Yesterday the UN released the Schabas report. There are already some great responses from Yesh Atid MK Haim Jelin, Elder of Ziyon, and NGO Monitor. We’ll have more more about the report later.
However I predict the effect of the UN Schabas report on Israeli public opinion will be to ask ourselves a question. Why do we care about their civilians so much? When we are supremely careful, even to the point of allowing our kids to be unnecessarily killed, and we are still MASSIVELY condemned in world opinion, why do we take such care?
Why?
They (the haters who hate us) will condemn us always because they have been infected with palestinianisation and the hate that flows with that.
Not one more Israeli soldier should be risked to save their civilians. If they want to save themselves they’ll need to rise up and overthrow Hamas.
But there’s something else. We can’t and won’t indiscriminately kill their civilians because that’s not who we are. We are better than that and if we ever stop being better, we won’t be Jews anymore.
This is in the Jerusalem Post today:
Captain (res.) Dor Matot, who fought last summer in Shejaiya, responds to the UNHRC report and explains “humanitarian considerations in Gaza cost us in blood.”
I served in the Shejaiya rescue force. Certain rules of engagement were made clear for our six days there. The night before the ground incursion, a Shin Bet officer came to us and explained that there was a large civilian population in the direction that we were headed. Because of this, we did not enter Shejaiya at that time, although that was what we had practiced and it was the correct tactical maneuver.
After consideration, we went the following day in the anticipated direction, where Hamas gunmen were awaiting our arrival. Hamas understood our strategies, and how each of our operations had humanitarian and moral considerations, and because of this they were ready to receive us. They had set up observation posts in the surrounding areas, and they anticipated our arrival because of the previous decision not to enter into a civilian population.
On the first night we went in, we were attacked. Five of our soldiers were killed and 20 others were injured. In spite of the claims made against the IDF that they have gone against international law, in this instance it is understood that our morality cost us our lives.
It is important that organizations like Breaking the Silence exist. The problem is that the organization presents its evidence from the sidelines. If their information was presented through the proper institutions and investigations would take place, then that’s fine, and wrongdoings should be explored. But once they bypass this system and take this information abroad, what they are presenting to the public becomes asymmetrical and they are spoon-feeding the hatred that already exists.
