Video: How the New Israel Fund trains IDF officers to worry more about 'Palestinian' terrorists (and human shields) than about their own soldiers
I apologize for the lengthy title to this post - it was the only way I could let some of you know what the video below is about.
I also apologize for the fact that the video below is solely in Hebrew, and I do not have the time to start translating and inserting subtitles - even if I knew how to insert subtitles.
This video should be translated and seen by Jews all over the world. It might even be named "How Israel Shoots Itself in the Foot."
IDF officers must attend 'training seminars' given by New Israel Fund grantees like the uber-Leftist Bina (one of whose founders calls Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman a fascist) and the Shalom Hartman Institute (whose head says that Netanyahu is living in 1938 Germany, and that our problems are far deeper and that the 'sick roots' in our society must be uprooted) in order to advance in rank. These seminars teach them that sometimes the IDF has to accept being routed in order to avoid civilian casualties. They are taught that avoiding loss of life among 'Palestinian' human shields is more important than avoiding casualties to IDF soldiers. An IDF soldier is surrounded by 'Palestinians' throwing firebombs and he cannot respond because he has no authorization to do so. I kid you not.
At this rate, we will lose a war to show how 'humane' we are.
There's a new 'tender' for the right to give these seminars in September. Will the New Israel Fund win again?
Let's go to the videotape.
Sickness. True sickness. Who will want to fight in our army if we continue to send soldiers to their deaths to show our 'humanity'?
IDF realizes it made a mistake with Lt. Col. Shalom Eisner
I'm sure many of you recall Shalom Eisner, the IDF Lieutenant Colonel who was caught on camera slamming his rifle butt into the face of a Danish 'peace activist'member of the terror-supporting International Solidarity Movement who was part of an illegal 'bike ride' in the Jordan Valley. Eisner has been sued in a civil action by one of the terror supporters who was hurt in the incident. And the State of Israel is taking the unusual step of defending him.
A military court in December convicted Lt. Col. Shalom Eisner, in a
plea bargain, of beating five Palestinians and foreign activists with
both his rifle and fists during a demonstration in April 2012. Some of
the demonstrators, including Naim Shakir, 36, of Al-Sawiya, needed
medical treatment. Al-Shakir filed a suit in June seeking 16,000 shekels
($4,620) in medical costs, plus 60,000 shekels ($17,320) to cover his
lost earnings.
Eisner – then a deputy brigade commander – hit
Shakir in the back with the butt of his rifle, according to the military
court verdict, during a confrontation between demonstrators protesting
Israel's presence in the West Bank and soldiers. As a result, Shakir
said in his suit, he needed physiotherapy. He also still suffers pain
that affects his functioning and has impaired his ability to work in
construction.
At his sentencing hearing last December, Eisner
acknowledged he had “made mistakes” during the confrontation, but noted
that the demonstrators had injured him as well: He suffered a broken
hand.
The state denies Shakir's right to compensation. "The
claimant's injuries, if they occurred at all, are exaggerated and not
related at all to the actions of the defendant," the state asserts. If
the plaintiff receives any financial compensation, the defense statement
reads, "The defendants have the right to deduct for damages caused to
them, including damages to Defendant 1 (Eisner) … including pain,
suffering and emotional distress."
The state asserts that Shakir
was an integral part of the rioters, "who violated law and order
maliciously and intentionally in a violent way." The defense counter
concludes that therefore Shakir should not only be held accountable for
his own injuries but also for "much greater bodily damage" caused to Lt.
Col. Eisner.
...
The state took an unusual step in defending an officer convicted of
beating demonstrators in a civil suit. When policeman Salman Abu Asla
was convicted of beating two demonstrators at an illegal settlement
outpost in 2007, the state refused to represent him in a damages suit
filed over the same incident. Similarly, it refused to defend a border
policeman convicted of beating an ultra-Orthodox demonstrator in Beit
Shemesh in another civil suit.
Maybe because the State finally recognizes that it made a mistake in dismissing, and in not defending Lieutenant Colonel Eisner. Most Israelis believe it was wrong to dismiss him. Much more on Eisner here.
British expert: Israel choosing not to win in Gaza
No, the expert is not Richard Kemp. Barak Seener, an Associate fellow at Britain's Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies, says that Israel is choosing not to win the war in Gaza.
“In general,” he explained, “modern warfare is not geared towards
protracted conflict, and thus Israel should have initially gone in
harder. This was prevented by a lack of extensive sound intelligence of
tunnels and the whereabouts of Hamas operatives. Israel's diplomatic
standing will decline as Europe does not anymore understand the power of
ideologies, let alone a genocidal, zero sum game Islamist and suicidal
ideology.”
Is Israel's hasbarah effort regarding the effort to avoid civilian casualties doing any good?
“There is so much that has been reported in Israeli news outlets but
has not been reported in European outlets. This includes Hamas executing
Fatah members, children digging tunnels, concrete being redirected to
building tunnels rather than hospitals and schools, the affluence of
Hamas's leadership who divert funding to the Palestinians to their own
personal accounts, even pictures of tunnels were reported by the
Washington Post a few weeks earlier than Reuters.
“The main issue is that Israel should take exactly the same
initiatives (not more) as Allied forces have done in Iraq, Afghanistan
and Libya. While it is natural that Israel should seek to avoid civilian
casualties, its priority is to its own civilians and soldiers. Israel
has failed as there is a current stalemate of its civilians under
attack, Hamas perpetuating its firing of rockets with Israel's economy
having been hurt as a result.
“If Israel chooses not to win a war against Hamas decisively then it
will continue to conduct reprisal attacks while emphasizing its
avoidance of civilian casualties. If it seeks to win decisively then
Israel will not cede the initiative and strategic surprise to Hamas by
announcing beforehand where it plans to strike. This serves to embolden
Islamism and provokes them to continue their practices of human shields
and firing of rockets.
“Paradoxically, the only way to win decisively is by reclassifying
human shields as combatants and demonstrating that Israel will not abort
strikes or hand Hamas the initiative by announcing beforehand Israel's
plans. It is tragic that civilians unwittingly find themselves as
combatants, but this may be the only way to demonstrate to Hamas the
futility of their current strategy of human shields, which has already
caused their popularity to plummet in Gaza and the broader arab world.
“Imagine, had US forces announced to ISIS its strike plans and in
turn handed to them the strategic initiative. It would be considered
absurd! Israel has nothing to be proud of with such a morally dubious
approach of letting Hamas know where and when it plans to strike. Israel
should be consistent. If it resents being subjected to double
standards, then it should not subject itself to norms and procedures
that no military of any western liberal democracy would ever consider.”
He also has some scathing criticism for former British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. Read the whole thing.
The problem is that we are so afraid of our own Supreme Court in this country that we have developed a standard of 'ethics' for the IDF that is merciful to the cruel and cruel to the merciful, and in which our first priority is protecting Gazan human shields and our last priorities are protecting our own soldiers and citizenry.
As I noted on Sunday, two IDF soldiers have been convicted for using
something called the 'neighbor procedure.' The 'neighbor procedure'
calls for using an Arab resident of a building being entered or searched
to enter the building or to open suspicious objects. The theory behind
it is that a terrorist in the building is less likely to shoot one of
their neighbors than to shoot an IDF soldier, or that the neighbor is
more likely to know whether a certain package is booby-trapped than the
IDF soldiers who might otherwise open it.
The Supreme Court outlawed all use of the neighbor procedure five years ago. Kasher says that the Supreme Court is wrong, although the military court that convicted the two soldiers on Sunday was right.
“What
those two soldiers did was wrong,” said Kasher in a telephone
interview, endorsing the military court ruling. “But there are
situations in which the use of the enemy’s civilian population to defuse
a potentially explosive situation is not only ethically permissible, it
also saves lives.”
In many instances of confrontation between
IDF forces and a terror suspect who has barricaded him or herself inside
a building, neighbors who are either family from the same clan or
friends can peacefully and effectively neutralize the situation, Kasher
explained.
Neighbors often have a vested interest in preventing
the IDF from destroying the building where the suspect is hiding because
they live in the same building; relatives or loved ones also have a
desire to save the terrorist’s life, Kasher explained.
“If they volunteer to do so of their own free will they should be allowed to,” said Kasher.
Read the whole thing. I wonder if any other army in the world would give a though to not using the neighbor procedure.
Speaking at a conference on military ethics this week, Professor Asa
Kasher, the main draftsman of the IDF Code of Ethics, said that officers
were 'too concerned' with their soldiers' lives during this past summer's war in Lebanon.
Say what?
"Missions
were not completed because commanders did not want to jeopardize their
soldiers' lives," he said at a conference on military ethics Tuesday in
Jerusalem.
"Concern about casualties is important," Kasher said.
"Soldiers are not robots, they are human beings. But the commander must
not underestimate the importance of his mission vis a vis the importance
of his soldiers' lives.
"The Hizbullah were shooting hundreds of
rockets at population centers in the North, thus endangering Israeli
citizens' lives. So risking soldiers' lives to stop those rockets was
perfectly justified."
...
The phenomenon of commanders
being overly protective of their soldiers' lives was not a result of a
general "softening" of the Israeli soldier, Kasher told The Jerusalem
Post after his lecture. Rather it was a symptom of the atmosphere during
the Second Lebanon War in which different and often contradictory
orders were given by the high command within short periods of time.
"Commanders
on the battle field did not want to risk their soldiers' lives to carry
out an order that might be changed in the next hour," he said.
Seeing this article, the first thing I did was head for Kasher's resume, where I verified, as I suspected, that he was not a career army officer.
Yes,
risking soldiers' lives to stop Hezbullah last summer was undoubtedly
morally justified. But in recent years, the IDF has become too worried
about 'civilian' casualties on the other side. They tend to ignore the
part of the Geneva Convention (Article 28 of the 4th Geneva Convention)
that says that the terrorists cannot immunize themselves to military
operations by hiding among civilians. Look at the picture at the top of
this post. Should we really be risking soldiers' lives to go in and get
this crew on the ground to ensure that the 'civilians' among whom they
hide are not hit? Our own soldiers are sons, fathers and brothers too.
Don't they deserve to have their lives safeguarded at least as much as
the 'civilians' who shield terrorists like those in that picture? Whose
lives come first?
Under those circumstances, it may well be that
officers refused to endanger their soldiers' lives. But those are the
kind of officers I would want commanding my sons.
What the government and the IDF tend to forget is that sometimes, even the IDF's chief ethicist allows ignoring the presence of civilians. Here are two examples. Example 1.
Professor Asa Kasher, the man who wrote the IDF 'code of ethics,' that has us sending ground troops in to be killed instead of bombing from the air and killing (often willing) human shields, says that it MIGHT - note that MIGHT - be permissible to carpet bomb some terrorist strongholds under some circumstances. As if any other civilized country would dream of doing otherwise....
"I
don't know what the truth is about the circumstances," Kasher stressed.
"But assuming that we warned the civilians and gave them enough time to
leave, and that the civilians who remained chose, themselves, not to
leave, then there is no reason to jeopardize the lives of the troops,"
he told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.
Kasher's statements
followed the deaths of nine soldiers on Wednesday, eight of whom were
ambushed at Bint Jbail. Israel has been reluctant to use sufficient
weaponry to flatten the Hizbullah "terrorist capital" of Bint Jbail, a
policy that many have criticized as being overly sensitive toward the
enemy and its civilians.
Moshe Keynan, the father of a soldier
killed in another conflict, said he was angry with the IDF for
jeopardizing soldiers' safety to protect civilians.
"We need to
worry that our kids return to their parents and we need to worry about
our family and sons and wives, not how we look on BBC," said Keynan.
Meir Indor, director-general of the Terror Victims Association, seconded Keynan's concerns.
"There
is an argument which is dealing with the subject of how much danger
soldiers can be exposed to in order to save civilians. I think the world
already decided that you don't sacrifice your soldiers in order to save
enemy civilians," said Indor, whose organization is lobbying the
military and the government against putting soldiers in unnecessarily
dangerous situations.
And if Hezbullah forces them to stay?
Kasher
admitted that the decision to bomb a house or town was quite
complicated, especially if there are citizens who wanted to leave but
were prohibited from doing so by Hizbullah.
"We should take into
consideration that people want to leave and aren't allowed to leave, and
that changes the situation, but not on a grand scale," he said. "There
you can justify certain infantry attacks... but only if it doesn't
dramatically increase the jeopardy of our troops. Something which is a
slightly higher level of risk is acceptable, but something drastically
higher is not acceptable."
I would suggest that if
'civilians' allow rocket launchers to be installed in their homes (which
is what is going on in southern Lebanon), whether they choose to stay
or not is irrelevant.
I cannot think of any other country in the
world that would worry so much about killing too many Hezbullah
supporters. This is what we get for being led by people who have
abandoned Judaism and adopted 'liberalism' as their religion.
And what do we do to minimize the harm done to the neighbors of the terrorists?
We
can’t separate the terrorist from his neighbors. We can’t force the
terrorists to move away, because they don’t want to move away. That’s
their whole strategy: To be there. The Hamas terrorists in Gaza,
Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, they want to work from within. The
terrorists have erased the difference between combatants and
non-combatants.
They live in residential areas. They operate from
within residential areas. They attack civilians. And they won’t leave
when I tell them to leave. No one has the power to move them from where
they are without conquering the entire area, which requires special
justifications.
But if we can’t force the terrorist out, we can
make the effort to move his neighbors. He won’t move away from his
neighbors, but maybe his neighbors will move away from him. And
experience shows that this kind of effort succeeds. That is, very many
non-dangerous neighbors do move away from terrorists if they are warned.
So
Israel, the IDF, carries out very intensive warning operations.
Unprecedented. There are those who don’t like the term, “the most moral
army in the world.” I think it’s a very complex phrase, and one has to
make all kinds of professional diagnoses. You can’t just blithely invoke
it. But let’s look at that claim in this particular context.
Who
tries harder than we do to warn the neighbors [to leave a conflict
zone]? Who does it better than we do? I don’t know if the public
realizes this, but we recently carried out precisely such an act of
warning – by publishing a map of Hezbollah positions in south Lebanon.
Israel released details of hundreds of villages where Hezbollah has a
position deep inside the village. From there, they’ll fire on us if and
when they want to, and we will have to protect ourselves. That means
we’ll have to fire into the village.
The publication of this map
is a warning: We know, it says, that Hezbollah is intertwining its
terrorists with non-dangerous neighbors. Understand that to protect
ourselves in this situation will mean endangering the populace. The
populace has to know that it is in a dangerous situation.
What to
do in this dangerous situation? We don’t know. We’re telling those
non-dangerous neighbors to give it some thought. Try to kick out
Hezbollah? That is apparently very difficult. Move away from the
Hezbollah position? Perhaps that is possible. Get away when the time
comes? That may sound theoretical at present, but when the time comes,
who knows? The fact is, this is an advance warning.
Now let’s
come to Operation Cast Lead in this context. We distributed leaflets [to
Gaza civilians, telling them that they should leave a potential
conflict zone]. It may be that we can do that better – distribute better
leaflets, more detailed, with more precise guidance on how to get away.
We broke into their radio and TV broadcasts to give them announcements,
to warn them. That can be done still more effectively.
We made
phone calls to 160,000 phone numbers. No one in the world has ever done
anything like that, ever. And it’s clear why that is effective. It’s not
a piece of paper that was dropped in my neighborhood. The phone rang in
my own pocket! Yes, it was a recorded message, because it’s impossible
to make personal calls on that scale. But still, this was my number they
dialed. It was a warning directed personally to me, not some kind of
general warning.
And finally, we had the “tap on the roof”
approach. The IDF used nonlethal weaponry, fired onto the roofs [of
buildings being used by terrorists]. That weaponry makes a lot of noise.
It constituted a very strong, noisy hint: We’re close, but you still
have the chance to get out.
What we don’t use is nohal shachen
(the “neighbor protocol”). I recently read comments by a British
general, a commander in Afghanistan...
Gen. Richard Kemp?
No,
this was someone else, saying at a press conference, how moral his
forces are. And then he described their policy, which was nohal shachen,
as the symbol of the morality of British soldiers.
What did he say, specifically, that they do?
He
said that when they are facing a terrorist hiding out in a building
with non-dangerous neighbors, they make one of the neighbors telephone
or speak through a loudspeaker to the Taliban terrorist who is in this
building, and say that rather than killing him and the neighbors and
destroying the house, he should surrender and that he’ll be taken away
with various guarantees. This British commander was very proud of this
ostensibly humane procedure – a procedure that the courts here forbid us
to do. We don’t do it.
We issue warnings in an unprecedented way
– not one warning, but many. We make enormous efforts to get the
neighbors away from the terrorists.
Now there’s one more thing
that maybe we could do, and there’s an argument surrounding it: send
soldiers into the building. Send in soldiers to check that maybe someone
has stayed. I am against this. Very against this.
So
there’s a difference between what we did in Jenin [during Operation
Defensive Shield in 2002, where 13 soldiers were killed in an ambush]
and what we did in Gaza?
Yes, we changed our approach. The
approach is more appropriate now. I think what we did in Jenin was a
mistake. There was a primitive conception that “it’s all right to
endanger soldiers.” Every time there was a dilemma like this – soldiers
here and non-soldiers on the other side – the soldiers were endangered.
Why was that wrong?
You
need, to a certain limit, to warn the people to get out. At a certain
point, the warnings are over and there are two possibilities. That
people have stayed because they don’t want to leave or because they
can’t leave. If they can’t leave, despite all the warnings, despite the
possibilities to get them out, even to send ambulances to get them out,
that’s interesting to me, and we’ll come back to that.
But if a
neighbor doesn’t want to leave, he turns himself into the human shield
of the terrorist. He has become part of the war. And I’m sorry, but I
may have to harm him when I try to stop the terrorist. I’ll do my best
not to. But it may be that in the absence of all other alternatives, I
may hurt him. I certainly don’t see a good reason to endanger the lives
of soldiers in a case like that.
Sometimes people don’t
understand this. They think of soldiers as, well, instruments. They
think that soldiers are there to be put into danger, that soldiers are
there to take risks, that this is their world, this is their profession.
But that is so far from the reality in Israel, where most of the
soldiers are in the IDF because service is mandatory and reserve service
is mandatory. Even with a standing army, you have to take moral
considerations into account. But that is obviously the case when service
is compulsory: I, the state, sent them into battle. I, the state, took
them out of their homes. Instead of him going to university or going to
work, I put a uniform on him, I trained him, and I dispatched him. If I
am going to endanger him, I owe him a very, very good answer as to why.
After all, as I said, this is a democratic state that is obligated to
protect its citizens. How dare I endanger him?
...
Well, they ask that Israel not be disproportionate, that it not be too heavy-handed.
It’s
good that you mentioned that. The world in general doesn’t have a clue
what proportionality is. Proportionality, first of all, is not about
numbers. The question of proportionality, according to international
law, is whether the military benefit justifies the collateral damage.
And secondly, also according to international law, it is a consideration
for the commander in the field, because only the commander in the field
can make the judgment: What does he gain from what he’s about to do and
what is the collateral damage he is likely to cause? With Israel, we
fire and two minutes later, the UN secretary- general is already
accusing us of using disproportionate force. On what basis does he make
that assumption? How can he possibly know?
And, finally, this
whole concept of proportionality exists in international law only in
situations where you know that you’re going to harm non-dangerous
people. It’s not relevant in other circumstances. This is designed for
situations where noncombatants will be hurt and in those circumstances
the commander in the field must weigh the benefits and the damage. The
questions of proportionality are clear only at the extremes. Between
those extremes, only the commander in the field can weigh the balance.
It’s very hard to give him a formula.
...
So, coming back
to Cast Lead, this was certainly not our invasion and their defense.
When facing the armies of the United States and the Soviet Union in
World War II, did the Germans have the moral right to self-defense
because those armies invaded their country? The entire invasion of the
allies into Germany was self-defense against Nazi Germany. To claim
that, in Gaza, they are defending themselves against our invasion is
really a not-serious objection.
Now, as to the matter of kill
ratio. That’s not the point. It’s not a sporting contest. You ask
yourself, “What is he doing to me?” – not in terms of the damage but in
terms of the danger.
Look at what happened with the recent attack
on the school bus. Only one child was killed. “Only one.” One too many.
But if the terrorist had fired five minutes earlier, there would have
been dozens of children killed. The fact is that there’s a danger to the
lives of children traveling in a school bus on the roads of Israel.
That [most of the children] were lucky this time, that one child was
killed and the rest not, does not enter the equation.
Let’s say I
have the ultimate Iron Dome system and nobody is being killed from
their attacks. Am I therefore barred from attacking those who are firing
on me? Of course not. I have to be concerned for a dangerous situation
in which Iron Dome doesn’t work, or doesn’t work properly, or I don’t
have enough Iron Dome batteries in service. I need to silence the source
of the danger and therefore I am permitted to attack it.
As for
the numbers of those killed on the other side, that needs to be examined
without any connection to how many were killed on our side. Hamas today
admits to having lost very high numbers of people who were directly
connected to Hamas. All those “policemen” [killed in IAF attacks at the
start of Cast Lead] were not policemen in the Western sense of the word.
Those weren’t people employed to give speeding tickets. Information
published soon after Cast Lead detailed their combat deployment, the
role each of them was to play when the IDF came in. This was a support
force for the Hamas army. We hit them legitimately.
There are many more posts that I have done about this issue if you search "Asa Kasher" or "IDF ethics." but the bottom line is that the time has come to reevaluate our approach. We are fighting an enemy for whom it is a zero sum game. The enemy is not moved by the deaths of its own civilians - even children - and neither apparently are many of the enemy's civilians. We are fighting wars on our borders and not in far off lands like the United States or Britain. While I'm not suggesting targeting civilians, I am suggesting that we ought to bring our practices in line with those of western countries. In the long run, not getting the job done in Gaza is just prolonging the war and leading to more casualties, albeit at a slower rate. Hamas is not going to give up regardless of how many of its civilians are killed. And we cannot give up because we would - God Forbid - all be killed.
On Thursday, Eisner was sentenced to two months of community service, after which he will be discharged from the army. This is called a 'plea bargain.'
The sentence came as part of a plea deal that Eisner struck with the Military Advocate General in September.
According to the indictment filed against him, Eisner attacked five
foreign and Palestinian activists with his weapon and his hands who
were taking part in an unauthorized protest bicycle ride in the Jordan
Valley in April 2012.
Eisner maintained that his actions against the protesters were
warranted but that he chose to "swallow" the plea bargain despite the
fact that he would "pay a public price for it," Channel 2 reported.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres condemned his actions at the time of the incident.
And here's what the media would like you to forget about this incident from 20 months ago.
1. Eisner was attacked before the incident (and broke his hand), but that's not recorded because the IDF's camera battery ran out.
2. A longer video of the incident - not what was shown on television - shows that the protesters were far from peaceful.
4. The way Eisner was treated - he was immediately suspended and his promotion was barred for two years - caused prominent columnist Ben Dror Yemini to ask whether we have gone mad.
5. Most Israelis were at least sympathetic toward Eisner, saying that he should not have been suspended, that the harsh reaction against him was caused by the media, and that they identified with him.
Former IDF Chief Rabbi Avichai Ronski strongly criticized the sentencing, telling Arutz Sheva "it's
a disgrace for a colonel to do community service." He added that the
incident should be learned from, so that "a situation in which a
commander is held on trial for professional mistakes won't happen
again."
You might recall that Ronski himself left the army after Leftist politicians objected to him handing out the Jewish laws of war to IDF troops entering Gaza.
Eisner was a hero of the Second Lebanon War. In this country, war heroes go to business or to politics. Which political party will take Eisner in? It's a shame that Moshe Feiglin isn't the chairman of the Likud, because he is probably the only Knesset member in the current Knesset who would have the guts to take Eisner into his party.
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Friday, June 29.
The unappreciated sacrifice
There's a tribute to Israelis killed in terror attacks at Israel's Foreign Ministry website. There are 15 soldiers who were killed on April 9, 2002. Thirteen of them were killed in an ambush as they entered the refugee camp in Jenin.
The IDF chose to send the soldiers in to reduce the chance of killing civilians had it bombed the area from the air.
A three-hour tour here today, made with local guides who picked paths around Israeli tanks, showed destruction on a scale far greater than that seen in the other Palestinian cities that have fallen before Israel's offensive, its biggest ground operation in 20 years. Israel says Jenin was a center of terrorism, which it is determined to weed out. Israeli officials have spoken of 100 to 200 dead here, and Palestinians have estimated two, three, or four times that number. No one yet knows how many were killed in fighting that has lasted 11 days, and is now all but over, but already the battle here seems certain to be argued over in the contest between the Israelis and Palestinians. ... Israel says that its soldiers were careful to avoid shooting civilians, and that most of the dead were fighters. Residents of the camp said many civilians were killed.
There is no mention in the article of the dead soldiers, just this:
A public relations struggle is under way over this ruined place. The battle for the Jenin camp is already becoming another significant, harshly contested episode in the history of both peoples.
On the Palestinian side that struggle was marked by the false claim of a massacre in Jenin. The New York Times failed to report on one of the most relevant details in debunking that libel.
Q. Can the IDF code of ethics undergo changes? “The code is stable. The more abstract the values are, the less they change. The doctrines can change because we are in new situations all the time. The doctrine of combating terror, which I dealt with together with Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, who was the head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, includes a new situation in which terrorists live among civilians. We must free ourselves from the attitude that regards others’ lives with fear and trembling while holding the lives of our own combat soldiers in complete contempt. International law wants to impose a position on us whereby soldiers are a consumable resource and that the lives of enemy civilians must be protected more than the lives of our own combat troops. Bandages are a consumable resource. Water is a consumable resource. Human beings are not. “If we warned the terrorists’ neighbors to leave the area, in Arabic, in any way — flyers, telephone calls, television broadcasts, a warning noise — and they stay anyway — why are they staying? Because they choose to be human shields for terrorists. I do not want to kill a human being only because he is a human shield, if he is not a threat to me. But should a soldier of mine risk himself for him? Is the blood of a human shield any redder than the blood of my soldier? A soldier has no choice other than to be in Gaza, in that alleyway. But to be sent inside — why? In the battle in Jenin, in the middle of Operation Defensive Shield, the IDF knew that the refugee camp was booby-trapped. But they still insisted on not bombing from the air in order to keep from harming civilians, and they suffered terrible losses. That was a mistake. They should have made an effort to get the civilian population out of the terrorist environment, and then there would have been no need to send in the infantry.”
Even ten years later it's astounding to reflect on how oblivious the world is to the care Israel's takes to avoid collateral damage.
In 2002, Israel was fighting operation Defensive Shield, its ultimately successful effort to destroy Arafat's "suicide factory." Israel didn't start Defensive Shield until after the horrific Park Hotel massacre. Yet Israel found itself judged daily for the necessary force it deployed to protect its citizenry.
Actually, I find it comforting to hear that Professor Kasher recognizes that not bombing Jenin from the air was a mistake. That recognition will likely save the lives of many IDF soldiers in the future.
For those who missed this on Wednesday night, it was part of the LATMA update, but it bears posting again.
Here is a heartfelt apology to Andreas Ias, the Danish International Solidarity Movement activist who was assaulted by Lieutenant Colonel Shalom Eisner.
On Tuesday, I published the photo below and asked whether anyone thought that the International Solidarity Movement terror supporter in the picture was carrying a knife. Lee Kaplan has blown up the photo, and it's fairly obvious that is a knife in the guy's hand. There's much more about that video that you couldn't see in the edited version you were shown. Read all about it here.
An interesting - if not surprising to those of us who understand how far Israel's media is to the left of its population - poll this morning regarding the handling of Lieutenant Colonel Shalom Eisner. Eisner, as you may recall, was caught on camera slugging a terror-supporting Swedish thug from the International Solidarity Movement with his rifle last Saturday. A Maagar Mochot poll indicates that a majority of Israelis both support Eisner and believe that he was railroaded by the media.
Telephone poll of a representative sample of 606 adult Israelis (including Israeli Arabs) carried out by Maagar Mohot Survey Institute (headed by Professor Yitzchak Katz) the week of 20 April 2012 for Makor Rishon and published on 20 April 2012.
Poll question relating to suspension of Lt.-Col. Shalom Eisner for the incident in the Jordan Valley.
Was the suspension justified? Yes 37% No 51% Other 12%
Was the decision caused by media pressure? Yes 70% No 16% Other 14%
How do you feel towards Lt.-Col. Shalom Eisner? Identify with him 41% Angry 21% Other 38%
Unless the IDF offers Eisner a reasonable position, I would look for Eisner to leave the army, go to a Right wing think tank for his cooling off period, and then enter politics with the Likud or with a party 'further to the Right.'
Must see video: Michael Coren on Danish agitators and Lieutenant Colonel Shalom Eisner
It's too bad that so many Israelis - and especially our government and media - don't understand what happened last Saturday outside of Jericho as well as Michael Coren does.
IDF removes Eisner from command, bars his promotion for two years
IDF Lieutenant Colonel Shalom Eisner didn't even get the pretense of a show trial. Chief of Staff Benny Gantz removed Eisner from his post as deputy commander of the Jordan Valley brigade on Wednesday, and barred his promotion for two years. Eisner, a decorated officer and Second Lebanon War hero, is weighing his options and may leave the army.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen Benny Gantz ordered Wednesday that Eisner be relieved of his duties as deputy commander of the IDF's Jordan Valley Brigade over "operational and ethical failures."
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Ganzt also ordered that the Eisner will not be eligible for any promotion in the next two years, effectively revoking his candidacy for head of Bahad 1 – the military's Officers Training Academy.
Eisner told reporters that he "received the ruling in the matter with a heavy heart. I'm physically and emotionally injured and I have to recuperate. I have to reconsider my future in the IDF, should I be offered another position."
The IDF also obtained what purports to be full video of the incident, rather than just the one-minute video which has been widely shown on the internet.
Here's part of it. Let's go to the videotape.
The 25-minute video depicts the ride taken by pro-Palestinians and the events leading up to the skirmish between Eisner and the Danish protester.
The raw footage, taken by Nablus TV cameraman Bashar Abdul Hek, was filmed for a news report about the planned protest ride and does not depict the entire event.
In the moments leading up to the incident, an IDF officer is seen trying to talk to the protesters – who were blocking the road – in an attempt to bring the rally to its end.
Hek identified the officer as a DCO official who was "very courteous." The Danish protester is seen in the background several times, shouting various slogans.
The cameraman said he stopped filming for a while, and started again when the soldiers were about to remove the protesters from the road.
At this point of the footage, Eisner is seen on the bottom right of the screen, knocking down a female protester. He is then seen striking the Danish activist.
The footage also shows Eisner after he was injured – allegedly by the Danish protester – with his hand bandaged.
The IDF is still analyzing the video and deposing several witnesses as part of its investigation.
We really are mad. These protesters were neither innocent nor peaceful.
"What's more important, fulfilling the task or looking good for the camera?" he said in a chat that was broadcast on Channel 10 News. "I am familiar with these anarchists' history. They came with sticks and broke my hand, but no one talks about that or films that. It's true; some of the pictures look bad. I used my weapon coldly, like a stick. I didn't kill anyone, and didn't put anyone's life at risk."
Here's a translation of a piece by Ben Dror Yemini, which appeared in Maariv in Hebrew on Tuesday, which discusses the predicament of Lieutenant Colonel Shalom Eisner (Hat Tip: Herb G via Arutz Sheva).
"We have gone crazy. We have simply gone crazy. Because, there are also facts. And they also deserve a bit of respect. Therefore, firstly, a band of anarchists is running around in the territories, primarily from Europe; they belong to known organizations, most of which, if not all, support Hamas and Islamic Jihad. They are Islamist-to-radical left. Second, the 'bicyclist' Andreas Ias is a member of the International Solidarity Movement (IMS), which has already been involved with assisting terrorism in the past, and even openly and declaratively supports Palestinian 'armed struggle'. Third, these activists are generally more extreme than the Palestinians themselves. And before anyone claims that they are only 'activists against the occupation' it is worthwhile noting that the group's media advisor, Paulo Rosovsky, declared that 'Israel is a non-legitimate entity'. Israel, not the occupation. Fourth, Israel, it would seem, is the only country in the world which allows those who declaratively act to destroy it to act freely, in the name of human rights of course. Fifth, we have had dozens of events in which it became apparent that the filmed footage was totally incomplete, and the more they revealed something the more they hid the real story. 'Pallywood', as termed by Prof. Richard Landis. And here, aided by our media, they succeeded to fade into the background, the facts, their ideology and their agitation and their contention – and to reduce the entire story to a few solitary moments in which an officer struck one provocateur."
"It's been a long time since we had an event that made it possible to portray Israel as a monster," Yemini wrote sarcastically. "No 'Cast Lead,' no massacre in Jenin, not even a mini-intifada. The promises of a 'million man march' toward Israel's border melted into nothingness, the flotillas stopped coming, even the mass flytilla turned out to be bogus. Nada… And then it happened. It may have seemed for a moment that Israel was successful in hiding the fact that it is a monster – but then the plot was exposed. The ultimate proof was given in a seconds-long segment showing IDF officer Lt. Col. Shalom Eisner striking a Danish 'cyclist' with his gun."
"At last. The most brutal army on earth was displayed for all to see."
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"Dear readers – we have gone mad. We have simply gone mad."
Yemini notes that the "cyclists" are in facts anarchists, mostly European, who support Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. "They are part of the red-green alliance between Islamists and the radical Left." The International Solidarity Movement, to which the Danish anarchist belongs, openly supports terror against Israel.
IDF soldiers who were present at Saturday's incident, in which Lieutenant Colonel Shalom Eisner was filmed striking an International Solidarity Movement terror sympathizer with his rifle, reported that Eisner was attacked by the pro-'Palestinian' foreign 'activists' before the incident took place.
Soldiers who witnessed Saturday's incident in which Lt. Col. Shalom Eisner was caught on camera striking a Danish activist with his M-16 rifle said the deputy commander of the Jordan Valley Brigade was hit by a bicycle that was hurled at him by the pro-Palestinian foreign activists.
Eisner admitted to striking the Danish activist, but said he was attacked prior to the incident. "It's a shame that the camera did not capture the attack on Eisner," one of the soldiers said Tuesday.
"It must be understood that the incident itself lasted maybe a minute or two," said a soldier who serves in an IDF reserves battalion currently stationed in the Jericho sector, where the incident took place. "The two hours that preceded the incident were rather calm, because Eisner allowed the activists to protest along the side of the road. Had they demonstrated on the road itself - it would have ended with a terrible accident. Before they (activists) tied to block the road, things were fairly quiet."
The altercation occurred when dozens of foreign activists and Palestinians on bicycles and on foot left Yitav, located near the Palestinian village of Ouja, and headed towards join Route 90, a major north-south artery. Access to the road was blocked by a group of IDF soldiers.
The activists said they sang and chanted peacefully for about half an hour, then decided to march toward the soldiers in an effort to reach Route 90. That is when Colonel Eisner became violent, they said.
"Eisner lost his temper. We’ve never seen anything like it before," a resident of Ouja said. "You won't find a photo of the officer being assaulted because it never happened."
Actually, you won't find a photo of Eisner being assaulted because - as you might recall - the IDF's video camera battery ran out.
The current expectation is that Eisner - who has a lot of support in the army and among the general public - will be offered a transfer.
You might recall that the International Solidarity Movement terror sympathizer whom IDF Lieutenant Colonel Shalom Eisner is accused of hitting with a rifle without provocation is Danish. You might also recall that Israel's 'leadership' rushed to condemn Eisner without an investigation in order to stave off Danish protests.
Well, here's how the Danes deal with unarmed protesters, straight from Copenhagen.
Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip: Elder of Ziyon via Twitter).
Rabbi Dov Lior got it right. Commenting on Lieutenant Colonel Shalom Eisenman's predicament, Rabbi Lior said:
[T]he "hypocritical condemnations" of the incident are meant to "appease the nations of the world. Thus, they serve our enemies at home and abroad and deal a severe blow to the IDF."
At least the first part of that statement has been confirmed.
A diplomatic incident with Denmark over an IDF officer who slammed the face of a Danish protester with his M16 rifle on Saturday was averted by the IDF’s quick disciplinary action against the officer and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s immediate condemnation, diplomatic officials said Monday.
In a statement posted on the website of Denmark’s Foreign Ministry, Danish Foreign Minister Villy Sovndal said that “we do not yet know the circumstances surrounding the incident” and that Denmark’s ambassador to Israel Liselotte Kjærsgaard Plesner had “immediately asked the Israeli authorities for an explanation.”
“I can see that the soldier involved was immediately suspended and the matter is now being investigated,” Sovndal said.
Sovndal also noted that Netanyahu had condemned the incident.
“We must all condemn the use of force, which apparently has occurred against the demonstrators,” Sovndal said.
I guess they don't use force to put down riots in Denmark.
But here in Israel, if you block roads and threaten police officers, you will be pushed back. What's unusual about this incident is that the terror-sympathizer was hit with a rifle and not pushed back with an arm, and that in the one-minute video he does not appear to have provoked the officer, although he may have been provoking people for two hours before that.
But no, most people here would not issue such a blanket condemnation of the use of force to quell a riot.
Walla has done some investigating into Saturday's events in the Jordan Valley in which an Israeli Lieutenant Colonel with a broken hand was filmed hitting an International Solidarity Movement 'activist' with his rifle. According to Walla (link in Hebrew), the brigade commander, who was present, wanted to call the police, while the Lieutenant Colonel, who was his subordinate, wanted to deal with the 'activists' himself.
Among other things, Walla reports that the ISM 'activists' were blocking Highway 90, the main north-south road through the Jordan Valley, and that as a result there were massive traffic jams in the area. There were reports that 'Palestinians' - there were about 200 of them in the area in addition to the ISM 'activists' - were throwing stones at Israeli vehicles that were stuck in the traffic jam. And, as is often the case, the IDF was badly outnumbered. When the incident started, there were six IDF soldiers left to deal with dozens of demonstrators.
Finally, for those of you wondering why the IDF wasn't filming the event, it was. But the camera battery died an hour before. So yes, the Lieutenant Colonel involved was not the only one who may have fouled up.
Israel Radio reported this afternoon that the 'Palestinian' who shot the video that I posted last night has agreed to turn all of his film over to the IDF, so maybe we will get a better idea than that one-minute video of what went on over two hours on Saturday.
There's a Google translation of the Walla article here. A day after hundreds of pro-'Palestinian' 'activists' were prevented from entering Israel for the flytilla, the real question is why any ISM 'activists' are allowed into the country in the first place. They have a history of aiding terrorism.
Lieutenant Colonel caught on video beating 'international activist'
This is all the rage here tonight. The terrorist-supporting International Solidarity Movement has posted a video online of an IDF Lieutenant Colonel beating a Danish 'activist' who was helping 'Palestinians' and other 'international activists' block Highway 90 through the Jordan Valley on Saturday by slowly riding bicycles across the road. The Lieutenant Colonel has been suspended from his command pending an investigation.
Let's go to the videotape.
The IDF will likely end the officer's career. He apparently snapped. Senior officers are supposed to maintain their composure and not start beating 'demonstrators' even if they are terror supporters. I've seen too many of these sorts of incidents to condemn the officer immediately - we don't see what happened before this (the officer's version is below). But senior officers are not supposed to behave this way, regardless of what happened. This behavior is definitely not typical of the IDF and that's why a lot of people are really upset about it. And Nitzan Alon is known for being sympathetic to the 'Palestinians.'
OC Central Command Maj.-Gen. Nitzan Alon ordered the opening of an investigation into the incident. Upon receiving the preliminary results of the investigation Sunday night, Alon decided to suspend Eisner until the completion of the probe.
In addition, the Military Advocate-General's office decided to open a criminal investigation in to the incident, which IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz said Sunday evening was not representative of the IDF's ethics and morals and would be fully investigated and treated with the utmost gravity.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu condemned the actions of the officer Sunday night, saying that "this behavior does not characterize IDF officers and soldiers, and it has no place in the IDF or in the place of Israel."
Such violence by a senior officer is rare in the West Bank and soldiers serving in the West Bank are generally trained to show restraint during demonstrations or civil disturbances.
Lieutenant-Colonel Shalom Eisner regretted an incident in which he beat a foreign activist with an M-16 rifle on Sunday. "I should not have flung my weapon like that," he told his associates. "But those are 60 seconds out of a two-hour event," he noted.
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Ynet has obtained Eisner's version of events as he told it to his associates. The deputy commander of the Jordan Valley Territorial Brigade said that after hearing of the activists' intention of blocking Route 90 he showed up at the scene and ordered the forces to prevent the blocking of the road.
"I explained to the activists that many travelers were using the road because of the holiday and that they are posing a major security risk," he said. Eisner noted he had done the same thing when groups of right-wing activists had tried to access the road for protests.
He said he allowed the activists to demonstrate inside the village of Ouja and ride off the road. "All was calm and in control and that is why I didn't bring a water canon and gave them 15 minutes to protest," he said.
"It was a group of 60 activists and suddenly two buses arrived and the activists all together called to block the road while closing our barrier. One of the Palestinian organizers told me at this stage that she no longer had control over the event."
Lt. Col. Eisner claims that some of the protesters started attacking him with sticks which caused one of his fingers to break. He also suffered a major injury in his wrist which required a cast. "The weapon was the only thing I had in my hands. The whole thing lasted 60 seconds, we prevented them from getting on the road and they boarded the bus. Obviously, they didn't show the part where they attacked us with sticks in the video."
Eisner's jeep contained a crowd dispersal kit which was not used during the event. "There was no reason for me to fire a gas grenade as there had been no violence in the course of two hours of dialogue. I thought about using the kit, but I decided it would be better to let them calm down."
Read the whole thing. I wonder whether someone in the IDF has video of what happened earlier. There are pictures in the YNet article of the officer walking around with his wrist in a cast.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
