I read the report by Human Rights Watch on the actions of the Israeli Defense Forces action in the refugee camp at Jenin. It’s damning.
The government of Israel had a legitimate reason to send troops into the camp, it was a base for attacks on their citizens, and they had every right to go there and apprehend or kill the bombers. However, the report documents the troops of the IDF behaving in a manner that’s an embarrassment to professional soldiers.
They used civilians as human shields, which is a violation of the laws of combat.
And they treated the civilians with contempt. I can appreciate the anger of those young men in the IDF, no doubt many of them had friends or family murdered by a suicide bomber, and they must have been full of rage and hurt. I would be as well. But a soldier has to get past rage and hurt to act as a professional in the best interests of the IDF and the people of Israel, mistreating civilians, even if it isn’t a crime, doesn’t win hearts and minds. If the IDF had treated those people with a little respect and decency, instead of going in with a bust heads ‘tude, they might had learned more about where the terrorists were located. But they spat on civilians, and marched them out ahead of their bomb sniffing dogs into areas which may have been mined or booby-trapped.
That’s a major difference between my country’s war on terror, and Israel’s: we went into Afghanistan as liberators, trying to eliminate a criminal regime, and we distinguished between Taliban, al Quida and civilian (were we successful? I don’t think so, but we had good intentions). It seems to me that the IDF went into Jenin with the preconception that everyone in that camp was the enemy. I don’t think that’s the right way to fight terrorism.
Please, note well, I’m not accusing the IDF of war crimes over who got shot by a sniper, or who was killed by a stray rocket or bomb. I don’t discount those deaths, but I also know that innocents die in warfare, and I’m not going to second guess the actions of a soldier who has to make a life or death choice. The laws of war allow for that, and the only court where those cases are adjudicated is the conscience.
The IDF better damn well do a better job of disciplining its troops, because while they may have found all the suicide bombers in Jenin, they left a few thousand willing volunteers for the next wave of ‘martyrs’ in the rubble.
