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MIDEAST: 'Israelis Prepared for Violations'
By Daan Bauwens
TEL AVIV, Apr 17 (IPS) - After the internal investigation into the misconduct of Israeli soldiers in the
course of the Gaza assault was closed suspiciously fast, a brief overview of
publications by army officials, published months before the start of the war,
suggests the reported misconduct was policy and not coincidence.
The Military Police investigation into the misconduct of Israeli soldiers during
the Gaza war was closed at the beginning of this month after only 11 days of
investigation. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) were forced to open the
investigation after Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz published testimonies by
combat soldiers Mar. 19 that revealed that troops deliberately targeted
unarmed Palestinian civilians and vandalised property.
The individual accounts from the soldiers were gathered at a course at the
Rabin military academy. The testimonies revealed that an unarmed old
woman was deliberately shot at a distance of 100 yards, another woman and
her two children were killed after Israeli soldiers ordered them from their
house into the line of fire of a sniper, and soldiers reportedly cleared houses
by shooting anyone they encountered on sight.
One of the combatants was quoted saying that lax rules of engagement on
occasion amounted to "cold-blooded murder".
In a press release issued Mar. 30, Military Advocate General Brigadier-
General Avichai Mendelblit dismissed the soldiers' accounts of alleged
misconduct and serious violations of the army's rules of engagement as
"hearsay and not first-hand experience."
Human rights organisations B'Tselem, Yesh Din and Physicians for Human
Rights responded with a joint statement, saying "the speedy closing of the
investigation raises suspicions that the very opening of this investigation was
merely the army's attempt to wipe its hands of all blame for illegal activity
during Operation Cast Lead."
According to the statement made public by the Israeli human rights
organisations, the internal investigation disregarded "allegations that several
of the commands given during the military operations were illegal." And
further: "the Military Police Criminal Investigations Department has decided
to focus on the individual soldier, a measure which is neither effective nor
reliable."
In other words, by focusing on the misconduct of individual soldiers, the
Military Police maintained the claim made by former defence minister Ehud
Barak that the IDF acted to the "highest moral and ethical standards." Barak
made these comments in a radio interview after the publication of the
testimonies.
"The response to the Qassam rockets was disproportionate and the soldiers'
testimonies only show how brutal it was on the field," legal expert Valentina
Azarov told IPS. Azarov works for HaMoked - Centre for the Defence of the
Individual, a human rights organisation based in East Jerusalem.
"The operations were part of the military strategy called the 'Dahiyah policy',
being that of indiscriminate killing and the use of excessive, disproportionate
force," said Azarov, clarifying that this was her personal view.
But Azarov pointed to several publications showing that the IDF was putting
together a new military strategy, named after and based on the
bombardment of Dahiyah, the Shia residential quarter of Beirut considered a
stronghold of Hizbullah during the second Lebanon war in 2006.
A description of the doctrine appeared for the first time in an interview with
IDF Commander of the northern troops Gadi Eizencout in the Israeli
newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth on Oct. 3, 2008.
In this interview Eizencout confirms the willingness of the Israeli army to
apply a military strategy based on display of power and indiscriminate
targeting of civilians and non-military sites. "What happened to the Dahiyah
neighbourhood of Beirut in 2006 will happen to each village from which
Israel is fired on. We will apply disproportionate force and inflict huge
damage and destruction. In our mind, these are not civilian villages but army
bases...the next war must be decided quickly, aggressively, and without
seeking international approval."
And further: "this is not a recommendation, this is a plan and it has already
been approved."
This military doctrine was later confirmed by two other strategists. Colonel
Gabriel Siboni wrote a report published Oct. 2, 2008 by the independent
military think thank 'Institute for National Security Studies' (INSS) in Tel Aviv
in which he said: "With an outbreak of hostilities, the IDF will need to act
immediately, decisively, and with force that is disproportionate to the
enemy's actions and the threat it poses. Such a response aims at inflicting
damage and meting out punishment to an extent that will demand long and
expensive reconstruction processes."
Another report from INSS, written by Major-General Giora Eiland, goes a step
further. He argues that Israel was fighting the wrong enemy (Hizbullah)
during the second Lebanon war, and in the next war should target the
government and civilian infrastructure.
In an article on Ynet, an influential Israeli news site, IDF Major-General Eiland
argues: "The only good thing that happened in the last war was the relative
damage caused to Lebanon's population. The destruction of thousands of
homes of 'innocents' preserved some of Israel's deterrent power."
"It transpires that there was no intention to comply with basic principles of
international humanitarian law, such as the principle of distinction or the
obligation to use appropriate precautions before launching an attack," says
Azarov. "The soldiers' testimonies are what unequivocally exemplifies the
fact that this was the overarching goal of the whole war - it was systematic
and based on policy decisions, and it would therefore be extremely difficult
to base the claim that certain actions were a mere coincidence."
Reports published in Haaretz a few days after the start of the war had
already revealed how IDF's International Law Division had harnessed the law
to legitimately harm Palestinian civilians. The report revealed that IDF's plan
to bombard the closing ceremony of a police course was being internally
discussed months before the start of the war.
Israeli human rights defenders are renewing their call for an independent
and comprehensive investigation into the way IDF handled the conflict. "We
do not think the army is capable of investigating itself," Melanie Takefman,
spokesperson for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel told IPS. "It is clear
there was disproportionate force and we believe it should be investigated, as
we are living in a transparent and democratic society."
(END/2009)
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