D.Abraham
11-19-2003, 06:31 PM
Nation & World: Wednesday, November 19, 2003
Close-up
War raising ethical issues for Israeli's in military By Molly Moore
(The Washington Post)
JERUSALEM — The hunt for suspected militants sent Sgt. Lirom Hakkak bashing his way through a wall into a Palestinian family's threadbare living room, his M-16 rifle ready.
He noticed the grandmother first, her creased face so blanched with terror that she appeared on the verge of collapse. A middle-aged couple huddled close by, trembling.
"They could be my parents," Hakkak, 22, recalled thinking. In that split second of recognition, he said, "you really feel disgusting. You see these people and you know the majority of them are innocent and you're taking away their rights. You also know you must do it."
With the Israel Defense Forces in the fourth year of battle with the Palestinians, the most dominant institution in Israeli society is also embroiled in a struggle over its own character, according to dozens of interviews with soldiers, officers, reservists and some of the nation's pre-eminent military analysts.
Officers and soldiers have begun publicly criticizing specific tactics that they consider dehumanizing to both their own troops and Palestinians. And while they do not question the need to prevent terrorist acts against Israelis, they are voicing concern over a strategy they say has forsaken negotiation and relied almost exclusively on military force to address the conflict.
Nearly 600 members of the armed forces have signed statements refusing to serve in the Palestinian territories. Active-duty and reserve personnel are criticizing the military in public.
Last month, the military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, told columnists from Israel's three leading newspapers that the road closures, curfews and roadblocks imposed on the Palestinian civilians were creating explosive levels of "hatred and terrorism" among the populace. Last week four former heads of the Shin Bet domestic-security service said the government's actions and policies during the Palestinian uprising had gravely damaged Israel and its people.
"What's happening is terrible," said retired Brig. Gen. Nehemia Dagan, former chief of education for the armed services. "The ethics and morals of Israeli society are more important than killing the heads of Hamas or Islamic Jihad."
"It's a difficult type of war. It's harder to uphold ethics," said Asa Kasher, a professor of military studies at Tel Aviv University who is rewriting the armed forces' code of ethics, which he first wrote nine years ago. "There are no books on moral regulations for fighting terror."
Making it more personal
Still, many soldiers assert they are proud of what they have done. For much of this year, Dor, a shy 19-year-old medical officer, was based with the paratroops near the West Bank city of Nablus. He was only 27 miles from his home in Netanya, an Israeli seaside city that has been the target of six suicide bombings since the Palestinian uprising began in September 2000.
"You think of your girlfriend sitting in a cafe, and it makes things here more personal, more relevant," Dor said.
Dissent against military action is not new to Israel: Military historians note that public discontent with Israel's two-decade occupation of southern Lebanon and its slowly mounting casualty toll helped pressure the government to withdraw its forces in May 2000 — over the objection of the military leadership.
Now many analysts say they see a growing willingness among today's soldiers and officers to not only speak out against the tactics employed in the Palestinian territories, but also to refuse to serve. That, the analysts say, signals an unprecedented challenge to the armed forces and the government.
Israel maintains mandatory military conscription and reserve duty in which eligible men, and some unmarried women, serve about one month each year, usually until age 41, though requirements vary substantially depending on the individual's military specialty. Active-duty and reserve soldiers maintain a fierce dedication to the military, and believe they have an obligation to protect their homeland, as well as the lives of families and friends.
But in dusty camps, at blistering desert roadblocks and, perhaps most frequently, when soldiers go home and take off their uniforms, introspection often blurs the clear outlines of duty.
"You're in a situation where you need to be blind," said Hakkak, the Israeli sergeant. "You do things as a machine, it doesn't matter if it's right or wrong. The things you've done affect you in a very serious way."
A growing toll
Nearly 900 Israelis have been killed during the conflict — more than 250 of them soldiers. Almost 2,500 Palestinians have been killed. It is difficult to determine how many of those casualties were civilians, with estimates by Palestinian human-rights groups and Israeli research groups ranging as high as 85 percent and as low as 48 percent. No verifiable independent count exists.
Cpl. Mati Milstein — an American from Santa Fe, N.M., who moved to Israel and joined the army four years ago — recalled detaining a Palestinian and his son recently at a Gaza Strip checkpoint near a Jewish settlement.
He said he trained his M-16 rifle on the father and ordered him out of his car as the "young son watched in horror." After a thorough search of the vehicle yielded nothing, Milstein took the man's ID card, ambled over to his shaded and fortified checkpost and gossiped with a colleague, keeping his M-16 trained on the father and son, who remained standing under the wilting sun.
"I held them for 20 minutes — because I could," he recalled. "Then I let them go because I got bored with the game."
"I didn't think about the implications until afterward," said Milstein. "I didn't feel good about what I did — that I couldn't keep myself from sinking to this."
Last year Milstein decided to tell his story in the newsletter of the Jewish Federation of Greater Albuquerque, N.M.
"There's a mystique about the army — that we are the most moral army in the world, we only do good things," Milstein said. "But this is what's happening. I think it's important for people to know." He thought it particularly important to tell other Jews because, he said, "they don't really know what's going on."
"There are terrorists stopped and terrorist attacks prevented," he said. "In that respect, there is a very clear purpose and reason for being there. But I don't think we should be there. All the incidents that happen at checkpoints make the Palestinian population hate us more. It counteracts the useful work of tracking suicide bombers. It strengthens the hand of the armed Palestinian groups. It makes it easier for Hamas to justify its attacks on Israelis."
Brig. Gen. Yiftah Spector is one of the most decorated pilots in Israeli history, a triple ace credited with downing 15 enemy planes in wars spanning three decades. In recent years, Spector became a revered flight instructor for the air force.
Last month scores of Palestinians were killed or wounded when pilots attempting to kill militant leaders dropped bombs or fired missiles into crowded urban neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip. Spector and 26 other current and former Israeli air force pilots signed a letter stating their opposition to executing "illegal and immoral orders to attack." They refused "to take part in air force strikes in civilian population centers" and "to continue to hurt innocent civilians."
The air force commander, Maj. Gen. Dan Halutz, grounded all the pilots and fired the nine instructors, including Spector, his longtime friend and colleague.
"Deaf, blind and stupid"
Spector, 63, was undeterred. In an interview a few days after personally surrendering his wings to Halutz, he said: "I am the public. I can speak my heart."
"If we continue, there are going to be greater and greater dilemmas and there will be more and more mistakes," said Spector. The government, he said, is "deaf, blind and stupid" for relying exclusively on military force to resolve the conflict.
In addition to the pilots, 567 reserve army officers and soldiers have declared publicly that they will no longer serve in the Palestinian territories, and hundreds of others have quietly asked their commanders for reassignment, according to military lawyers and Israeli military experts.
Many government officials have dismissed the numbers as inconsequential in a military of about 186,000 active-duty and 445,000 reserve troops. Some military analysts disagree.
"This is very significant," said Yagil Levy, author of a recently published book on changing trends in the Israeli military. "For the first time in Israeli history, you're talking about hundreds of officers."
Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company
Close-up
War raising ethical issues for Israeli's in military By Molly Moore
(The Washington Post)
JERUSALEM — The hunt for suspected militants sent Sgt. Lirom Hakkak bashing his way through a wall into a Palestinian family's threadbare living room, his M-16 rifle ready.
He noticed the grandmother first, her creased face so blanched with terror that she appeared on the verge of collapse. A middle-aged couple huddled close by, trembling.
"They could be my parents," Hakkak, 22, recalled thinking. In that split second of recognition, he said, "you really feel disgusting. You see these people and you know the majority of them are innocent and you're taking away their rights. You also know you must do it."
With the Israel Defense Forces in the fourth year of battle with the Palestinians, the most dominant institution in Israeli society is also embroiled in a struggle over its own character, according to dozens of interviews with soldiers, officers, reservists and some of the nation's pre-eminent military analysts.
Officers and soldiers have begun publicly criticizing specific tactics that they consider dehumanizing to both their own troops and Palestinians. And while they do not question the need to prevent terrorist acts against Israelis, they are voicing concern over a strategy they say has forsaken negotiation and relied almost exclusively on military force to address the conflict.
Nearly 600 members of the armed forces have signed statements refusing to serve in the Palestinian territories. Active-duty and reserve personnel are criticizing the military in public.
Last month, the military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, told columnists from Israel's three leading newspapers that the road closures, curfews and roadblocks imposed on the Palestinian civilians were creating explosive levels of "hatred and terrorism" among the populace. Last week four former heads of the Shin Bet domestic-security service said the government's actions and policies during the Palestinian uprising had gravely damaged Israel and its people.
"What's happening is terrible," said retired Brig. Gen. Nehemia Dagan, former chief of education for the armed services. "The ethics and morals of Israeli society are more important than killing the heads of Hamas or Islamic Jihad."
"It's a difficult type of war. It's harder to uphold ethics," said Asa Kasher, a professor of military studies at Tel Aviv University who is rewriting the armed forces' code of ethics, which he first wrote nine years ago. "There are no books on moral regulations for fighting terror."
Making it more personal
Still, many soldiers assert they are proud of what they have done. For much of this year, Dor, a shy 19-year-old medical officer, was based with the paratroops near the West Bank city of Nablus. He was only 27 miles from his home in Netanya, an Israeli seaside city that has been the target of six suicide bombings since the Palestinian uprising began in September 2000.
"You think of your girlfriend sitting in a cafe, and it makes things here more personal, more relevant," Dor said.
Dissent against military action is not new to Israel: Military historians note that public discontent with Israel's two-decade occupation of southern Lebanon and its slowly mounting casualty toll helped pressure the government to withdraw its forces in May 2000 — over the objection of the military leadership.
Now many analysts say they see a growing willingness among today's soldiers and officers to not only speak out against the tactics employed in the Palestinian territories, but also to refuse to serve. That, the analysts say, signals an unprecedented challenge to the armed forces and the government.
Israel maintains mandatory military conscription and reserve duty in which eligible men, and some unmarried women, serve about one month each year, usually until age 41, though requirements vary substantially depending on the individual's military specialty. Active-duty and reserve soldiers maintain a fierce dedication to the military, and believe they have an obligation to protect their homeland, as well as the lives of families and friends.
But in dusty camps, at blistering desert roadblocks and, perhaps most frequently, when soldiers go home and take off their uniforms, introspection often blurs the clear outlines of duty.
"You're in a situation where you need to be blind," said Hakkak, the Israeli sergeant. "You do things as a machine, it doesn't matter if it's right or wrong. The things you've done affect you in a very serious way."
A growing toll
Nearly 900 Israelis have been killed during the conflict — more than 250 of them soldiers. Almost 2,500 Palestinians have been killed. It is difficult to determine how many of those casualties were civilians, with estimates by Palestinian human-rights groups and Israeli research groups ranging as high as 85 percent and as low as 48 percent. No verifiable independent count exists.
Cpl. Mati Milstein — an American from Santa Fe, N.M., who moved to Israel and joined the army four years ago — recalled detaining a Palestinian and his son recently at a Gaza Strip checkpoint near a Jewish settlement.
He said he trained his M-16 rifle on the father and ordered him out of his car as the "young son watched in horror." After a thorough search of the vehicle yielded nothing, Milstein took the man's ID card, ambled over to his shaded and fortified checkpost and gossiped with a colleague, keeping his M-16 trained on the father and son, who remained standing under the wilting sun.
"I held them for 20 minutes — because I could," he recalled. "Then I let them go because I got bored with the game."
"I didn't think about the implications until afterward," said Milstein. "I didn't feel good about what I did — that I couldn't keep myself from sinking to this."
Last year Milstein decided to tell his story in the newsletter of the Jewish Federation of Greater Albuquerque, N.M.
"There's a mystique about the army — that we are the most moral army in the world, we only do good things," Milstein said. "But this is what's happening. I think it's important for people to know." He thought it particularly important to tell other Jews because, he said, "they don't really know what's going on."
"There are terrorists stopped and terrorist attacks prevented," he said. "In that respect, there is a very clear purpose and reason for being there. But I don't think we should be there. All the incidents that happen at checkpoints make the Palestinian population hate us more. It counteracts the useful work of tracking suicide bombers. It strengthens the hand of the armed Palestinian groups. It makes it easier for Hamas to justify its attacks on Israelis."
Brig. Gen. Yiftah Spector is one of the most decorated pilots in Israeli history, a triple ace credited with downing 15 enemy planes in wars spanning three decades. In recent years, Spector became a revered flight instructor for the air force.
Last month scores of Palestinians were killed or wounded when pilots attempting to kill militant leaders dropped bombs or fired missiles into crowded urban neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip. Spector and 26 other current and former Israeli air force pilots signed a letter stating their opposition to executing "illegal and immoral orders to attack." They refused "to take part in air force strikes in civilian population centers" and "to continue to hurt innocent civilians."
The air force commander, Maj. Gen. Dan Halutz, grounded all the pilots and fired the nine instructors, including Spector, his longtime friend and colleague.
"Deaf, blind and stupid"
Spector, 63, was undeterred. In an interview a few days after personally surrendering his wings to Halutz, he said: "I am the public. I can speak my heart."
"If we continue, there are going to be greater and greater dilemmas and there will be more and more mistakes," said Spector. The government, he said, is "deaf, blind and stupid" for relying exclusively on military force to resolve the conflict.
In addition to the pilots, 567 reserve army officers and soldiers have declared publicly that they will no longer serve in the Palestinian territories, and hundreds of others have quietly asked their commanders for reassignment, according to military lawyers and Israeli military experts.
Many government officials have dismissed the numbers as inconsequential in a military of about 186,000 active-duty and 445,000 reserve troops. Some military analysts disagree.
"This is very significant," said Yagil Levy, author of a recently published book on changing trends in the Israeli military. "For the first time in Israeli history, you're talking about hundreds of officers."
Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company