When I served, the Israeli military was the most moral in the world. No more
Once there was widespread Israeli outrage over the bombing of homes in Gaza. Now there is just indifference
Shejaia district of Gaza, which witnesses said was heavily hit by
Israeli shelling on 26 July 2014. Photograph: Abed Rahim
Khatib/NurPhoto/Corbis
In July 2002 the Israeli air force dropped a one-tonne bomb on the home of Salah Shehadeh,
the head of the military wing of Hamas, in Gaza. You don’t have to be
an expert in air combat to imagine what’s left of a home hit by a
one-tonne bomb. Not much. That bomb killed not only Shehadeh, but also
14 civilians, including eight children.
At that time I served as
an operations officer in the Israeli air force. Like many of my friends,
I found myself carrying the burden of immense responsibility at the
ripe age of 20. I was responsible for relaying commands and intelligence
from headquarters to pilots, preparing aircraft for operations and
providing support to pilots throughout.
After the assassination,
Israel shook. Even when the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) insisted that
there was operational justification for the attack, public sentiment
could not accommodate this assault on innocent civilians. Israeli
intellectuals petitioned the supreme court, demanding it examine the
legality of this action. A few months later a group of reservist pilots
criticised such elimination actions.
As soldiers and officers used
to carrying out our missions without asking unnecessary questions, we
were affected by the public reaction. But Dan Halutz, air force
commander at the time, told pilots: “Sleep well at night. Don’t pay any
notice of the criticism.” One month later Halutz, asked what a pilot
feels when launching a one-tonne bomb on a home, said: “A slight jolt of
the jet’s wing.” To outsiders this statement sounded cold and detached,
but my friends and I trusted our commanders to make the right moral
decisions, and returned our focus to the “important things” – the
precise execution of further operations.
A few months later I was
made commander of a course for air force officers. I taught cadets how
to take responsibility for their actions as officers. We studied the
lessons of previous air force operations. I taught them that the IDF is
the most moral army in the world, and that the air force is the most
moral corps within the IDF.
I believed with all my heart that we
were doing what needed to be done. If there were casualties, they were a
necessary evil. If there were mistakes, they would be investigated.
Things
have changed, and now I can no longer have that certainty. In 2002 the
dropping of a one-tonne bomb on a home resulting in civilian deaths was
the exception. The IDF eventually acknowledged that the assault on
Shehadeh’s house had been wrong. They deemed it a failure in
intelligence and said that, had they known there were civilians in the
home, they would not have carried out the operation.
Seven years later, during Operation Cast Lead, there was widespread dropping of bombs over densely populated areas in the Gaza Strip. Today, in Operation Protective Edge, the air force boasts of having released over 100 one-tonne bombs on Gaza. What was once the exception is now the policy.
This
is how it goes today. We notify the inhabitant about the imminent
destruction of a house minutes before a bomb drops (via text messages,
or by dropping a smaller bomb on the house as a warning). That is enough
to turn it into a legitimate target for an air strike. In the past two
weeks dozens of civilians have been killed in such strikes.
Homes
of Hamas members have become legitimate targets, regardless of the
number of people within their walls. Unlike in 2002, no one bothers
to justify or make excuses.
What’s worse is that almost no one
protests. Entire families are erased in a second, and the Israeli public
remains indifferent. From year to year, from one military operation to
another, our moral red lines are stretching further away. Where will
they be in the next operation? Where will they be 10 years from now?
I
know how hard it is to ask questions during times of conflict as a
soldier. The information that the officers get in real time is always
partial. That’s why the responsibility for drawing the red lines, and
alerting when we cross it, lies with the public. A clear, loud voice
that says that bombing a house with civilians in it is immoral must be
heard. These killings cannot be accepted without question. Public
silence in the face of such actions – inside and outside of Israel – is
consent by default, and acceptance of an unacceptable price.
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