Connect with us

RSS

Misplaced Moral Outrage on Civilian Casualties

Former US President Barack Obama. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org“Israel has taken more steps to avoid harming civilians than any other military in history. … Steps that Israel has taken to prevent casualties [are] historic in comparison to all these other wars.” — John Spencer, chairman of urban warfare studies, West Point, Feb. 17, 2024

“[Immediately after taking office] Obama authorized two Central Intelligence Agency drone strikes in northwest Pakistan, which, combined, killed an estimated one militant and 10 civilians, including between four and five children.” — Obama’s Embrace of Drone Strikes Will Be a Lasting Legacy,” New York Times, Jan. 12, 2016

In recent years, we have investigated civilian harm from U.S. air strikes … in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia, and found that thousands of civilians have been killed or seriously injured … with little accountability.” — Amnesty International at a U.S. Senate Judiciary Council hearing, Feb. 9, 2022

The recent accidental deaths of seven foreign aid workers with World Central Kitchen in the Gaza Strip have sparked an eruption of anti-Israel vitriol that highlights the vicious Judeophobic prejudice that is sweeping much of the globe today. This is something that defies all and any tenets of morality and reason. Indeed, by any conceivable criterion of human decency, there is no conflict in recent history in which the gulf between good and evil, wanton barbarism and humanitarian restraint, has been so clearly delineated as that between the protagonists in the ongoing war in Gaza.

Painstaking Israeli restraint

The tragedy of collateral damage has been a lamentable aspect of warfare ever since nation-states began to displace dynastic monarchies as the dominant structural element in the international system and perhaps even before that.

Rarely if ever has one of the belligerent parties—let alone the victim of a brutal unprovoked attack on its civilians—demonstrated such painstaking care to avoid harm befalling enemy civilians as Israel. This is reflected in the unequivocal declaration of the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, Col. Richard Kemp: “I have fought in combat zones around the world including Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Macedonia and Iraq. I was also present throughout the conflict in Gaza in 2014. Based on my experience and on my observations, the Israel Defense Forces … does more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.”

In Gaza, the vulnerability of non-combatants is greatly exacerbated by the malicious actions of their leaders, who cynically exploit them by deliberately placing them in harm’s way and coercively preventing them from seeking safe havens. Thus, as a Wall Street Journal piece underscores, “Israel seeks to minimize civilian casualties, while Hamas seeks to maximize civilian casualties and use them as a propaganda tool.”

Israel setting ‘gold standard’ for avoiding civilian casualties

The chairman of urban warfare studies at West Point, John Spencer, described Israel’s achievements in avoiding collateral damage as “unprecedented,” particularly given the complex combat conditions in Gaza above and below ground. According to Spencer, Israel is setting the “gold standard” for avoiding civilian casualties.

Likewise, Kemp praised the IDF for its record of avoiding civilian casualties during its operations in Gaza and pointed out that the average combatant-to-civilian death ratio in Gaza is about 1:1.5, while according to the United Nations, the average combatant-to-civilian death ratio in urban warfare in general is 1:9—six times higher.

The issue of civilian casualties in Gaza is hugely complicated by Hamas’s heinous practice of exploiting medical facilities as a cover for its terror activities. This includes the copiously documented abuse of ambulances for the transportation of terror-related personnel and materiel.

Israeli moderation is underscored by comparison to non-combatant fatalities in other military encounters involving democracies at war. In World War II, nearly 600,000 European civilians were killed by Allied aerial bombardment of German cities that were reduced to rubble and ashes. Moreover, cities in other countries in Nazi-occupied Europe were bombarded—including their non-combatant civilian residents. One of the most grisly and tragic of these events occurred in Copenhagen in March 1945, when the RAF was sent to bomb the Gestapo headquarters in the city. It inadvertently hit a nearby school, killing 123 Danish civilians, including 87 schoolchildren.

Then there were the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—neither of which was ever designated as a military target—of whom between 100,000 to 200,000 were incinerated and irradiated by the U.S. atomic bombings in early August 1945.

“There is always a cost to defeat an evil.”

Half a century later, after hundreds of thousands were killed by American bombing in the Vietnam War, NATO launched a war against Serbia. The NATO campaign consisted of high altitude—and hence far from accurate—bombing raids that regularly hit civilian targets. These targets included residential neighborhoods, old-age homes, hospitals, open-air markets, columns of fleeing refugees, civilian buses, trains on bridges and even a foreign embassy.

When then-NATO spokesman Jamie Shea was pressed on the issue of the significant numbers of civilian casualties, he responded, “There is always a cost to defeat an evil. It never comes free, unfortunately. But the cost of failure to defeat a great evil is far higher.” This is exactly how Israelis feel about the war against Hamas.

These were not the only post-World War II instances of pervasive human suffering caused by large-scale U.S.-led military operations.

More babies died in Iraq than in Hiroshima

After Saddam Hussein’s 1991 takeover of Kuwait, the United States and its allies imposed sanctions on Iraq and dispatched forces to repel the invasion. Even after Hussein was evicted from Kuwait, sanctions and military operations continued. These measures resulted in tremendous suffering for the civilian population. The scale of it can be gauged by a 1996 60 Minutes interview with the late Madeleine Albright, the former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and secretary of state under Bill Clinton. Albright was quizzed by the interviewer Leslie Stahl about the ravages the U.S.-led measures wrought on the Iraqi population.

Stahl asked,We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” Albright responded, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price—we think the price is worth it.”

Of course, it should be underscored that—unlike Israel’s post-Oct. 7 response to a massacre of its citizens on its sovereign territory—at this (pre-9/11) time, neither the U.S. homeland nor any U.S. resident had been harmed by the Iraqi regime.

‘A tremendous human toll … ’

In 2001, in response to the 9/11 attacks in which almost 3,000 people died, a U.S.-led military coalition (in which the U.K. played a prominent role) invaded Afghanistan to topple the Taliban government and uproot Al-Qaeda. The Oct. 7 massacre was—in proportion to Israel’s population—almost 35 times the toll of the 9/11 atrocity; the equivalent of almost 50,000 U.S. fatalities.

Although reliable figures regarding the toll the war inflicted on the civilian population of Afghanistan and neighboring countries are not easy to obtain, an estimate published by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs states, “The U.S. post-9/11 wars … have taken a tremendous human toll on those countries.” It presents a 2021 assessment that almost 47,000 Afghani civilians were killed, but adds a proviso that “several times … more have been killed as a reverberating effect of the wars,” including through “water loss, sewage and other infrastructural issues, and war-related disease.”

Thousands of civilians hit ‘with little accountability’

U.S. strikes in which indisputably civilian targets were hit are a matter of record. During the 20-year war in Afghanistan, several weddings, parties and processions were struck by drones—inflicting hundreds of fatalities, including women and children. Such strikes took place not only in Afghanistan but in other countries, including neighboring Pakistan and more distant Iraq, Yemen, Libya and even Somalia.

Summing up the consequences of the U.S. strikes, Amnesty International USA stated: “In recent years, we have investigated civilian harm from U.S. air strikes and U.S.-led Coalition airstrikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Somalia, and found that thousands of civilians have been killed or seriously injured by U.S. air strikes (both using drones and manned aircraft) with little accountability.”

Finally. the 2003 invasion of Iraq by a U.S.-led coalition—launched on the dubious or at least unsubstantiated allegations that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was producing weapons of mass destruction—wrought untold misery on millions of Iraqi civilians and a death toll upwards of 300,000 non-combatants.

Closing caveat

The current vogue of berating Israel is both unfounded and unfair. Lending this abuse support or sympathy will only serve to fan the flames of today’s smoldering embers of hatred that will eventually engulf those who propagate it.

The post Misplaced Moral Outrage on Civilian Casualties first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading
Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

RSS

Ex-IDF Soldier Becomes First Republican in 50 Years to Win New York State Assembly Seat in Long Island District

Daniel Norber of 16th District of New York

Daniel Norber was elected in November 2024 to represent the 16th District in the New York State Assembly. Photo: Screenshot

A former officer in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) became the first Republican to win a state assembly seat in northern Hempstead, Long Island in more than 50 years. 

Daniel Norber narrowly defeated two-term Democratic incumbent Gina Silitti to capture the 16th District of the New York State Assembly. The district encompasses most of Nassau County, an area which maintains a significant Jewish population. 

Norber’s victory came amid a huge surge in support for Republican candidates across the country. US President-elect Donald Trump won the 16th District by over 2,000 votes, assisting Norber, a dual US-Israeli citizen, secure victory in his history-making down-ballot race. 

The ex-IDF officer’s win also came in the midst of increasing antisemitism across the country. In the year following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, Jewish families in Nassau County have reported being targeted with hate crimes

In September, a Jewish family in Nassau County alleged that a suspect urinated on their front door and yelled antisemitic slurs. Months earlier in April, county officials denounced antisemitic graffiti which covered the faces of hostages taken captive by Hamas during the Oct. 7 onslaught. Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who is Jewish, has also accused Civil Service Employees Association Local 830, an 8,000-member local union, of antisemitism for distributing flyers depicting him with devil horns.  

Silitti, Norber’s opponent, found herself in hot water with the local Jewish community after one of her staffers bashed Israel on social media. 

“She wasn’t sensitive to what was going on. I felt she was out of touch,” Norber, 45, told the New York Post.

Though Norber focused his campaign on domestic issues such as bolstering law enforcement and cutting taxes, he believes that his support for Israel also helped him establish valuable inroads with the local Jewish community. Moreover, his grandparents endured the Holocaust and his mother ran away from communism in the Soviet Union.  

Norber was also on the ground in Israel during the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks with his wife and four kids. 

“It was the worst atrocity to Jews since the Holocaust. Israel is not the same anymore,” Norber said, according to the Post.

Norber has also touted a series of policies which would likely bolster Jewish safety in Nassau County. In the New York State Assembly, he aims to implement a statewide mask ban with the goal of preventing anonymity during protests — a popular tactic employed by activists during anti-Israel demonstrations to hid their identity. The lawmaker also wants to repeal cashless bail, with the intention of reducing the number of violent criminals on the streets.

The post Ex-IDF Soldier Becomes First Republican in 50 Years to Win New York State Assembly Seat in Long Island District first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

‘Challah for Ceasefire’?: Phoebe Maltz Bovy on watching the political tightrope in women’s media

In the before-times, a personal essay in a women’s magazine about home-baked challah, in which the writer discusses how this ritual connects them to their Jewish roots, would be a […]

The post ‘Challah for Ceasefire’?: Phoebe Maltz Bovy on watching the political tightrope in women’s media appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.

Continue Reading

RSS

Palestinian Filmmaker Who Accused Israel of ‘Genocide’ Wins Top Prize at Film Festival With Israel-Set Drama

A promotional photo from “Happy Holidays.” Photo: 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival

A Palestinian filmmaker who has accused Israel of “genocide” during the ongoing war in Gaza took home the top prize on Sunday at the 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival for a family drama set in Israel that includes Jewish and Arab characters.

Director Scandar Copti won the Golden Alexander for best feature film and a 10,000-euro cash prize for his film “Happy Holidays,” an Arabic- and Hebrew-language film that follows four interconnected characters who “share their unique realities, highlighting the complexities between genders, generations, and cultures.” One character, named Rami, is a Palestinian from Haifa who must deal with his Jewish girlfriend’s sudden decision to change her mind about her planned abortion.

Copti directed and wrote the screenplay for “Happy Holidays.” He also directed the Oscar-nominated 2009 film “Ajami.”

“Happy Holidays” is Copti’s second film, and it premiered in early September in the 2024 Venice Film Festival’s Horizons section, where it won the award for best screenplay. During his virtual acceptance speech at the Venice Film Festival, Copti accused Israel of committing a “genocide” in Gaza, where the Israeli military has been waging a campaign against Hamas terrorists.

“Over the past 11 months, our shared humanity and moral compass has been tested as we witness the ongoing genocide in Gaza,” he said in comments which elicited applause from the audience. He talked about the “painful reality” in Gaza and said “Happy Holidays” examines “how moral narratives can bring us together as communities, but also blind us to the suffering of others. It explores how traditions and indoctrination can distort our values and make injustice seem acceptable.”

“True freedom is interconnected,” he added. “None of us are free until all of us are free, from all sorts of oppression.”

The jury at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival — which included filmmaker and producer Sara Driver, filmmaker Denis Côté, and producer Konstantinos Kontovrakis — applauded Copti’s film “for intricately weaving different narratives and perspectives that fully expose the complexity of national, gender, and class dynamics that can divide societies and for seeing the future in the face of a young woman.”

The post Palestinian Filmmaker Who Accused Israel of ‘Genocide’ Wins Top Prize at Film Festival With Israel-Set Drama first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

Copyright © 2017 - 2023 Jewish Post & News