The court of public opinion already tried and convicted The State of Israel and the Israel Defense Forces based on their opinions of what went down during Operation Protective Edge, but their expertise in the subject is limited to a degree in full-on Israel hate. Unfortunately, the UN the ICC and other world bodies consider them worthy enough for evidence.
Then we have the opinion of those who know what they are talking about. Specifically the IDF (but who’s going to listen to them) and military experts from outside Israel.
In the past we have had the US Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey attest that “Israel Went to Extraordinary Lengths to Limit Civilian Casualties” and even sending US Military personnel to Israel to learn the ways of the IDF.
Then there’s Colonel Richard Kemp, CBE. A man who spent 29 years in the British Army, and in observation of his social media activity, is in constant awe of IDF conduct.
Kemp posted on his blog a full submission to the UN Independent Commission Of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict. It’s long, but absolutely essential reading as it covers all the important challenges and issues faced by Israel during the summer of 2014.
In this submission he covers the following points in detail and with expert analysis as a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The points he covers illustrates not only the difficult challenges the IDF faced but the almost impossible and superhuman expectations it received from world bodies.
I really think he hit most if not all the points, including:
- His qualifications to make such opinions
- The absence of a viable alternative to IDF’s conduct
- Hard compromises taken on the main missions
- The absurdity of pointing fingers at Israel
- IDF’s compliance to international law and a strict code of conduct
- The cynical use of the word “Proportionality”
- Israel’s investment in the Iron Dome and safety precautions and measures on its own population
- Testimony of soldiers risking their own lives, aborting missions and letting the enemy go – to uphold the code of conduct
- Detailed list of preventative measures to minimize civilian casualties
- The reality of the chaos faced by soldiers, including human error, fear and stress and technical malfunctions
- Comparison of conduct and casualty statistics to all modern wars since World War II
- Hamas use of human shields
- The UN’s use of inflated casualty statistics offered by Hamas themselves (which include people who died of natural causes and of Hamas’s own actions)
- Internal policing of the IDF in The State of Israel
- Detailed observation of Hamas’s war crimes committed during the war
- Trauma and fear experienced by Israel’s general population and the interruption of daily life
I wish Col. Kemp the best of luck with this letter. It is important that those making decisions regarding Israel know the facts and not just emotionally charged hate.
