility as demanded by a particular situation, but doesn't give much in the way of establishing a universal code and accordingly abandons a need for specialized ethical training and decentralizes decision making, all of which are mutually supportive elements in Israeli military policy.” This wordy reply is nonsense, Josh, since it begs the question about whether the “establishing a universal code” is even possible or desirable. Though the article doesn’t rule it out its focus is on a specific war rather than on wars in general. “Illuminating to the extent that it reveals the largely irreconcilable ethical quandaries which exist as a result of the status quo.” Really? Care to explain this bizarre comment? What precisely is the status quo and why should it lead to “ethical quandaries?” Did the status quo say in Britain or the US lead to an ethical quandary? What exactly are you talking about? “Highlighted by the extant technical barriers is the need for a paradigm shift, not in policy but in a larger political context...” What bullshit. Josh is reading into the article his own desire to see “regime change” in Israel. This is totally irrelevant to the either the article or the report. “Even going as far as to criticize the Goldstone Report for analyzing the "bigger picture" (again, he does so with force and a well-articulated POV),” He does so because the Goldstone report very hypocritically castigates Israel on issues unrelated to its mandate while refusing to see the “bigger picture” in the Hamas ruled territory. Moreover Hamas isn’t even mentioned by name in the report. “….it seems that this piece, while addressing many exceedingly relevant issues regarding Israel's military campaign against asymmetrical warfare, is nothing but another reactionary piece to emerge from the Zionist camp…” This says it all about your own point of view. Your screed is just another vulgar and wordy attack on the Jewish State by a leftist twit. “(his association is with the Zionist left wing which is notably progressive and academic-minded but plagued by an unfortunate disclarity of reflexive reactionism).” This is an opinion not a fact. “Being so articulate and having an unusual degree of acuity in his perspective it is unbecoming that he should neglect to mention the need for a sweeping change in the status quo, whether that be a 2 state solution, a tristate confederacy (I'm just joking here), or a binational state (and here).” Your whole comment is one long joke, Josh. The Goldstone reports was supposed to be narrowly focused on the Gaza war and the article is a comment on the report not on the Israeli political establishment. Josh Milstein has an anti-Israel ax to grind. Too bad it’s such a dull ax and he doesn’t seem to know how to wield it. Stick to posting on "Rabbi"Michael Lerner's web site, Josh.

- jacksondyer

November 8, 2009 at 10:01am

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Milstein: the military code of which country in the world, the military practices of which country in the world, the military training of which country in the world, the ethical training in which military of which country in the world, meet your high standards?

- basman

November 8, 2009 at 10:08am

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Josh Milstein makes it seem that can use code words like "progressive" and that would be sufficient to clinch an argument. Problem is this Norman Geras post makes clear progressive has had many meanings including a number of reactionary ones. (Remember uncle Joe?) http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2009/11/not-peace-but-a-sword-by-sean-coleman.html “Not peace but a sword? (by Sean Coleman)” [The comment below, emailed to me by Sean, is posted here with his permission - NG.] Slavoj Žižek's misappropriation of Jesus is a standard one. He says: Literally, terror is an emanation of virtue. That is to say, in a radical situation of injustice, the only actual proof of love is to accept to fight, to accept to struggle. This could be the lesson of it. And it's simply true; we shouldn't be afraid of it. Jesus Christ says precisely the same thing, when he at the same time says love, turn the left cheek and all that stuff, and then he says - you remember? - if you don't hate your mother, your father, you are not my follower; and then he says, I bring sword, war, destruction, I don't bring peace, and so on and so on. It's as simple as that. This is the radical emancipatory logic which one should accept. Zizek's Christ sounds like a crazed insurgent, a bloodthirsty messiah, with the Gospel transformed into an Orwellian credo for revolutionary shock troops: 'the only actual proof of love is to accept to fight'. The actual quote, from Matthew 10, 34-39, (King James Version), has Jesus saying this: Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. Naturally, these incongruous exhortations have attracted a welter of biblical comment; and some commentators have indeed, like Zizek, taken the passage as conclusive demonstration that Jesus actually advocated violence in spreading the Word of the Gospel. In this reading, the emollient, love-thy-neighbour, turn-the-other-cheek rhetoric officially proclaimed as Jesus's message - which Zizek dismisses as 'all that stuff' - is cast aside for the sterner, more truthful realpolitik of power and salvation. Even Christ, the argument goes, had an iron fist inside the velvet glove. (Interestingly, 'Not peace, but a sword' has become a kind of rallying maxim of a 'harder', less compromising Christian faith - especially so among the reactionary precincts of my own Church - whereby frivolous things like secular engagement, ecumenical dialogue and sceptical reassessment of dogma are discounted as wayward diversions from the true faith. Witness the tenor of interventions like these: 'Secularists and theists are not engaged in a sharing of interesting though irrelevant ideas, but a war for the minds and hearts of mankind.') But to read the passage in this way is not only woefully to misinterpret the message of Jesus, but also to wilfully disregard the elementary standards of textual criticism. Basically, you will understand what it means if you read what precedes it. Chapter 10 of Matthew's Gospel finds Jesus instructing his Disciples as to their ministry and mission in Galilee: he is cautioning them about the hostile and truculent response that their preaching will likely receive, and assuring them that, notwithstanding the persecutions they will likely face, divine safeguards will protect their endeavours. Then he warns them of the divisions and disputations, even between family members, that his 'coming' will inevitably generate. 'Not peace but a sword' is therefore primarily a forewarning of bitter ideological and theological conflict to come, and the concomitant physical strife that will doubtless follow in train. (Such was indeed the exact course of early Christianity). Jesus is spelling out not only how difficult the work would actually be, and the dedication it requires, but how necessary it is: 'he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me'. Obviously, this is a brief gloss on words that have been parsed and discussed and freighted with all manner of interpretations. But to see them as mandating violence in pursuit of some 'necessary' goal is to misconstrue them entirely. (Moreover, nowhere does Jesus say 'if you don't hate your mother, your father, you are not my follower'). Across the vast canvas of the four synoptic Gospels, the recurring, insistent command of Christ is for non-violence. Consider the famous litany of uncompromising demands on his followers beginning at Luke 6, 27, for example: But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you; Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again. And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same. And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Jesus consistently opposed violence, ordering Peter (Mark 26, 52) not to use the sword to protect him, and forbidding resistance to Roman oppression (Mark 12, 17). This was the essential Christian message: love your enemies. Does that really sound like the kind of 'radical emancipatory logic' that delivers the divine imprimatur to Leninist 'struggle'? (Sean Coleman)”

- jacksondyer

November 8, 2009 at 11:17am

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I think, if correct, Mr. Halbertal raises a significant issue as to why certain critical questions were not even asked in the Goldstone report. Drawing conclusions after failing to ask critical questions, reveals a bias. An illustration. I remember when Senator D'Amato's Whitewater Committee went after Hillary Clinton on whether she had the missing Rose Law Firm billing records. One morning, majority counsel, Michael Chertoff, got up from his panel seat and headed around to testify to the committee about his thorough study into who had the billing records when the banking committee was looking for them. He divided up the world into time periods and groups and asked everyone on his list if they had had the billing records at the time they were being sought. Everyone said, "No." except for two people whom he had not asked if they had the records, Vince Foster and Hillary Clinton. Vince Foster, being dead of suicide, was ruled out by Mr. Chertoff. That left his conclusion: Hillary withheld the records from the banking committee -- solely because Chertoff had never asked her.

- Nusholtz

November 8, 2009 at 11:36am

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jacksondyer: "And of course Mac is munitions expert and he knows that for sure that Yaalon was lying..." (Shrug) Last time I had direct experience of this was at the Staunch Gladiator firepower exercises at CFB Gagetown a couple of years ago, where the safety zone used for air-dropped _500-lb_ bombs was about a kilometer. Before that, my military experience was in the 1970s. Mk 84s were around at that point, and the fundamental properties of detonating Tritonal and fragmenting metal haven't changed since that time. So, yeah. If Yaalon claims that the IDF can drop a 2000-lb bomb into a crowded Gaza residential neighbourhood and have any reasonable expectation of not causing a lot of collateral casualties, then He. Is. Lying. Through. His. Fucking. Teeth. Clear enough? And how about you? What's your experience of this, beyond masturbating to the IDF video feeds?

- SMacEachern2

November 8, 2009 at 3:26pm

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" Last time I had direct experience of this was at the Staunch Gladiator firepower exercises at CFB Gagetown..." So are you Canadian? I have had experience with anti-tank weaponry, but I wouldn't presume to set myself up as an expert who can gainsay what Israeli experts in the field say. "So, yeah. If Yaalon claims that the IDF can drop a 2000-lb bomb into a crowded Gaza residential neighbourhood and have any reasonable expectation of not causing a lot of collateral casualties, then He. Is. Lying. Through. His. Fucking. Teeth." Cool it boy. Shehadeh was no boyscout and he was one of the founders of Hamas's Izzedine al-Qassem Brigades. Of course killing and terrorizing Jews is no big deal to you. Your getting excercized over the death of this murdered tells us a lot about you. (YEA I KNOW YOU ARE ANGRY AT OTHER PEOPLE THAT WERE KILLED, though you don't whow the same lever of anger or any anger over the murder tens of thousands of people in the SUDAN or other victims of Islamic terrorism.

- jacksondyer

November 8, 2009 at 4:48pm

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I apologize if you were taking aback at my wordiness, jacksonyder At no point does the author suggest that an ethical code is unnecessary. Quite to the contrary he reveals his personal investment in devising such a code and merely relates that difficulty to the larger one of reconciling moral issues involved with asymmetrical warfare with the positions held by the international community. I’m not sure where you got the idea that he suggests that a code may be unnecessary. As he stated several times throughout the article, there is a code in place but it is predicated on the need for flexibility. The effect this has is to decentralize the accountability; try to take this more as neutral consequence than politicized hyperbole. Because Israel’s military has adapted a nonconventional set of procedures for a nonconventional conflict any accusations of war crimes against an individual are difficult to address from the point of the international community since it is trying to assume a single viewpoint which can be applied equally throughout the world; a strategy which is, no doubt, a universal failure. The author illuminates that there are decisions which must be made in asymmetrical warfare which provide for obvious ethical quandaries. An example of one is in measuring proportionality – how many civilians and/or combatants may be put in harms way to accomplish the mission. He calls into question Dresden and other like situations – he is right to do so as far as a strategy to deflect criticism is concerned (it is, as I’m sure you know an argument which is applied quite often). The assumption that decisions to put a single human life at risk in any situation does not rest easily upon thinking and humanist-oriented men, which the author seems to be, is plainly unqualified. The “status quo” in the singular context of this article (though I have intimated that this article is itself entirely too narrowing) is asymmetrical warfare. “Regime change?” That’s a very bold and unqualified accusation. I don’t recall advocating support for any particular political wing and if that’s what you saw when reading between the lines I think a visit to the optometrist is in order. As far as the notion of this article being tied in to the larger political context, I cannot understand why you would think to isolate this operation, this report, or this article from the historical processes to which it is entirely subject. There is an overarching need for a paradigm shift in order to alleviate the very difficulties which are addressed in this article. For too long have the actors in this conflict narrowed the scope of relevant discussion. Granted, they are of great significance, and such deliberation is the nature of diplomacy, but after 61 years it is clear that while maintaining this atmosphere will not necessarily lead to Israel’s destruction (as many left-wing critics claim as impetus for the 2-state solution), but neither will it see an end to conflict. If international actors have difficulty resonating with Israel’s flexible military policies, it is that much more difficult to address the nature of an organization like Hamas which indiscriminately kills civilians and uses the civilian populace in its area of operation as “human shields.” It may well be that the report has a significant degree of bias. Many people are looking for, at the least, a quid pro quid analysis of the belligerents actions. This expectation of tit-for-tat analysis is, again, the nature of diplomacy. It is thus predictable that the Israeli government would lean away from analysis which is at times largely equivocal. Your attack on my personal credentials is alarming in that it reveals precisely the reactionary trend to which I was referring. Your infant-like diatribe is all too common but understandable when considering your associations, which I assume to be among the right of center unequivocal supporters of the State of Israel, focused on narrowing the dialogue to more particular issues. Such are the tactics employed in hasbarah, with which I am intimately familiar (as I assume you are) as one who has long been a purveyor of such strategy. As far as my “anti-Israel ax” I am again saddened at your blinded and deterministic reactionism. I am, rather, a critic of the State of Israel, which is not to say that I am anti-Zionist, overwhelmingly biased, or any of the other associations which I’m sure you’ve already made. I believe strongly in the need for a Jewish state, if you must know. My personal imperative is to see management by objective and honest brokers, not including the likes of special interests group to which much of the dialogue is subject. I should hope that you would come to see those who do not necessarily agree with your point of view as people who harbor different but similarly viable viewpoints. Considering them objectionable is a personal decision but decrying one whom you disagree with as a “leftist twit” is not only incorrect, it is sickening display of virulence. Who is Michael Lerner?

- Josh Milstein

November 8, 2009 at 4:50pm

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jacksondyer: Sorry, but there's nothing complicated there. A 2000-lb bomb will have certain effects when it detonates, that's all. Blast will kill people directly and topple walls out to a particular distance, fragments will kill people at a greater distance. The question isn't whether Shehadeh was a bad man: he was. The question is whether Halbertal's channeling of Moshe Yaalon's excuses is anything but self-serving. The IDF approved a tactic for killing Shehadeh that guaranteed the deaths of innocent people in the area: those people were then killed. Crocodile tears about their deaths from the IDF afterward, and Halbertal's pathetic little excuses, just make the whole exercise even more obscene.

- SMacEachern2

November 8, 2009 at 8:15pm

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Josh I don’t usually take seriously people who make assumptions about their interlocutors as you do without knowing anything about them. I have been posting here for many years have some other posters and I can tell your assumptions are completely off. Here are some of the assumptions you made about me: “Your attack on my personal credentials is alarming in that it reveals precisely the reactionary trend to which I was referring. Your infant-like diatribe is all too common but understandable when considering your associations, which I assume to be among the right of center unequivocal supporters of the State of Israel, focused on narrowing the dialogue to more particular issues.” Then: “Such are the tactics employed in hasbarah, with which I am intimately familiar (as I assume you are) as one who has long been a purveyor of such strategy.” I will not tell you about my personal beliefs since that would make it too easy for you and I am not in the mood to be of any assistance to a tiresome cuss like you, Josh. However some short answers are in order: The only hasbarah I know is the Hebrew word which means an explanation. The fact that the Israeli government has finally started to talk back to its critics after years of silence, really bothers you, doesn’t it, Josh? As for my associates, who exactly are my associates? Which right are you talking about, the first right after a left turn or the first right after a right turn? Hard to say with you! About attacking your credentials, it would be fairer to say that I do not give any credence to your self declared intentions and beliefs. For example, you say that you are pro-Israel but you rhetoric and style make me think that it is only a pretense. Mearsheimer too says that he is pro Israel. I won’t go into a detailed discussion of the Goldstone report or the laudable critique of it by Moshe Halbertal. However, I will say that your view that your comment that: “… it is that much more difficult to address the nature of an organization like Hamas which indiscriminately kills civilians and uses the civilian populace in its area of operation as “human shields.” This is pretty lame. First even a cursory look at Hamas’ founding charter will show that it is an antisemitic genocidal organization whose final aim is the elimination of the State of Israel. None of this appears in the report which makes that document useless since it gives no reason why Israel went to war with Hamas in the first place. But then the report doesn’t even mention Hamas by name. Finally, I will echo another poster’s question in modified form: could you tell us what State in the universe and especially in the Middle East do you believe Israel should turn into? Which country has a better human rights record than Israel in the middle east? Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia? Please keep you answers short as I don’t have hours to waste on any single post.

- jacksondyer

November 8, 2009 at 8:30pm

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SMacEachern2 “jacksondyer: Sorry, but there's nothing complicated there. A 2000-lb bomb will have certain effects when it detonates, that's all. Blast will kill people directly and topple walls out to a particular distance, fragments will kill people at a greater distance. The question isn't whether Shehadeh was a bad man: he was.” Well, no the question is how best to fight the Hamas terrorist infrastructure. The bomb did what it was supposed to do kill Shehadeh a lethal architect of murder and terror. You can gainsay the methods used, but are you sure that had they used a smaller size bomb it wouldn’t have had equally disastrous collateral damage? What if a smaller bomb had killed by standards but not its intended victim? Israel would then have been accused anyway. “The question is whether Halbertal's channeling of Moshe Yaalon's excuses is anything but self-serving.” I didn’t read it that way. I am still waiting for you to show a similar lever of outrage at the deaths of tend of thousands of people many of them children in the Sudan and elsewhere, Mac. When it comes to Israel one death is a tragedy, when it comes to the Sudan or some other theater of genocide all the deaths are mere statistics to be explained away.

- jacksondyer

November 8, 2009 at 8:38pm

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I am not sure anyone is reading this thread any more. However, just in case Josh shows up he should be aware of this insightful post about what it means to be pro-Israel: Pro-Israel http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2009/11/proisrael.html "In case anyone had failed to notice it, let me just say that this blog is pro-Israel. If I'd ever been asked to say whether it was, I would have affirmed it without any hesitation; I wouldn't have stopped to ponder the meaning of 'pro-Israel', merely taking this in a rough and ready sense. I say that merely by way of a preamble to expressing my bafflement over the debate referred to in this piece by Josh Nathan-Kazis. He writes of American Jewish students who have misgivings about describing themselves as 'pro-Israel'. As far as I can see, only two reasons are put forward for their misgivings. First, those who have them 'wonder whether J Street can use the term while promoting policies that oppose the positions of the Israeli government'. Second, they don't want their views to be associated with the views of AIPAC. To take the second point first, I'd have thought you can't describe yourself as anything without it putting you in someone else's company. The trick is to make the distinctions you need to make in order to differentiate your views from any of theirs that you find objectionable. So the first point is the more important one. And why it has me baffled is that it's just obvious that being pro-something - an organization, a country or other collectivity - doesn't commit you to all the policies of those running it. Thus, you can be a supporter of a charitable organization and still criticize some of its statements or priorities; of a political party and think that it has made mistakes in government or in campaigning, and want to say so; of a church and yet regret its unwillingness to rethink some of its doctrines. These are banal truths. They are made more emphatic by the circumstance that people who so value a collective as to choose to belong to it don't necessarily feel that this imposes a duty of silence on them so far as criticism is concerned. Thinking, now, about the meaning of 'pro-Israel', I'd say that not much more is needed as a basis for describing oneself in this way than some combination of supporting Israel's right to exist, having the interests of the country and its people at heart, liking features of the country and its traditions, taking exception to the special vilification of it common amongst its enemies (both regional and worldwide) and which go beyond normal political criticism, resisting, more generally, the idea that Israel is to be singled out and judged, or treated, according to standards that don't apply to other countries, and so on."

- jacksondyer

November 9, 2009 at 2:09pm

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I liked the comment by Geras and am happy to be introduced to his blog. It's of course a telling critique of the inveterate Israel bashers (as opposed to responsible criticism of specific policies or actions) to ask them what countries meet the standards they hold Israel to. Once they can't answer, they are in fact answering other things.

- basman

November 9, 2009 at 9:07pm

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For Example: The Right Way to Investigate Gaza Evelyn Gordon - 11.09.2009 - 10:51 AM "...A group of South African immigrants to Israel submitted a novel proposal to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week. Netanyahu, they said, should accede to the UN’s demand that Israel investigate its own actions during January’s war in Gaza. But it should do so in the only way that makes sense: not by focusing on Israel’s actions in a vacuum but by comparing them to those of other Western military campaigns in populated areas – for instance, American operations in Iraq and Afghanistan or NATO’s bombing of Serbia. “I particularly mention Serbia, where the number of bombs dropped on a civilian population was tremendously high,” Charles Abelsohn, one of the proposal’s authors, told Haaretz. “This is how war is conducted. But all of a sudden, when Israel is involved, there is a law of human rights that doesn’t appear to apply anywhere else.” The South Africans are right: The Gaza war can only be understood comparatively. Only by analyzing how the level of civilian casualties and efforts to minimize them compared with casualty levels in other Western military campaigns, only by assessing how Hamas’ efforts to use civilians as cover compare with those of other terrorist groups in other conflicts — only then can a fair determination be made about whether Israel is a war criminal, as the Goldstone Report claims, or whether it “did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare,” as British Col. Richard Kemp claims. Abelsohn is also right that such data would “assist those who are fighting the good fight on Israel’s behalf.” Without comparative facts and figures, Israel’s assertion that its Gaza operation was a model of morality will not convince anyone not predisposed to believe it – unless, like Kemp, they have the firsthand knowledge needed to make their own comparisons. But because most people have no combat experience, they have no basis for comparison. During World War II, according to historian William Hitchcock, the British bombing of one single city, Rouen, on one single day, April 19, 1944, killed 900 allied civilians. And that figure, which was not atypical, does not even include combatants and enemy civilians. By comparison, according to IDF figures, Israel killed 1,166 Palestinians in Gaza over the space of three weeks, of whom 709 were combatants. Hence, even if, as Palestinians claim, the total casualty figure was higher and the proportion of combatants lower, Israel would clearly not fare badly in an international comparison. I doubt that would matter to the Goldstones of the world. But it would matter to those who would like to think well of Israel but are troubled by the endless stream of accusations, which Israel has done too little to counter. Israel needs to produce the necessary comparative data, and its friends need to make sure it gets disseminated. Indeed, this should have been done long ago. But better late than never...

- basman

November 10, 2009 at 12:07am

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Shorter Harbetal: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/14/AR2009111402279_pf.html

- basman

November 15, 2009 at 11:27am

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