(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
"War is a hell!" This is the familiar words of US General William Tecumdeh Sherman.
War is about killing the "enemy" with the intention of inflicting their own will on them. Therefore, "human warfare" is a contradiction.
War is a crime in itself. There are few exceptions. I wanted to release the war against Nazi Germany, because it was waged against a regime of mass murderers, led by a psychopathic dictator who could not be stopped in any other way. That said, "war crimes" is in itself a dubious term. The biggest crime is to start a war in the first place. This is not about soldiers, but about political leaders. Despite this, they are rarely sentenced.
I thought about this in the wake of the recent UN report on the recent war in Gaza. The investigative committee was determined to remain "balanced", thus blaming both the Israeli defense and Hamas. That is problematic.
This was not a war between equals. On the one hand stands the State of Israel, with one of the most powerful defenses in the world. On the other hand stands a stateless population of 1,8 millions of people, led by a guerrilla group devoid of modern weapons technology.
Comparing these two realities becomes a fundamental mistake. Although both sides have committed atrocious war crimes, they are not the same. Both must be judged on their own merits.
"War crimes" is a relatively new concept. It arose during the 30-year war, which destroyed much of central Europe. Several military forces participated, and all of these ravaged cities and villages without concern. This caused two-thirds of Germany to be destroyed and one-third of the German people killed.
The Dutch lawyer and the right thinker Hugo Grotius claimed in the 1600s that civilized nations – even in war – are bound by certain limitations. Grotius was no naïve, real-life idealist. His main principle, as I understand it, is that it is illogical to prohibit actions that help a warring country (or a "group") to wage a war, but that all evil not necessary for effective warfare is justifiable.
This idea got grounded. In the 1700th century, a number of wars were led by armed forces, without unnecessarily injuring the civilian population. Warriors became "humane".
Admittedly, this did not last long. With the French Revolution, war became synonymous with mass warfare, and civil protection gradually ceased. During World War II it disappeared completely, as entire cities were destroyed by unlimited air bombing (Dresden and Hamburg) and the nuclear bomb (Hiroshima and Nagasaki).
Nevertheless – there are a number of international conventions that prohibit war crimes aimed at the civilian population or that harm the population of occupied territories. This was the mandate of this investigative committee. The Committee criticizes Hamas for committing war crimes against the Israeli people.
The Israelis probably didn't need a committee to tell them this. A large number of Israeli citizens sought shelter from the threat of Hamas bombs during the Gaza war. Hamas fired thousands of rockets at towns and villages in Israel. These primitive missiles could not be aimed at a specific target – such as the Dimona nuclear facility or the Defense Ministry in the center of Tel Aviv. They aimed to force the civilian population to demand a halt to the attacks on the Gaza Strip.
This goal was unsuccessful, since Israel had installed several Iron Dome missiles, which cut off incoming rockets aimed at civilian targets. These succeeded almost completely.
If brought before the International Court in The Hague, Hamas leaders will claim they have no choice: They had no other weapons to defend against Israeli invasion. As one Palestinian commander told me, "Give us guns and warplanes, so we won't use terrorism."
The international court will then decide whether a people practically living under an endless occupation is allowed to use rockets. Considering Grotius' principles, I wonder what the decision will be.
The same applies to terrorism in general, if it is used by an oppressed people who have no other means of war. The colored South Africans used terrorism in the fight against the apartheid regime, and Nelson Mandela spent 28 years in prison for participating in these activities and refusing to condemn them.
The case against Israel Government and the army are another matter. They have a variety of weapons, including drones, warplanes, artillery and tanks. Anyone who has been a combat soldier in a war knows that war crimes occur in both the most moral and the most primitive army in the world. No army can avoid recruiting psychologically defective people. In each group there is at least one sick person. If there are no very strict rules mandated by extremely strict leaders, crimes will occur.
In war, any man (or woman) will be able to discover sides of himself that were previously unknown. A well-behaved, educated person can suddenly turn into a hateful beast. A simple and lowly worker can reveal himself as a merciful and generous person. This happens even in "the world's most moral army" – a contradiction out of this world.
I was a combat soldier during the 1948 war. I've seen plenty of crimes, and I've described them in my 1950 book, The Other Side of the Coin.
When a war is underway, one must expect that stuff happens, as a certain US defense minister once said.
This applies to all armies. In our army during the recent war in Gaza, the situation was even worse. The reason for the attack on the Gaza Strip was unclear and difficult to define. Three Israeli children were taken prisoner by Arab men, openly to obtain a prisoner exchange. The Arabs panicked and killed the boys. The Israelis responded, the Palestinians responded, and the Israeli government decided on an attack.
The government exists most of the nonsense, most of which have no idea what war is. They decided to attack the Gaza Strip. This was the real war crime. The Gaza Strip is a small area, overcrowded by an overwhelming population of 1,8 million people. Half of these are descendants of refugees from the territories that came to Israel during the 1948 war.
However, such an attack was doomed to result in major civilian casualties. But there is one aspect that makes it even worse.
Israel is a democratic state. The leaders are elected. Those who vote are parents and grandparents of soldiers from both reserve and special forces. This means that Israel is particularly vulnerable to human loss. If a large number of soldiers are killed, the government will fall. Therefore, it is vital that the Israeli army avoid such losses at all costs. This price is the enemy that pays. To save one soldier, it is acceptable to kill 10, 20 or 100 civilians on the other side.
This rule, unwritten and implied, is manifested through "The Hannibal Procedure". This is the password to prevent – at all costs – the capture of an Israeli soldier. Here you find again this "democratic" principle: No Israeli government can resist the pressure of the general public to release dozens of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for one Israeli. Bottom line: Avoid capturing a soldier at all costs, rather let the soldier die as it applies.
Hannibal allows – or rather demands – secret destruction and killings, all to prevent captured soldiers from evaporating in vain. This procedure is in itself a war crime.
A responsible government with only a minimum of combat experience would certainly do all this as a military operation was to be decided. If they are ignorant, it is the duty of the army commanders – who have been present at the government meetings – to inform them of the realities. I wonder if they did.
This means that once the operation is started, the results are almost inevitable. To make it possible to attack without suffering Israeli casualties, entire neighborhoods had to be destroyed by drones, aircraft and artillery. And it has obviously happened.
Residents were advised to flee, and so were many. Others did not, because they refused to leave everything that was precious to them. Some, however, fled in the most dangerous moments, when it became impossible to remain. Others still clung to hope and remained.
I think that you sitting here reading this should imagine that you are in such a situation.
Also add to the human element – the combination of human and sadistic soldiers, good and evil, found in all combat units around the world. Try to imagine the situation.
When a war is underway, one must expect that stuff happens, as a certain US Secretary of Defense once said. The number will vary, but there will always be many war crimes.
All this could be explained to the Israeli military leaders, led by a US judge, if they had been allowed to testify. The government did not allow them.
The easiest would be to declare that everyone in the UN system is by nature anti-Semitic and Israel-haters, and that it would be against their intent to answer their questions.
We are moral. We are right. By nature. We can't do anything about it. Those who bring charges against us must be anti-Semitic. Simple logic.
To hell with all of them!
