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Operation
Defensive Shield The
Propaganda War and the Reality  Jessica Montell
- Executive Director of B'Tselem: the Israeli Information Center for
Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.
The conflict in the Occupied Territories has become a battle
over propaganda. There is no dispute as to who has military superiority
between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel does. But the question of who has
rhetorical superiority is still up for grabs. As Israel attempts to gain the
upper hand in this war of words, it is critical for Israeli citizens and
those of us who care about Israel to examine the difference between the
self-image Israel projects and the reality of its policies. No matter who
wins today's verbal skirmish, a resolution of this conflict requires policies
that afford human dignity to all. The website of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) is itself an indication of
the importance the military attaches to its image abroad, with its
eye-catching English updates. The site prominently displays a document
outlining its doctrine, which includes something called the IDF Spirit: "IDF Soldiers will operate according to IDF values and orders, while
adhering to the laws of the state and the norms of human dignity." As
one of the four sources for this Spirit, the document cites "Universal
moral values based on the value and dignity of human life." There is also a section in the IDF Doctrine on Purity of Arms, a phrase
from the earliest days of Zionism that is still invoked in daily conversation
without a trace of cynicism: "The IDF Servicemen and women will use
their weapons only for the purpose of their mission, only to the necessary
extent and will maintain their humanity even during combat. IDF soldiers will
not use their weapons and force to harm human beings who are not combatants
or prisoners of war, and will do all in their power to avoid causing harm to
their lives, bodies, dignity and property." Such statements would be welcome, were they not so clearly intended for
public consumption rather than a reflection of the army's actual actions.
Sadly, the army appears to spend much greater efforts telling civilians about
the IDF value of human dignity than telling its soldiers. On the first evening of Passover, March 27, a Palestinian man walked into
a Seder at the Park Hotel in Netanya and blew himself up, killing
twenty-eight people. This was the culmination of a bloody month for Israel,
perhaps its bloodiest ever as far as civilian deaths. Eighty-one Israeli
civilians died in almost daily attacks inside Israel and in the Occupied
Territories. Palestinians also killed ten soldiers inside Israel and twenty
in the Occupied Territories. Among both Israeli civilians and soldiers, the
March casualties number almost one-third of all those killed during the
entire intifada. Of course, Palestinian fatalities during this same month
were much higher?over twice as high. Yet the fact that the casualty
ratio?previously five or even ten-to-one?was approaching parity was not lost
on the warped accounting of the Israeli (and the Palestinian) public. The response to "the Passover massacre" at the Park Hotel was
quick to follow. Within twenty-four hours, the army had issued emergency
call-up notices for 20,000 reserve soldiers, the largest such call-up since
the 1982 War in Lebanon, and more followed. The tanks rolled into Ramallah
the next day and other cities rapidly followed. By April 3, the IDF was
conducting major military operations in all Palestinian cities with the
exception of Hebron and East Jerusalem. So began Operation Defensive Shield,
the largest military operation in the West Bank since the occupation of this
territory in 1967. On the eve of the operation, Israel's Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General
Shaul Mofaz issued a greeting to the troops: "This operation will be
waged with determination and wisdom. We will safeguard human dignity and not
harm innocent civilians, for this is our uniqueness and the source of our
strength." Yet the accuracy of Mofaz' prediction of IDF morality could
not be assessed, as the army took steps to prevent civilian monitoring of its
actions. All journalists were barred from "military" areas, which
included the major Palestinian cities. Human rights organizations were also
severely restricted in their access to the affected areas, limiting the
possibility of obtaining accurate information. At the same time, almost no stories of Palestinian suffering were reported
in the Israeli media, which was devoted almost exclusively to morale-boosting
stories about "our boys in uniform." Holocaust Day, Memorial Day,
and Independence Day were all celebrated with tens of thousands of troops
inside Palestinian cities. The Israeli public did not question the media's
spin because almost all Israeli Jews rallied around the flag. Well and truly
terrorized by the constant barrage of suicide bombings, the overwhelming
majority of Israelis heartily supported the invasions and uncritically
swallowed IDF rhetoric. Thus human rights organizations faced two obstacles: there was no access
to verify information, and the standard channels to distribute information
were blocked. In response, four leading Israeli human rights organizations
joined together to publish a daily briefing of the Palestinian cries for
help. Each briefing contained up to ten stories of the suffering of innocent
Palestinians, including some of those reproduced below. Briefings were sent to
the national press, the foreign press and the Israeli government. After
receiving several such briefings, Minister of Education Limor Livnat sent a
brief letter to B'Tselem: "We have no interest in receiving these
briefings and request that you stop sending them to our Bureau."
Similarly, while the briefings received extensive coverage in the foreign
media, they were virtually ignored by the local press. This desire not to know also characterized the response of many in the
public. The only newspaper that continued to report on Palestinian reality
throughout the military operation, Ha'aretz, is currently the target
of a consumer boycott for its alleged anti-Zionist tendencies. One-time
leftist Irit Linor triggered the campaign by publicly canceling her subscription.
"I don't want to be a subscriber to a newspaper that makes me ashamed of
my Zionism, my patriotism, and my intelligence, three traits I hold
dear," Linor wrote. The letter, published on a leading Israeli news
site, provoked an unprecedented number of responses. Some 300 surfers wrote
in, the overwhelming majority to support Linor, and even to announce that
they too were canceling their subscriptions to Ha'aretz. In Israel, the desire not to know is feeding a larger, scarier climate of
intolerance for dissent. Israel's Attorney General, for example, publicly
attacked the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (Israel's oldest and most
respected civil liberties organizations) for its advocacy of human rights
during the operation. In this he joined right-wing politicians such as Deputy
Minister of Internal Security Gideon Ezra, who suggested that left-wing
Israelis and human rights organizations should be investigated for treason. Jenin In this propaganda battle, the Palestinians of course have also been
active participants?on the other side. The isolation of Palestinians?each
family confined to their home under curfew?fostered rumors and even hysteria.
Emails reporting massacres and other atrocities were based on noises
overheard, a cautious glance from the window, and third-hand reports. At the
same time, there were also intentional Palestinian efforts at disinformation,
in order to galvanize international censure of Israel. The rhetoric surrounding Jenin is the archetype of the discourse on both
sides. The military operation in the Jenin Refugee Camp was the fiercest of
battles on both the military and rhetorical front. For Palestinians, Jenin
looms large as a myth of brave Palestinian resistance and Israeli atrocities.
Palestinians have described Israeli behavior in Jenin not only as a war
crime, but as a massacre and even as a crime against humanity. In response to the allegations of Israeli atrocities, the IDF and the
Foreign Ministry formed a joint PR Center. Allegations regarding Jenin were a
central focus of the Center's activity. Gideon Meir, from Israel's Foreign
Ministry and the head of the PR Center, explained a key strategy to describe
what happened in Jenin: "the fighting was particularly intense because
of the IDF's desire to avoid harming civilians.? We endanger our soldiers so
that there will be as few Palestinian fatalities as possible." The relatively high number of Israeli soldiers killed in Jenin?twenty
three?was also identified as a PR asset. Israelis responded to allegations of
misconduct by pointing out the risks they took in sending ground forces into
the camp at all. If we weren't so moral, Israelis repeatedly asserted, Israel
would simply bomb the camp from the air. It's because human life is precious
to us?even the lives of those who do not value it themselves?that we entered
the camp. I heard this argument repeatedly in living room discussions and in
media appearances by Israel's representatives. The reality of what happened in Jenin is clearly somewhere in between the
Palestinian exaggerations and the Israeli superlatives. Apparently the IDF
was caught by surprise in Jenin, as Palestinian fighters decided to make a
stand rather than flee or turn themselves in. Thus, rather than ending after
a few days, the fighting dragged on, with heavy casualties. No massacre
occurred. However, during this time, thousands of people remained trapped in
their homes under a stiff curfew, while the IDF conducted intensive aerial
shelling and massive house demolitions. There is plenty of evidence, detailed
below, that the IDF committed gross violations of the human rights of these
trapped civilians during this period. For Israel, once the question of a massacre is answered in the negative,
there is no interest in pursuing the grave human rights violations that did
take place in Jenin and elsewhere. Yet, the reality of Israel's military
operations in all of the cities is quite different than the story Israelis
tell themselves. I provide below a few examples from that reality. As I write
this, B'Tselem continues its investigations into human rights issues during
Operation Defensive Shield. Given their scope and complexity, making complete
sense of these events will take some time. In describing the IDF's documented actions, I have excluded policies which
require a complex balancing of legitimate security concerns with humanitarian
principles. For example, I do not address Israeli soldiers' use of lethal
force or the policies of house demolitions; as a result, I do not include
descriptions of circumstances in which civilians were killed, whether by IDF
fire or by house demolitions. I have instead chosen to present those human
rights violations that cannot be justified by any military purpose.
Because this article addresses the gap between Israel's self-image and the
reality of its policies, I do not address Palestinian human rights
violations. Any analysis of the fighting between Israel and Palestinians also
requires attention to the methods used by Palestinians, particularly their
decision to resist from within civilian houses and to lay explosives in those
houses. Because I am not looking at the issues related to the armed conflict,
and because my focus is on Israel's internal discourse, I do not address
these issues. (The websites of both the IDF and Israel's Foreign Ministry
devote extensive space to these issues, though from the perspective of deflecting
criticism from Israel.) The issues I do discuss are the IDF's curtailment of
civilian movement, the IDF's decision to block Palestinian access to medical
care, the IDF's use of human shields, and the property damage that resulted
from the IDF's entrance into Palestinian homes and offices. Movement Curtailed During Operation Defensive Shield, Israel's already unbearable
restrictions on freedom of movement were dramatically increased. Population
centers were placed under prolonged curfews, confining residents to their
homes for weeks on end, with all entry into these areas prohibited. This
caused severe shortages of food, water and medical supplies. Humanitarian aid
organizations were not granted access to the population. A reserve soldier who served in Ramallah told B'Tselem that
"everyone?even our platoon and battalion commanders?said that the curfew
was a punitive measure, that the population should suffer so they would know
that Arafat was a bad leader. The instructions were to enforce the curfew by
shooting in the air. There was a three-to-four hour break in the curfew once
every two to three days. The announcement lifting the curfew was delivered
through the local media; the method to announce the re-imposition was to
shoot in the air from an armored personnel carrier. At this point the
soldiers started to shoot randomly at parked cars and water heaters." A reserve officer told B'Tselem that "at least one battalion
commander would shoot when [Palestinians] went up to their roofs during
curfew. I saw this at least twice. 'Warning shots'?you shoot to scare, so
they know that you're there. You didn't have to justify yourself or be
accountable to anyone." B'Tselem has testimonies regarding men, women, and children injured or
even killed for stepping outside during curfews. Such was the case with Basma
Kaisia, thirty years old and the mother of four, who was shot and killed
while walking to the store to buy candles in her village of Dahariya. In some cities there were organized breaks in the curfew. In others, the
curfew was uninterrupted for a week or more. Throughout the two weeks of
fighting in Jenin, and even for a few days afterward, no one was allowed to
leave their home. The city of Bethlehem and its environs remained under
curfew for five weeks, though there were periodic breaks, until the impasse
at the Church of the Nativity was resolved. Many areas were without running water while under curfew. In some
instances, the IDF's heavy machinery damaged water lines, cutting off the
supply. In other cases, the intentional cutting off of electricity, which
also powers water generators, resulted in the suspension of water. Whatever
the reason, parts of Bethlehem and Nablus were without water for over ten
days. The entire Jenin refugee camp was without running water for two weeks.
Amjad A-Rifa'ai, from the new Askar refugee camp just outside of Nablus, told
B'Tselem that during the period his family had no water, a water pipe located
twenty meters from his house had been damaged by IDF tanks and that water was
flowing from it. However, he and his neighbors were under curfew for eleven
days, with Israeli tanks preventing access to the broken pipe. Denial of Medical Care One of the most serious consequences of the blanket curfews concerned
access to medical care. During the March military operations, the IDF blocked
the movement of ambulances (including those of the Palestinian Red Crescent
Society and the International Red Cross), making medical treatment and
evacuation of the sick and wounded impossible. Soldiers killed five medical
personnel while shooting at ambulances that tried to get to the injured. The
result of this blocked access, in some cases, was that people bled to death.
The gross violations of medical neutrality made even the usually discrete
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) publicly protest these
policies. During Operation Defensive Shield, the situation was even worse. The
obstacles to free movement left hospitals unable to obtain essential supplies
and impeded the evacuation of dead bodies, posing serious health threats for
the local populations. Perhaps the most extreme case of impediments to free
movement was in the Jenin refugee camp, where access to the camp was denied
to all ambulances and humanitarian organizations for twelve days. Israel claims that the restrictions on ambulances and medical teams are
due to the fact that Palestinians are using the ambulances for hostile
activity against Israel and that it is too dangerous to let them go into
fighting areas. It is not up to the IDF to decide if an area is too dangerous
for the ICRC, entrusted to operate in the world's war zones. Furthermore, no
one denies the IDF's right to search ambulances; they are certainly not,
however, entitled to shoot at them. Not only fighters were affected by the paralysis of medical services. Many
of those killed and injured were civilians not taking part in the fighting.
In addition, hundreds of Palestinians were unable to receive essential
medical care unrelated to the fighting. Kidney patients, dependent on
dialysis several times a week, had to forgo these treatments. Twelve kidney
patients from the city of Jenin, for example, missed a week of treatment with
serious health consequences. On April 10, fifty-year-old 'Abd a-Rahman
Lidawi, a kidney patient, died in his home in Bethlehem. Due to the curfew,
he had been unable to reach the hospital for dialysis treatment for eight
days. Two days later, his body remained at home, as the curfew prevented
evacuation. On April 8, sixty-eight-year-old Fahima Najajra, from Bethlehem, ran out
of her cancer medication. The next day she felt severe pain and her family
tried frantically to get her to the hospital. The Red Crescent ambulance
service did not succeed in getting approval from the army to reach her house
and she died later that evening. On Friday, April 5, 2002, Tahani Fatouh, a pharmacist from Al Msakan
A-Sha'abiya in Nablus District went into labor in her seventh month of
pregnancy. Her husband, Dr. Ghassan Sha'ar, called an ambulance, but it could
not reach her house due to the curfew. With the help of a neighbor, Dr.
Sha'ar delivered his baby. The delivery went smoothly, but all attempts to
get an ambulance to the house to get the baby to an incubator failed. Some
thirty minutes after the birth, the newborn's health started to deteriorate.
Dr. Sha'ar managed to resuscitate his son twice. On the third attempt, the
baby died. Fatouh became pregnant after four years of fertility treatments.
The hospital is only two kilometers away from the couple's home. On April 7, two-year-old Tabaraq Udeh from Deir Al-Hatab in Nablus
District, ran out of medication. The infant suffered from cerebral palsy and
epilepsy. The medication supply could not be renewed because of the IDF siege
and the girl's health began to deteriorate. She ceased to communicate, became
unable to stand on her feet, slipped into unconsciousness, and began to have
convulsions. Following many attempts to get her to a hospital in Nablus, a
Red Crescent ambulance finally made it to the village on April 16 and the
child was taken to the hospital accompanied by her mother. She died the next
morning. Her attending physician, Dr. Hamid al-Masri, said that Tabaraq's
death would have been avoided had she made it to the hospital sooner, and had
she been able to take her medication. These are only some of the cases B'Tselem documented. There are
undoubtedly others: The inevitable result of placing a population of hundreds
of thousands under prolonged curfew and siege. Human Shields On April 8, B'Tselem spoke by telephone with a Palestinian who saw an
unusual sight: Soldiers marching down the street in Nablus with a group of
Palestinians marching in front of them. The witness claimed the Palestinians
were being used as a human shield. But, he acknowledged upon further
questioning, he was far away and only saw them for a minute before they
turned the corner. Then another Palestinian, unconnected to the first,
reported a similar story, though he also only saw from a distance. The initial
reports were registered but put aside. Particularly in light of the climate
of disinformation, the allegations were too serious to be issued without
clear confirmation. Throughout that same day, B'Tselem's fieldworkers were in contact with Dr.
Zahara el-Wawi at the al-Baq mosque in the old city of Nablus. Immediately
following the IDF invasion into the city, an emergency clinic had been
established in the mosque. After several days of curfew, the clinic's supply
of medicines had been exhausted, and as a result the clinic was unable to
take in any additional patients. The supply of water in the clinic had also
been exhausted, as had the gas that powers the electric generator. At the
time of the call, the clinic housed forty-five wounded persons, four doctors,
several volunteers, and ten corpses that could not be removed. Then Dr. Wawi reported that six IDF soldiers entered the Mosque with their
guns resting on the shoulders of Palestinian civilians who were forced to
march in front of the soldiers as "human shields." As Dr. Wawi
spoke, the soldiers separated the medical staff from the patients, searched
the dead bodies, and checked the identities of the injured patients. These were the first of many reports of soldiers using Palestinians as
shields or forcing them to perform dangerous tasks, such as entering houses
to check if they were booby-trapped or removing suspicious objects from the
road. B'Tselem has since received testimonies from soldiers indicating that
they received clear instructions on this practice. A reserve soldier who
served in the Bethlehem area told B'Tselem how it worked: At the first stage, we went house
to house. The procedure was that there was a security team outside and a team
that went in. You take the IDs from the men and communicate with the General
Security Service. There was an organized procedure there: you spread out
around the house, knock on the door and identify yourself as the army. You
have the men raise their shirts, put all the women and children into a
separate room, and then you take one man and search for weapons throughout
the house. The man touches what you ask him to. The rationale: fear of booby
traps. Practically, it makes the search easier and you don't turn the house
upside down.? After that we moved on to a new assignment?catching
specific wanted men, something more complicated. The open fire regulations
were strict because of the fear of friendly crossfire. Before the search, you
go to the neighbor, take him out of his house and tell him to call to someone
in the house we wanted. If it works, it works. If not, we blast the door or
use a hammer. The neighbor goes in first. If they're planning something,
he'll get it. The orders say to send him upstairs to get everyone out: women
and children to one room, men are tied up and taken to another room. You take
IDs and then search the house with the neighbor. The neighbor does not have
the option of not doing what we tell him to. The neighbor calls out, knocks
on the door and says that the army is here. If no one answers the door, you
have to tell the neighbor that you'll kill him if no one comes out, and he
should tell that to the people in the house. On May 5, seven human rights organizations filed a petition to Israel's
High Court of Justice against the IDF practice of using Palestinians as
"human shields." In its response to the petition, the State neither
confirmed nor denied the existence of such practices. However, it informed
the Court that it had issued an unequivocal order prohibiting the use of
Palestinian civilians as "human shields," as "hostages"
or to perform any tasks for the army that would endanger them. The State also
said that the IDF is conducting a comprehensive investigation of the
complaints regarding the use of Palestinians as human shields. B'Tselem will
follow up on these pronouncements. Property Damage A reserve soldier who served in Ramallah during Defensive Shield told
B'Tselem: "Someone decided to destroy the [Palestinian] Authority?the
preference was to deal with bodies of the Authority and not of Hamas. I heard
one senior officer say that the goal of the Operation was economic-civil
destruction of the Authority. I don't know if it's true, but it seeps
in." This statement conforms to the clear impression of all who view the
damage, particularly in Ramallah. One stated goal of this Operation was to gather information about
"the terrorist infrastructure" and the involvement of the
Palestinian Authority (PA) in terror. This could potentially explain the
confiscation of documents and computer disks. It does not explain the
destruction of these materials. It also does not explain the targeting of
offices that clearly provide civil services. In the Ministry of Education,
for example, not only was the computer network taken, so were overhead
projectors and video players. Other equipment, including televisions and file
cabinets full of records, such as student transcripts, were simply destroyed.
This same story is repeated in office after office: the Ministry of Civil
Affairs, the Palestinian Legislative Council, the al-Bireh Municipal Library. PA offices were not the only targets. It seems that no office was spared.
Human rights organizations, social service and welfare organizations, and
radio and television stations were also vandalized. Hard disks were taken
from civil society organizations that had invested years of work and millions
of dollars to compile this material. "Nothing happened to al-Haq," Shawan Jabarin told me when he
returned to the al-Haq office after Israel's invasion. He is the fieldwork coordinator
for the oldest Palestinian human rights organizations. Of course Jabarin is
speaking in relative terms. A laptop computer was stolen, furniture was
broken and overturned, the contents of filing cabinets scattered all over the
floor, three computers broken. But compared to many other offices, Jabarin
stressed, al-Haq came out unscathed. A reserve soldier told B'Tselem: "In one briefing the issue of
vandalism came up. It was after the unit had destroyed one certain office and
came back and everyone was shocked, though they themselves had done it. The
response was, vandalism should not be directed against civilians but against
the PA, and the latter should even be encouraged. The platoon commander said,
to destroy computers is ok, but don't wreck the tables. The orders for
Defensive Shield were vague?destroy the power centers of the Authority. The
interpretation given to this in the field was to destroy offices connected to
the PA. Everyone, including the officers, told us to completely destroy PA offices." It is difficult to separate the destruction related to the operation (the
confiscation of material to gather information) from the wanton acts of
vandalism and theft. The total picture is one of a vengeful assault on all
symbols of Palestinian society and Palestinian identity. This is combined
with what can only be described as hooliganism: the result of thousands of
teenage boys and young men in uniform allowed to run wild in Palestinian
cities with no accountability for their actions. Dozens of Palestinians have reported money and jewelry missing from houses
after soldiers conducted searches. According to one young conscript: Theft and looting were a big
problem?. I don't know why there were more cases in this Operation. There was
a feeling that this is war. Maybe the bombing in Netanya pissed everybody
off. There was a feeling of some restraint bursting.? TVs and cable boxes
were either taken or broken. Computers?it was unbelievable, people simply
made an effort to both destroy and rob. Disk drives, sound cards.? People
also took cell phones and CDs from people's houses. I didn't find one
computer intact. Diskwriters were taken like hot cakes, whole computers
disappeared. The sergeant major would bring a truck and load up. It was done
openly. Another young conscript told B'Tselem what we have heard repeatedly from
the Palestinian perspective: "I saw one tank drive down the street and
take pains to avoid a car so as not to damage it. Then the tank behind him
would intentionally swerve in order to destroy that same car." Picking Up the Pieces A large banner across the top of the IDF website dramatically proclaims
that "Operation Defensive Shield is Over." This announcement states
the obvious to the Israeli public, yet is far from self-evident for the Palestinians. Even after the end of the Operation, incursions into Area A?what would
have been front-page news a year ago?take place regularly with little fuss.
Israel has imposed a siege on every Palestinian community, stricter than ever
before. It is likely that these restrictions impose difficulties on would-be
bombers. Yet these restrictions are also devastating for the civilian
population. There is little discussion in Israel about these measures, though the fact
that the onslaught of suicide bombings has decreased is certainly noted. For
the Israeli public, life has pretty much returned to normal. Soldiers are no
longer being killed on a daily basis and the reserve soldiers have come home.
Human rights organizations and the Israeli press have also largely returned
to their routine. The restrictions on the press have been lifted. Movement of
human rights organizations, though always a problem, is no longer paralyzed. For weeks after the Operation, the media featured reports from soldiers
who served in the West Bank, and less than flattering portrayals of the IDF
have also trickled into the mainstream media. Israeli society has begun to
acknowledge some problems with IDF behavior, though the issues they ignore
are as telling as those they choose to confront. In the March invasion, the issue that aroused the most Israeli public
attention was the acknowledgement by the IDF Chief of Staff that some
soldiers had written blue numbers on the arms of Palestinian detainees. This
was a meaningless act as far as the victims were concerned; for a Palestinian
beaten on the way to detention, handcuffed and blindfolded, and held in
degrading physical conditions, a soldier with a blue pen writing a number on
his arm is the least of his worries. Yet for the Israeli public, keenly
sensitive to anything resembling Holocaust tattooing, this symbolic act was
more effective than all the acts of brutality in breaking through the
mechanisms of denial about Israel's military morality. During Operation Defensive Shield, the symbolic act for the Israeli public
was the widespread reports of theft and vandalism?though, as I have discussed
above, the scope of the offenses was far from symbolic. As a result of media
allegations, the IDF Spokesperson's Office, as well as other offices, have acknowledged
the severity of the allegations and promised to investigate. In fact the
Military Prosecutor's Office has already brought charges in five cases of
looting, and another fourteen files are under investigation. This number is
astounding considering the IDF's reluctance to investigate soldiers for
actions against Palestinians. In fact, the number of soldiers already charged
with looting just a few weeks after the offense is equal to all indictments
brought against soldiers for all offenses against Palestinians over the
course of the past nineteen months. Though I welcome the investigations into
vandalism and looting, they only indicate that, were the IDF genuinely
interested in holding soldiers accountable for other abuses against
Palestinians, they could find a way to do it. In the case of denying medical treatment, for example, the IDF opened a
total of five investigations over the past nineteen months. Two were closed
without any proceedings taken against the soldiers and another three are
still under investigation. To date, no one has been held accountable for the
twenty-four documented cases of Palestinians whom soldiers delayed or denied
access to medical care and who subsequently died. The issue of obstruction to medical care provokes no outrage or
soul-searching on the part of the Israeli public or the military echelons.
With unbearable ease the public parrots and blithely accepts IDF
justifications for shooting at ambulances, killing doctors and paramedics,
and paralyzing medical care. In this context it seems fairly clear that the
looting disturbs Israeli society not for the damage caused to the
Palestinians, but for what it says about us. The widespread evidence of IDF soldiers
behaving like unruly thugs, and even common criminals, undermines every myth
of IDF discipline and morality. A public opinion survey conducted shortly after the end of Operation
Defensive Shield indicated that the Operation enjoyed the widespread support
of the Israeli public. Among Jews, 86 percent think that the operation
contributed to Israel's security. Israelis are not unaware that the world
does not share their opinion: at least 54 percent think the Operation has
damaged Israel politically. However, in the final analysis, fully 90 percent
of those surveyed asserted that the decision to launch Operation Defensive
Shield was the correct decision. Even among voters for the left-wing Meretz
party, 60 percent supported the decision to launch the Operation. Views among
Israeli Arabs are almost a mirror image of this consensus, with equally high
numbers against the Operation. The widespread support for the Operation is not affected by the
acknowledgement of military sources that the achievements of Defensive Shield
are only temporary. While the deaths, arrests, and weapons confiscations have
certainly dealt a setback to the "terrorist infrastructure," every
military official agrees that it is only a matter of weeks?six months at the
most?until this infrastructure is rebuilt. Indeed we are already witnessing
an alarming rise in terror attacks. And there is little doubt that the
terrorists now have an unlimited supply of young men and women willing to
turn themselves into human bombs to exact revenge for the suffering Israel
has wrought. In the wake of Defensive Shield, we are left with pressing questions regarding the facts and how to interpret them. How could civilian casualties and suffering have been mitigated? To what extent were abuses the actions of individual soldiers and to what extent are they the result of policy? And the largest question of all?was this Operation justified if it bought Israel only a few months of quiet at the price of widespread Palestinian suffering? These are difficult questions, but it is vital that we wrestle with them. Sadly, Israeli society is wholly unequipped to engage with these questions, given the present state of ignorance and denial. Only by confronting the reality behind the propaganda can we address the price our policies have exacted on the Palestinians, and on ourselves. From Tikkun - 8/23/2002 |
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