A new report by the Israeli liberal newspaper Ha'aretz alleges that the IDF used brutal tactics of warfare in Gaza:
The testimonies include a description by an infantry squad leader of an incident where an IDF sharpshooter mistakenly shot a Palestinian mother and her two children. "There was a house with a family inside .... We put them in a room. Later we left the house and another platoon entered it, and a few days after that there was an order to release the family. They had set up positions upstairs. There was a sniper position on the roof," the soldier said.
"The platoon commander let the family go and told them to go to the right. One mother and her two children didn't understand and went to the left, but they forgot to tell the sharpshooter on the roof they had let them go and it was okay, and he should hold his fire and he ... he did what he was supposed to, like he was following his orders."
According to the squad leader: "The sharpshooter saw a woman and children approaching him, closer than the lines he was told no one should pass. He shot them straight away. In any case, what happened is that in the end he killed them.
"I don't think he felt too bad about it, because after all, as far as he was concerned, he did his job according to the orders he was given. And the atmosphere in general, from what I understood from most of my men who I talked to ... I don't know how to describe it .... The lives of Palestinians, let's say, is something very, very less important than the lives of our soldiers. So as far as they are concerned they can justify it that way," he said.
For reflexive antagonists of Israel, this will only confirm their worst suspicions--or should I say their catechism?--about a colonialist state that has forfeited the good will the United States still accords it. For reflexive defenders of Israel, this can only lead to grim rationalizations: "Even if it is true, the soldier was just doing his duty, and these so-called 'crimes' pale in comparison to what Hamas does to its own people."
Even though these admissions have yet to be verified by independent inquiry, the responsible first response to them is one of demoralization. It is impossible not to think with the blood when you think about Israel, and by that I don't mean you need to be Jewish. Everyone has a stake in this small country now -- Jews, philo-Semites, anti-Semites -- whether they are motivated by a legitimate concern for the sanctity and perpetuity of the Middle East's only liberal democracy, an equally legitimate queasiness over its human rights abuses, or a wicked desire to see it wiped off the map.
These horrifying revelations come at a time in which Israel finds itself more isolated than ever and sympathetic advisors talk of "improving its image" in the eyes of the world. I'm not sure it'll ever be able to improve its image, even if tomorrow every settlement in the West Bank were dismantled and every sanction against the messianic fascist regime in Gaza were ended. A nation's PR is only as good as its "facts on the ground." Surely it doesn't help that Israel's outward face to the world now takes the form of the racist crackpot Avigdor Lieberman.
Jeffrey Goldberg does more worrying than any one writer should, and with respect to the Ha'aretz expose, he has a very sensible and depressing take:
Public relations isn't a morally relevant category, in any case: The crucial question is, how should a civilized country behave when confronting barbarism? With barbarism? Or with respect for innocent life? Pardon me for saying so, but the Jewish people didn't struggle for national equality, justice and freedom so that some of its sons could behave like Cossacks. Please don't get me wrong: I'm not equating the morality of the IDF to that of Hamas. The goal of Hamas is to murder innocent people; the goal of the IDF is to avoid murdering innocent people. But when the IDF fails to achieve its goal, and ends up inflicting needless destruction and suffering, it sullies not only its own name, but the name of the Jewish state. It risks making a just cause -- Jewish nationhood -- seem unjust, and it ultimately endangers what it is supposed to protect.
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