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| Corroded Morality |
| The IDF's code of ethics has to be upheld and enforced |
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Yehonathan Tommer (tommery06)  |
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Published 2009-03-30 09:46 (KST) |
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Yeshayahu Leibowitz was among the few Jewish intellectuals to lament the Israel Defense Forces (IDF's) military victory in the Six Day War of June 1967.
As crowds jubilantly crossed the former frontier to the Western Wall and Temple Mount in the liberated Old City of Jerusalem, Leibowitz, an orthodox Jew, prophetically warned that an occupation of the territories would corrupt the Jewish state, its society and people.
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FROM THE SECTION |
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| The outspoken philosopher and scientist stood boldly by his convictions. For close to 30 years he angered Israeli governments and nationalist zealots by his brutal condemnation of West Bank and Gazan Jewish settlements. Denied elementary human rights, Palestinians would rebel against the Israeli occupation, he thundered like a biblical prophet of doom. And as measures to quell popular revolt became increasingly repressive, the violence in the territories would seep into Israeli society corroding its moral, ethical and human values.
Leibowitz died in 1994, a year after the Oslo accords with the PLO and a peace treaty signed between Israel and Jordan.
He underrated the poisonous cocktail of irredentist ideology, poverty, resistance, suppression, terrorism, reprisal and international power politics that fuels the conflict. But in the absence of a resolution, the festering dynamic has perpetuated the occupation.
I was reminded of his dark prophecy this week when the IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi defended Israeli soldiers against allegations of war crimes by Palestinian and international human rights organizations which have appealed to the United Nations for an investigation.
Their reports accuse Israeli troops of killing non-combatant Palestinians and preventing the wounded from being rushed by ambulance to hospital. They also document vandalized Gazan homes, their walls smeared with racist graffiti and rooms stinking from abused sanitation.
"I've known the IDF for many years, and as the person who accompanied the preparations for Operation Cast Lead and briefed the commanders in the field I tell you that this is a moral and ideological army. I have no doubt that exceptional events will be taken care of. My impression of the operation is that the IDF acts morally in the highest way possible".
Ashkenazi went on to say he didn't believe that soldiers serving in the IDF hurt civilians in cold blood...The IDF is the most humane army in the world and operates according to high moral standards of fighting."
He ordered an investigation and promised that if 'isolated cases' are found they will be dealt with individually.
The issue came to a head last week when reservist officers serving with regular units in the Gazan operation spoke to the Israeli media. Their eyewitness accounts corroborated earlier reports of vandalism by the NGO's in Gaza as well as by Israeli media. Some even suspected it may have been inspired by senior officers.
I doubt whether the military police can conduct a credible investigation. Ashkenazi may have to appoint an impartial tribunal to hear eye witness testimonies and bring the suspects to trial.
Meanwhile sharp differences over the number of civilian casualties in Gaza have led to Palestinian accusations of Israeli war crimes.
If an impartial judicial tribunal is called on to investigate Israeli action then the actions of Hamas and its allied militant groups should also be investigated. By their daily barrage of indiscriminate rocket attacks months before the Israeli operation they had turned Israeli civilian communities in bordering villages, towns and cities into a war zone.
But an international investigation is unlikely. The International Court of Justice is not empowered to hear charges of suspected war crimes committed by states and the International Criminal Court can only try accused individuals if they are citizens of countries signatories to its charter. Israel is not a signatory and nor is Hamas which is not even a state sovereign.
Leibowitz predicted that without an end to the occupation, the daily friction between soldiers and Palestinian civilians at checkpoints and road blocks would create an aberrant master-servant relationship encouraging racist contempt and hostility.
Over the years raids of Palestinian homes by Israeli squads searching for fugitives after terrorist bombings, suicide attacks, shootings and stabbings has eroded the IDF's code of ethics in a persistent war against terrorism.
Israeli society has also been less vigilant in condemning verbal acts of Jewish racism legitimizing intolerance and abuse of the "Arab other."
High priority needs to be given to restoring the IDF's moral values starting at the highest officer levels right down the hierarchy to the rank and file. This means prosecuting uniformed personnel charged with vandalizing Palestinian property.
Punitive measures have to be accompanied by an educational program to reassert and uphold the IDF's code of ethics so that it lives up to Ashkenazi's claim to being "the most humane army in the world."
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©2009 OhmyNews
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