{"id":12109,"date":"2023-10-19T09:59:18","date_gmt":"2023-10-19T06:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/?p=12109"},"modified":"2024-01-14T15:10:45","modified_gmt":"2024-01-14T13:10:45","slug":"israeli-soldiers-die-because-its-military-is-so-moral-how-to-fight-the-next-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/israeli-soldiers-die-because-its-military-is-so-moral-how-to-fight-the-next-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli Soldiers Die Because Its Military Is So Moral; How to Fight the Next War"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Predictably, suckered again by Hamas propagandists, the international community blasted Israel for attacking the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Without waiting for any evidence \u2014 Israeli or otherwise \u2014\u00a0almost every single media outlet chose to parrot the Hamas lie that Israel was responsible for the explosion.<\/a><\/p>\n

Even when Israel provided intelligence proving that Hamas lied, most outlets reframed the story as disputing claims from equally credible sources.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0evidence implicating Palestinian Islamic Jihad<\/a>\u00a0is quite convincing. President Biden confirmed that the US Defense Department corroborated Israel\u2019s claim that Palestinian terrorists bombed the hospital by accident. Israel has released audio and visual proof \u2014 and still some media outlets are saying the findings are\u00a0\u201cpreliminary.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, has anyone found a media outlet that rushed to judge Israel for the bombing, that is now denouncing the true Palestinian culprits?<\/p>\n

This latest Palestinian crime against their own people should clarify this war\u2019s moral dynamics. Hamas started the war on October 7. It was guilty then \u2014 and remains guilty now \u2014 until the war ends. Every resulting death, every subsequent injury, trauma, and economic loss, including errant explosions, is Hamas\u2019 fault.<\/p>\n

Sweating the ethics of fighting such barbarians feels absurd \u2014 35 percent of Israel\u2019s dead remain unidentified because rampaging Palestinians mutilated the bodies so violently.<\/p>\n

Still, Israelis \u2014 and Jews worldwide \u2014 have enjoyed being praised for Israel having \u201cthe world\u2019s most moral army.\u201d As a Zionist, I remain proud of Israel\u2019s \u201cpurity of arms\u201d code, which conveys the Zionist desire to perfect the Jewish soul, not just defend Jewish bodies.<\/p>\n

As a liberal-democrat, I am honored that many democratic armies study Israel\u2019s moral doctrines and restraint toward civilians. But as an American political historian, I warn Israel \u2014 and its supporters \u2014 that these niceties have cost Israelis their people\u2019s spilled blood and their enemies\u2019 emboldened bloodlust.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a defining Zionist myth. In January 1948, hundreds of Arab irregulars ambushed 35 Haganah soldiers trying to resupply Gush Etzion. The Arabs mutilated these young men\u2019s corpses so brutally, that only 23 of the 35 bodies could be identified. A legend arose that the \u201clamed-hay\u201d \u2014 the Hebrew letters representing 35 \u2014 met an Arab shepherd while convoying out of Jerusalem. They were too ethical to kill him, but he wasn\u2019t too ethical \u2014 or grateful \u2014 to stay quiet. He sounded the alarm, and they all were butchered. More likely, it was\u00a0two Arab women<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Today, there are Lamed Hey streets, a kibbutz, Netiv HaLamed Hey, and endless educational activities honoring the young martyrs\u2019 ill-fated ethics. That tragedy set a template, whereby Israel sometimes sacrificed military objectives, even Israeli lives, on the oxymoronic altar of military morality.<\/p>\n

Until October 7, the most painful recent example of that lovely but lethal morality was another ambush. In March 2002, Palestinian terrorists murdered 130 Israelis \u2014 an intolerable number then, although fewer than the 200 victims Hamas has kidnapped, half the 260 slaughtered at the SuperNova concert, and barely 10 percent of the October 7 death toll.<\/p>\n

Exploiting Israel\u2019s attempt at peace with the Oslo Accords, Palestinians turned Jenin into suicide-bombing central. Yet even after warning Palestinian civilians to flee, Israel deemed it immoral to bomb Jenin\u2019s bomb factories, munition depots, and terrorist headquarters from the air. Acting morally, Israel sent troops into the cramped Casbah, where terrorists hatched their crimes, hiding behind 13,500 civilians.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s restraint surprised the Palestinians, who had been targeting innocent Israelis for months.<\/p>\n

Tabbat Mardawi, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader guilty of at least 12 attacks, later\u00a0told CNN<\/a>: \u201cI\u2019ve been waiting for a moment like that for years.\u201d Instead of the expected bombing raids, it \u201cwas like hunting \u2026 like being given a prize\u2026. The Israelis knew that any soldier who went into the camp like that was going to get killed.\u201d<\/p>\n

On April 9, Palestinian terrorists ambushed Israeli troops. Thirteen Israelis died in the worst incident \u2014 and another 10 fell too, with 75 wounded. During the house-to-house fighting, 55 Palestinians died. Most were found clutching weapons in their hands or with their weapons lying nearby.<\/p>\n

I remember how proud so many American Jews were of Israel\u2019s \u201cmorality.\u201d I remember how devastated I felt for dozens of new widows and orphans whose husbands and fathers died so we could feel good.<\/p>\n

Alas, Israel\u2019s ethical effort didn\u2019t stop Palestinians from accusing Israel of massacring hundreds of civilians.<\/p>\n

Characteristically, reporters spread the lie before checking any facts. Suddenly, the world pronounced Jenin \u201ctotally destroyed\u201d \u2014 as if it had been carpet-bombed \u2014 and Israel \u201cmorally repugnant.\u201d Eventually, honest investigations debunked this big lie. Still, the BBC\u2019s James Reynolds explained \u201cThose two words\u201d \u2014 Jenin and massacre \u2014 became linked.<\/p>\n

These lies fueled the decades-long Arab propaganda campaign delegitimizing Israel. The campaign rests on centuries-old libels calling the Jews all-powerful and all-evil. Many accusations against the Jewish state confirm long-standing biases against the Jewish people.<\/p>\n

The pattern, alas, keeps repeating. In 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza, hoping for peace. Palestinians rewarded that ethical act with ever-escalating violence and vile accusations. In repeated conflicts, especially since dictatorial Hamas seized power in its 2007 coup, Israel has invented many techniques for fighting urban warfare as fairly as possible.<\/p>\n

Israel has dropped leaflets before dropping bombs. Israel has texted citizens before dropping bombs. Israel has \u201cknocked roofs,\u201d sending missiles across a targeted building, before dropping bombs. Israel empowered pilots to abort important missions against legitimate military targets if too many civilians seem to be at risk. Sacrificing the element of surprise, Israel kept trying to act morally \u2014 yet kept being condemned internationally.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, cowering behind civilians, Hamas amassed arsenals, trained killers, and terrorized the Gaza corridor with rockets, riots, and attempted border breaches. In 2018, turning to eco-terrorism, they sent burning kites over the border. Their \u201cKitetifada\u201d set 2,000 fires, incinerating agriculture in an area two-thirds the size of Geneva \u2014 where the UN kept skewering \u201cimmoral\u201d democratic Israel, while ignoring totalitarian Hamas.<\/p>\n

That year, I\u00a0interviewed<\/a>\u00a0my cousin, Adele Raemer. For decades, she\u00a0lived\u00a0happily\u00a0in a progressive paradise of the Gaza corridor kibbutzim,\u00a0but was now watching as\u00a0Israel\u2019s disengagement made their lives hellish. \u201cThe IDF is the world\u2019s most moral army,\u201d she said. \u201cThey aim for the feet. They \u2018knock on the roof,\u2019 warning dwellers to flee an apartment-building-turned-terrorist-base before destroying it. If, God forbid, Hamas had breached the fence, hundreds would have been killed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adele, who had hoped for coexistence with Palestinians, resented Israel\u2019s impotence: \u201cI don\u2019t remember voting for Hamas, but they \u2014 not my government \u2014 run my life. They decide when I go into my safe room \u2014 or not. They decide when school is open for me to teach \u2014 or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

I warned then, that what the UN called \u201cprotests,\u201d the kibbutzniks experienced as riots \u2014 attempts at mass invasion, with thousands trained to kidnap or kill Adele and her neighbors.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Israel\u2019s moral code shaped the \u201cconceptzia,\u201d the conception that decided Hamas was pragmatic, and its violence could be indulged and contained.<\/p>\n

Fighting this new unsought war for survival, Israelis should learn from this unhappy history:<\/p>\n