I didn’t really want to join this debate, but I’ve been following from the sidelines and, well, I just can’t reign my fingers in anymore…
First off - let me immediately clear the table by saying that the Rafiah incident which prompted this thread SHOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED. Period. Someone, somewhere along the Israeli chain of command FUCKED UP. No way a tank shell should have been fired into a large crowd of people, many or even most of them there either because they were truly just an angry mass of people, or because they were forced by armed militants to march ahead of them, providing them with a Human Shield. Most of those killed - while perhaps being USED as tools by the Palestinian terrorist contingent, were NOT terrorists and did NOT deserve to die.
That said, I strongly denounce all the accusations and/or allegations that this and other similar incidents are somehow Israeli official policy. They are NOT. As an Ex-IDF officer myself, I can tell you that at the planning level, the FIRST - the VERY FIRST - criterion of every plan is: “Are non-combatants likely to be hurt by this action?” Yes, the question “Is this safe for the soldiers?” actually comes SECOND, in the sense that, oftentimes, planned operations have been canceled because all the possible plans that did not endanger non-combatants had too high a cost in terms of danger to our soldiers. So they got scrapped. In fact, many operations have been canceled or posponed JUST BEFORE EXECUTION because of a proviso within the plan for making certain that no non-combatants are within the danger zone. And sometimes the operation goes on because we DON’T have perfect intelligence, and we THINK that there are no non-combatants around 
(As an aside, it’s really easy to make great plans in the air-conditioned bunkers of General HQ… much more difficult to stick to the game plan under fire. No military plan has ever survived contact with the enemy intact, etc…)
Contrast that to the GOAL of terrorism, which is to take out as many Israeli CIVILIANS as possible.
The comparison between these goals, as I have seen several posters make here, explicitly or implicitly, is simply COMPLETELY WRONG (and, I admit, insulting to me as an Israeli).
I think that both extreme sides in this thread are wrong: The Israel Bashers are completely wrong in that Israeli actions are NOT anything like Palestinian Terrorist actions (Yes, I know - not ALL palestinians - I know most of them just want to know they’ll have dinner tonight and all their chidren still alive next week). They are also, perhaps contrary to impressions, NEVER planned to target non-combatants.
And the Israel Apologists here are wrong as well, in that Israel CAN (and far too often does) do wrong, in the sense that the 19-YO Tank Commander who loses it in the face of a large manacing crowd and fires into it IS Israel, and by his action it IS Israel that has killed innocent non-combatants.
I’m not going into the question of the veracity of the various reports cited along the way. Suffice it to say that both sides - Israeli Gov/IDF and Palestinian sources - have been caught lying numerous times. The difference IMO is that while the PA/Hamas are actively involved in nefarioius actions that they later deny, the Israeli lies are simple example of the regular political CYA game - admit nothing, ever, until forced to. I mean, who ever said Jews are too smart to be caught time and time again in PR fiascos? :rolleyes: Our politicians and generals are as stupid and as corrupt as those in any other country - no more, no less
As an Israeli, I do feel that, on the whole, we (that is - the fighting contingent of Israelis) are far less immoral than the Palestinians (again - the fighting contingent on the other side). Yes, we are probably guilty of being more cavalier with the lives of enemy non-combatants than we would ever be with the lives of our own civilians. I don’t like this, I think it is ultimatley counter productive both internationally and vis-a-vis the palestinian population, and I honestly cringe every time Palestinian innocents are killed - especially if they are children, sometimes the age of my own kids. But I’m afraid any conquering force is likely to make this unfair distinction - which is one important reason I and 120000 others came out to the “Get out of Gaza” rally a week and a half ago in Tel Aviv. I eagerly await similar reactions to the (premeditated!) suicide bombings by Palestinian moderates. I am not being cynical or sarcastic here - I think the only way a peaceful solution can be reached is if there is popular pressure ON BOTH SIDES to find one. Because both political establishments, on both sides, have their reasons to want the existing bloody status quo to continue.
Bottom line - to those who have waded through all the stream-of-conciousness above (sorry!): [ul][li]I think Israeli forces sometime commit what amount to serious breaches of any reasonable fighting ethic. I am not saying “war crimes”, because in my mind “war crime” should be reserved for the labeling of PRE-MEDITATED actions against non-combatant populations.[]I think these actions are - on the whole - tragic mistakes, committed by relatively low-ranking officers, up to the rank of Colonel or so - I’m not necessarily blaming the poor 19-YO who ends up pulling the trigger. He is often put in an untenable situation by his commander, and either truly forced to shoot to save his skin, or cowed into firing in an unwarrented situation because he THINKS he has to shoot in order to save his skin.[]I also think that it is a Palestinian Terrorist tactic - nay, strategy - to provoke Israeli forces into hitting Palestinain innocent non-combatants.Which does not excuse our officers for being duped by this strategy - we should know to avoid it BOTH because it is wrong and immoral AND because it is what the terrorists WANT. []But, I agree that Israeli politicians probably don’t really care about Palestinian children dying. NOT that they order anyone in the military to plan it that way (although I DO know of cases the military has refused to carry out political directives that amounted to targetting civilians - but these were cases of politicians invoking the “make it so” managerial imperative on legitimate goals, not of their directing the IDF “I want you to kill me some Arabs”); they just don’t really care. I might add that they don’t REALLY care about Israeli civilians getting blown up every so often either… :eek: They are POLITICAINS - they got where they are by not caring about other people, whether nominally friends or foes. As the old joke goes, Ariel Sharon isn’t THAT fat - he’s just got extermely thick skin []All that being said, Israeli actions are still VERY FAR from comparable to Palestinian Terrorist actions. Simply not measurable on the same scale.[/ul][/li]
Palestinians, at this point in time, regardless of what may have been true in the past, ARE now a “people”, a “nation”, and they WILL have a state. Despite their so called “leadership”. While our own handling of the situation - politically speaking - is far from stellar, I think that the actions of their own “leaders” are by far the foremost reason this has not yet happened, and will not happen in the near future. Stop the suicide bombings, and Israeli public opinion will, relatively quickly, turn upon any group within us clamoring to maintain control and conquest of the occupied territories. Probably within 3-5 years. Even today, by far most Israelis realize that the palestinian Average Jamal is being treated horribly by both his own leaders AND THE IDF, that this is NOT RIGHT, and that the only way out of the mess is a Palestinian State. But very few of us will be willing to go this route so long as it is seen as capitulating to terrorism. And the terrorist KNOW THIS, and this is why they continue the terrorism. Because what they want is NOT a hot meal, a job and personal security for the Palestinian Average Person. They want to CONTROL another Middle Eastern fiefdom, and they - Hamas, Jihad and the PA all - have complete and utter disregard for the wellfare of the people they want to control. In fact, the more bitter and embatteld the person in the street is, the easier it is to control him/her.
So - and here I am addressing LHoD more than anyone else - the suggestion to sanction Israel for any action that is not legitimate military action is, IMO, ill-advised for several reasons: It will not address the real issue, which is the emergence of a people-oriented leadership on the Plaestinian side. It will not stop or curb the tragic loss of life on the Palestinian side, because nearly all these cases are NOT PLANNED - they happen as a bad, mistaken, WRONG reaction to real-life situations on the groud, sometimes just happenning, often orchestrated by the terrorists calling the shots on the Palestinian side; they are not something the politicians or generals in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem can change by giving different directives to the troops, because the directives given are already the one’s you believe should be given. They just can’t always be carried out within the og-awful MESS that is the Gaza Strip. And it will alienate some more Israeli moderates, ultimately causing MORE public acceptance of innocent Palestinain deaths, not less. I am not pretending it doesn’t exist today - there are fringe elements who, privately, revel in every dead Arab teenager. but, at least right now, THEY are the silent, small MINORITY within the Israeli public. Putting pressure on us to do what we are already trying to accomplish (i.e., “clean” fighting) will only cause the public to go the other way - we are, on the whole, an ornery and paranoid people.
Just two more points. (bear with me a few more lines…)
First, Before anyone jumps me for being ex-IDF, involved remotly in military planning: I can honestly say that the directive “don’t target civilians; don’t make plans that will probably kill civilians” is REAL and ENFORCED, because I have ENFORCED it myself. To the best of my knowledge, no civilian has ever been killed in an operation that I was involved in planning. Also, I know of several cases where the prime objective of an operation was NOT achieved, BECAUSE of changes to the original plan made precisely in order to avoid harming non-combatants. And on balance, I do not regret these cases. Better a terrorist who we will have to get another day, than an irrevocably dead innocent bystander. Although my days of active planning are long over (I have not been involved in the current Intifadah at all), so it IS possible that things have changed in this respect.
Second, I use the term “non-combatants” in describing Palestinians not involved in terrorist activities because many terrorists are in fact CIVILIANS. I still think that they are legitimate targets even - and maybe because - they are not in uniform and they hide and mingle within the true, NON-COMBATANT, civilian population. This is not some attempt to belittle their status as civilian bystanders, just an attempt to avoid the “innocent civilian - terrorist civilian” demarcation by avoiding the term altogether.
OK. I’ve got this off my chest now. Yes, I realize this has been incoherent, long-winded and emotional. And at least partially partisan. Flame away
Dani