{"id":12698,"date":"2023-12-20T12:37:54","date_gmt":"2023-12-20T10:37:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/?p=12698"},"modified":"2024-02-27T13:57:04","modified_gmt":"2024-02-27T11:57:04","slug":"israel-maintains-moral-clarity-amid-smog-of-gaza-war-on-jihad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jppi.org.il\/en\/israel-maintains-moral-clarity-amid-smog-of-gaza-war-on-jihad\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel maintains moral clarity amid smog of Gaza war on Jihad"},"content":{"rendered":"

CENTER FIELD: In this just war, every death and injury, including this accidental calamity, is on Hamas<\/span><\/h3>\n

Israel\u2019s already-heart-breaking Hanukkah ended on an operatically tragic note. The fresh burials of 27 combat heroes and six holy hostages darkened the festival of light. The IDF seems to be gaining militarily. But the cost in dead and wounded keeps mounting. Then,\u00a0Yotam Haim, Samer Talalka, and Alon Shamriz<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 three heroes who endured Hamas\u2019s barbarism for 70 days and were so agonizingly close to freedom \u2013 were killed by our own soldiers.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

Every Israeli soldier must understand. In this just war, every death and injury, including this accidental calamity, is on Hamas. Those Palestinian terrorists started it. They kidnapped the three men. They are the ones who cower behind hospital gowns and four-year-olds, while targeting the innocent, even babies. And they are the ones who trigger the fear, confusion, and murkiness that caused this tragedy.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

Unknowns\u00a0waving white flags<\/a>\u00a0could lure you into a trap; baby dolls are booby-trapped. Especially in this war, we need bold, brave, forward-leaning fighters, disciplined enough to minimize mistakes, but more willing to risk mistakes than to psyche themselves out, fearing slip-ups and review boards.<\/p>\n

Beware of the storytellers\u2019 simplified sleight-of-hand<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Without excusing any operational, training, or command failures the IDF should fix, all of us lounging at home should beware of the storytellers\u2019 simplified sleight-of-hand. We tell these war stories, knowing how they end before we start \u2013 our soldiers don\u2019t. We spin these stories at our pace \u2013 our soldiers repeatedly make split-second, life-and-death decisions.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

And as we listen, we often imagine a quiet morning, with the sun shining, and these unfortunate hostages waving a white flag, under a big spotlight, with captions. Instead, imagine the noise, chaos, unbearable tension, and Hamas\u2019s many lethal tricks. Fighting this evil enemy, who disrespects human life, who mocks rules of civilized warfare, our soldiers aren\u2019t just facing the fog of war \u2013 it\u2019s the moral smog of jihadi war.<\/p>\n

EVEN IN successful wars,\u00a0friendly fire<\/a>\u00a0causes up to 20% of battlefield casualties. In 1758, George Washington led 500 Virginians against French and Native American raiders at Fort Ligonier. Amid the actual fog at dusk, his troops and some other Virginians fired at each other \u2013 killing 40. Confederate soldiers shot their own General Stonewall Jackson, returning from an intelligence-gathering mission during the Civil War.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

During World War II, the British hushed up at least two instances of friendly-bombing, which guilt-wracked pilots revealed half a century later \u2013 so let\u2019s applaud the IDF\u2019s transparency. And, most tragic, in May 1945, Allied bombers sank three ships that were supposedly ferrying German troops. Instead, they killed more than 6,000 Jews who had survived concentration camps and soldiers \u2013 mostly Russians \u2013 who had survived Nazi prisoner-of-war camps. In Vietnam, Americans recorded more than 8,000 friendly-fire incidents.<\/p>\n

In Israel, a sentry mistakenly killed Gen. Mickey Marcus in 1948. In 1982, a Phantom F-4, flying hundreds of kilometers per hour, overflew its target by one kilometer and attacked Nahal 931 soldiers in Lebanon, killing 24. Israeli tanks killed five Israeli soldiers in 2009 and 2014 in Gaza. And, in January 2022, when two IDF deaths could shock us for weeks, Israel reeled at \u201cOfficer N\u2019s\u201d mistaken killing of Maj. Ofek Aharon, 28, and Maj. Itamar Elharar, 26.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

As we embrace the three hostages\u2019 families, we also hug the friendly-firers. They join the growing legions of traumatized Israelis, many wracked with survivor\u2019s guilt. While many who suffer ask \u201cWhy me?\u201d \u2013 those who survive often ask \u201cWhy me?\u201d too.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

All Israelis believe in life<\/strong><\/h3>\n

WITHOUT RUSHING the process or dismissing the pain, try reframing those natural feelings. All Israelis, whether they believe in God\u2019s plan or not, believe in life \u2013 it\u2019s what makes each death so devastating. You feel how much parents and teachers, friends and relatives, invested in each soul, each mini-universe now shattered. But that\u2019s why we need to go from feeling some onus to living each day as a bonus.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

If you\u2019ve healed from your physical wounds, if you\u2019ve buried loved ones, your life can now take on extra meaning. Pivot from \u201cWhy me?\u201d to \u201cHow do I honor them?\u201d First, we must win this war, neutralizing the Hamas and Hezbollah threats sufficiently so that 250,000 evacuees can sleep in their own beds soundly at night.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

Then, we continue doing what Israelis do so well \u2013 living with values, purpose, and joy. Use those lost lives, their memories, hopes, values, and goodness, not to weigh us down by sitting on our shoulders, but to lift us up, forever whispering in our ears to be better people, to follow our dreams, to live our best lives, to laugh. Some clich\u00e9s are nevertheless true: They died too early, so we could live long, and safe, and meaningfully.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

In January 1948, anticipating a far more uncertain situation, months before six Arab armies attacked the new State of Israel, David Ben-Gurion declared: \u201cThere is now nothing more important than war needs, and nothing equal to war needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

Ben-Gurion called war \u201ca cruel and jealous Moloch,\u201d a ruthless, uncompromising, insatiable god. Acknowledging that we Jews hate war, only resorting to it because there\u2019s no other choice, Ben-Gurion explained that this reluctance and total focus \u201cwill give us the advantage that our enemies do not have and the followers of violence lack: a vision of life, a vision of national rebirth, of independence, equality, and peace \u2013 for the Jewish nation and for humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n

May we heal, inspired by Ben-Gurion\u2019s vision, whether we were forced to kill, shot mistakenly, survived by millimeters, lost those dearest to us, or simply live here, knowing the price \u2013 while celebrating the payoffs, daily.<\/p>\n

<\/section>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

The writer, a senior fellow in Zionist thought at the Jewish People Policy Institute, is an American presidential historian and the editor of a new three-volume set, Theodor Herzl: Zionist Writings, the inaugural publication of The Library of the Jewish People<\/em><\/p>\n

Published by JPOST<\/a><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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