| Last days of Passover open thread Posted: 24 Apr 2011 03:40 PM PDT I will not be able to blog for the last two days of the Passover holiday starting tonight. (This is reason #1765 to move to Israel....) Anyway, here's an open thread to entertain everyone until Tuesday night.... Have a Chag Sameach and happy holidays for the other weekend holiday celebrants (including, of course, Egyptians!) 
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| Interview with IDF ethicist Posted: 24 Apr 2011 02:12 PM PDT The Jerusalem Post has a very long, but worthwhile, interview with the man who helped draft the IDF's ethical codes, Asa Kasher. Excerpts: Our responsibility is to maintain our moral standards. That's a very important starting point because in matters of war it can sometimes get blurred. People are always talking about factors like international law, public opinion, the Western world – that is, outside factors that we're supposed to match up to. No, I say we have to uphold our own standards.
What are those standards?
We take decisions that reflect our acceptance of some aspects of international law; other parts, we have not accepted. The prime question, in these fields of morals and ethics, is what I see when I look in the mirror – not when I watch the BBC.
When the enemy becomes more ruthless and harsher than it was in the past, then we have to protect ourselves in smarter and different ways, but still according to the standards that we have set for ourselves.
You can use the analogy of a police officer at a bank robbery. If he sees that the robber is holding a toy gun, he won't shoot him. He'll simply catch him. But if it's a real gun, and the robber has already killed hostages and he's about to kill more, and the only way to stop him and save the hostages is to shoot him, the policeman will shoot him.
That robber's actions have required me to protect myself from him via harsher measures. It's not a case of: he'll shoot so I'll shoot, or he'll do terrible things so I'll also do terrible things, or he doesn't care about killing hostages so I won't care about killing robbers. That's absolutely not the point at all. He doesn't care about killing hostages, but I do care: I don't want to kill him unless there's truly no alternative.
This robber is threatening people's lives, so we will shoot him if there is no other alternative. If we can catch him without firing on him at all, excellent. If we can catch him by injuring him, without killing him, excellent. If there's no alternative, it's a tragedy to hit him, but that's what has to be done.
And that broadly is what is happening with our enemies today. If our enemy would fight on the battlefield, on open ground, in uniform, carrying his weapons openly, then it would be a case of an army facing off against a force that behaved like an army, and children and other non-dangerous people would not get hurt. But the enemy has changed the way it fights. So we have no choice. We have to protect ourselves as necessary.
Now there's a basis to what we have to do: We are a democratic state. And that means two things. One, we are obligated to effectively protect our citizens from all danger. So we have a police force, to protect against crime. A Health Ministry, to protect against medical dangers. A Transportation Ministry, against the dangers on the roads. And we have a Defense Ministry, to protect us against the dangers our enemies represent.
The state cannot evade this obligation. It can't say, "I am busy, I have more important things to do." There is nothing more important than protecting citizens' lives. Nothing.
A democratic state wants to deal with all kinds of other things, all kinds of agreements, citizens' rights, elections, free media and so on. Okay, fine. But to enjoy all or any of that, you have to be alive. Before you get to any of that, to protect any of that, you have to protect my life. A state is obligated to ensure effective protection of its citizens' lives. In fact, it's more than just life. It is an obligation to ensure the citizens' well-being and their capacity to go about their lives. A citizen of a state must be able to live normally. To send the kids to school in the morning. To go shopping. To go to work. To go out in the evening. A routine way of life. Nothing extraordinary. The state is obliged to protect that.
At the same time, the moral foundation of a democratic state is respect for human dignity. Human dignity must be respected in all circumstances. And to respect human dignity in all circumstances means, among other things, to be sensitive to human life in all circumstances. Not just the lives of the citizens of your state. Everybody.
This applies even in our interactions with terrorists. I am respecting the terrorist's dignity when I ask myself, "Do I have to kill him or can I stop him without killing him?"
And I certainly have to respect the human dignity of the terrorists' nondangerous neighbors – who are not a threat. We always talk about "innocents," but "innocence" is not the issue here. The issue here is whether they are dangerous. So the correct translation is "non-dangerous."
As in, non-threatening?
Yes, that's the significance. If they are "not dangerous," that means I don't have even the beginning of a moral right to harm them deliberately.
Okay, so that's some of the theory. Now relate that to Operation Cast Lead.
Fine. We have to protect our citizens and we have to respect human dignity. But when it comes to a war like Operation Cast Lead, those two imperatives are likely to clash. I am obligated to protect my citizens, but I have no way to protect them without the non-dangerous neighbors of the terrorists becoming caught up in the conflict. What am I to do?
Two things: First, you decide what is more important in the given situation. And second, you do whatever you can so that the damage to the other side is as small as possible: Maximizing effective defense of the citizens; minimizing collateral damage.
How do I decide which of the conflicting imperatives is more important? People don't like this idea, because they don't understand it: They think it is immoral to give priority to the defense of the citizens of your state over the protection of the lives of the neighbors of the terrorists. They don't understand that the world is built in such a way that responsibility is divided.
Please elaborate.
We are responsible for the residents of the State of Israel. Canada is responsible for the residents of Canada. Australia, for Australia. And that's just fine. We are not responsible for the lives of Canadians in the same way as we are for the lives of Israelis and vice versa. This is completely accepted and completely moral and no one questions this. We don't have one world government that is responsible for everything. We have states with their own responsibilities.
Now from this stems the fact that when you have clash of imperatives, this responsibility for one's own citizens takes precedence over the other responsibility to the non-dangerous neighbors. This isn't anything to do with us being Israel, or Jews. The same applies to the United States or to Canada or to any other country.
I cannot evade my prime responsibility to protect the well-being of the citizens of my country. Now, among all the means I could use to protect them, I will choose those that are better morally – better from the point of view of the effectiveness of the protection and the minimalization of the damage to the neighbors of the terrorists.
And what do we do to minimize the harm done to the neighbors of the terrorists?
We can't separate the terrorist from his neighbors. We can't force the terrorists to move away, because they don't want to move away. That's their whole strategy: To be there. The Hamas terrorists in Gaza, Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, they want to work from within. The terrorists have erased the difference between combatants and non-combatants.
They live in residential areas. They operate from within residential areas. They attack civilians. And they won't leave when I tell them to leave. No one has the power to move them from where they are without conquering the entire area, which requires special justifications.
But if we can't force the terrorist out, we can make the effort to move his neighbors. He won't move away from his neighbors, but maybe his neighbors will move away from him. And experience shows that this kind of effort succeeds. That is, very many non-dangerous neighbors do move away from terrorists if they are warned.
So Israel, the IDF, carries out very intensive warning operations. Unprecedented. There are those who don't like the term, "the most moral army in the world." I think it's a very complex phrase, and one has to make all kinds of professional diagnoses. You can't just blithely invoke it. But let's look at that claim in this particular context.
Who tries harder than we do to warn the neighbors [to leave a conflict zone]? Who does it better than we do? I don't know if the public realizes this, but we recently carried out precisely such an act of warning – by publishing a map of Hezbollah positions in south Lebanon. Israel released details of hundreds of villages where Hezbollah has a position deep inside the village. From there, they'll fire on us if and when they want to, and we will have to protect ourselves. That means we'll have to fire into the village.
The publication of this map is a warning: We know, it says, that Hezbollah is intertwining its terrorists with non-dangerous neighbors. Understand that to protect ourselves in this situation will mean endangering the populace. The populace has to know that it is in a dangerous situation.
What to do in this dangerous situation? We don't know. We're telling those non-dangerous neighbors to give it some thought. Try to kick out Hezbollah? That is apparently very difficult. Move away from the Hezbollah position? Perhaps that is possible. Get away when the time comes? That may sound theoretical at present, but when the time comes, who knows? The fact is, this is an advance warning.
Now let's come to Operation Cast Lead in this context. We distributed leaflets [to Gaza civilians, telling them that they should leave a potential conflict zone]. It may be that we can do that better – distribute better leaflets, more detailed, with more precise guidance on how to get away. We broke into their radio and TV broadcasts to give them announcements, to warn them. That can be done still more effectively.
We made phone calls to 160,000 phone numbers. No one in the world has ever done anything like that, ever. And it's clear why that is effective. It's not a piece of paper that was dropped in my neighborhood. The phone rang in my own pocket! Yes, it was a recorded message, because it's impossible to make personal calls on that scale. But still, this was my number they dialed. It was a warning directed personally to me, not some kind of general warning.
And finally, we had the "tap on the roof" approach. The IDF used nonlethal weaponry, fired onto the roofs [of buildings being used by terrorists]. That weaponry makes a lot of noise. It constituted a very strong, noisy hint: We're close, but you still have the chance to get out.
What we don't use is nohal shachen (the "neighbor protocol"). I recently read comments by a British general, a commander in Afghanistan...
Gen. Richard Kemp?
No, this was someone else, saying at a press conference, how moral his forces are. And then he described their policy, which was nohal shachen, as the symbol of the morality of British soldiers.
What did he say, specifically, that they do?
He said that when they are facing a terrorist hiding out in a building with non-dangerous neighbors, they make one of the neighbors telephone or speak through a loudspeaker to the Taliban terrorist who is in this building, and say that rather than killing him and the neighbors and destroying the house, he should surrender and that he'll be taken away with various guarantees. This British commander was very proud of this ostensibly humane procedure – a procedure that the courts here forbid us to do. We don't do it.
We issue warnings in an unprecedented way – not one warning, but many. We make enormous efforts to get the neighbors away from the terrorists.
Now there's one more thing that maybe we could do, and there's an argument surrounding it: send soldiers into the building. Send in soldiers to check that maybe someone has stayed. I am against this. Very against this.
So there's a difference between what we did in Jenin [during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, where 13 soldiers were killed in an ambush] and what we did in Gaza?
Yes, we changed our approach. The approach is more appropriate now. I think what we did in Jenin was a mistake. There was a primitive conception that "it's all right to endanger soldiers." Every time there was a dilemma like this – soldiers here and non-soldiers on the other side – the soldiers were endangered.
Why was that wrong?
You need, to a certain limit, to warn the people to get out. At a certain point, the warnings are over and there are two possibilities. That people have stayed because they don't want to leave or because they can't leave. If they can't leave, despite all the warnings, despite the possibilities to get them out, even to send ambulances to get them out, that's interesting to me, and we'll come back to that.
But if a neighbor doesn't want to leave, he turns himself into the human shield of the terrorist. He has become part of the war. And I'm sorry, but I may have to harm him when I try to stop the terrorist. I'll do my best not to. But it may be that in the absence of all other alternatives, I may hurt him. I certainly don't see a good reason to endanger the lives of soldiers in a case like that.
Sometimes people don't understand this. They think of soldiers as, well, instruments. They think that soldiers are there to be put into danger, that soldiers are there to take risks, that this is their world, this is their profession. But that is so far from the reality in Israel, where most of the soldiers are in the IDF because service is mandatory and reserve service is mandatory. Even with a standing army, you have to take moral considerations into account. But that is obviously the case when service is compulsory: I, the state, sent them into battle. I, the state, took them out of their homes. Instead of him going to university or going to work, I put a uniform on him, I trained him, and I dispatched him. If I am going to endanger him, I owe him a very, very good answer as to why. After all, as I said, this is a democratic state that is obligated to protect its citizens. How dare I endanger him? It is amazing how much a country under constant threat worries about how to minimize harm to those who support its destruction. And as Kasher said, it is not to impress the BBC or HRW, but to uphold Israeli society's own moral standards. Once again, it is illuminating to compare an interview like this to the facile condemnations that come from the media and "human rights" organizations who automatically assume that civilians die because of IDF mendacity. This shows that Israel is light years ahead of the pontificating accusers, both in knowledge of what has to be done and, yes, in morality. 
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| Islamic Jihad says it is too moral to use chemical weapons Posted: 24 Apr 2011 08:43 AM PDT Palestine Today writes that Said Abu Ahmed, spokesman of Al-Quds Brigades, military wing of Islamic Jihad, said that the Palestinian "resistance" groups would never use chemical weapons because of the ethics of the "resistance" and their Islamic religion which would prohibit their use. In other ethical news, the same Islamic Jihad praised the murderers of Ben Yosef Livnat, returning from prayers at Joseph's Tomb, this morning, saying it was a natural response to the provocation that Jews do. By praying, I guess. 
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| Study: "10,000 international forces cannot stop PalArab terror" (UPDATED) Posted: 24 Apr 2011 07:38 AM PDT One of the assumptions of a final peace agreement that is bandied about is the idea that an international force would be deployed within the PA-controlled areas in order to protect both sides from aggression by the other. A new study determines that such an approach would fail to stop Palestinian Arab terrorists from their activities. From IMRA: Maariv correspondent Eli Brandstein reported in the 21 April 2011 edition that a war simulation organized by the Saban Center with the participation of former senior American officials found that a large international force of 10,000 deployed in a sovereign Palestinian state could not prevent Palestinian terror attacks against Israeli targets despite receiving advance warning from Israel.
The simulation also found that official Palestinian security forces would not act themselves to prevent the attacks, relying instead on the ineffective international forces.
To make matters worse, the simulation found that the presence of the international force in the Palestinian state served to increase friction and tension between Israel and the United States in a way that impaired security cooperation between Israel and the United States.
Under the simulation, a sovereign Palestinian state would be created after a complete Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank with major settlement blocs annexed by Israel and over 82 settlements evacuated.
The 10,000 man international security force that failed in the simulation was composed of European soldiers along with some soldiers from Morocco and Palestinians under American command.
In the simulation the international force enjoyed complete security authority via a UN mandate with its principle mission being to prevent terror attacks against Israel.
Maariv did not indicate if any Palestinian state promoters have revised their position given the results of the simulation given that these result serve to undermine a key working assumption of those who claim that there are viable durable workable security arrangements that could be implemented in the event of the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state. So much for what "everyone knows." Yet, as with all other fatal assumptions that have no proof, real evidence will not sway those who are wedded to the idea of the "peace process." (h/t Zach N) UPDATE: In response to a inquiry by IMRA regarding the simulation reported in
Maariv(see below) , Kenneth M. Pollack, Director of the Saban Center for
Middle East Policy responded late Saturday night as follows:
"The Maariv report is entirely INACCURATE. It is factually incorrect. The
simulation demonstrated nothing of the sort. We tried to explain this to the
reporter, but apparently he was not interested.
We will be putting out an accurate account of the simulation and its
findings in the days ahead. You will find it on the Brookings website when
it is out. " Nice to know. We'll see. (h/t Challah Hu Akbar) 
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| Anti-Israel activists at Ahava UK convicted Posted: 24 Apr 2011 06:26 AM PDT From TheJC: Four activists who chained themselves to concrete block inside the London branch of Israel cosmetics shop Ahava were illegally trespassing, a judge has ruled.
All four defendants, who have been conditionally discharged, argued the store was committing "war crimes" by selling products from an Israeli settlement, Mitzpe Shalem, in the West Bank. They plan to appeal the verdict.
But District Judge Ian Baker said at Highbury Magistrates' Court that although he had "considerable hesitancy" in calling Ahava's business legal, it had never been proved to be illegal in the UK.
He said: "Until such time as Ahava UK Ltd is prosecuted and defence arguments herein properly tested, I can do no more that accept it is trading lawfully."
The four, who arrived in court dressed in casual T-shirts and supported by many pro-Palestinian activists, occupied Ahava in Covent Garden on two separate occasions last year. The protests by Matthew Richardson, 24, and Gwendolen Wilkinson, 20, were on October 2 2010 and by Christopher Osmond, 30, and Jessica Nero, 33, on November 22. All were convicted of aggravated trespass after a three day trial at Stratford Magistrates' Court last month.
The protesters lay on the floor and chained themselves to each other and a concrete bollard, until they were cut free by police, and the store was forced to close.
All four were ordered to pay £250 in costs. Both Mr Richardson and Ms Wilkinson argued they had no income, and Ms Wilkinson said she has no bank account in her name. After Judge Baker asked "how they keep body and soul together", Mr Richardson claimed he ate leftover food from supermarkets.
Judge Baker acknowledged the activists had trodden carefully in order to try to act legally but added: "Unfortunately, I don't agree with your analysis of the law."
He added: "The defendants cite financial reasons why they were unable to pursue judicial reviews or private prosecution that does not justify an unlawful course of trespass and disruption instead. The defendants are free to hold protests outside the shop. They are not free to act in the way they did on this occasion."
The four released a statement saying: "Today's judgement illustrates the complicity of the authorities in allowing companies to profit from the occupation. Throughout the trial neither the Judge nor the prosecution challenged the assertion that the settlements are illegal in international law."
Lawyers for the four were instructed by the law firm Irvine Thanvi Natas, whose partner Simon Natas is involved with Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights. Mr Natas said all four would appeal the verdict. Richard Millett's blog has much more, including this priceless piece after the defendants claimed to have no money: The judge did say that the defendants seemed to have found plenty of money to travel to "Palestine" on quite a few occasions though. One of the unemployed people answered that he cycled to get there!!! This verdict is in marked contrast to the absurd, unprofessional verdict by Judge Bathurst-Norman last year, which I posted about a few times. (h/t Samson) 
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| Disgusting, intimidating behavior against a Jew at a Scotland university Posted: 24 Apr 2011 05:03 AM PDT From The Courier (UK): Two St Andrews University students have appeared in court following allegations they indulged in anti-semitic behaviour.
Samuel Colchester and Paul Donnachie are charged with fondling their genitals before rubbing their hands on a flag of Israel. It is claimed they were intending to cause "alarm or distress" to Jewish man Chanan Roziel Reitblat.
Colchester (20), of Andrew Melville Hall, and 18-year-old Donnachie, of McIntosh Hall, both deny the allegations.
Colchester and Donnachie face a charge alleging that, on March 12 at a building owned by the university in Links Crescent, they acted in a racially aggravated manner intended to cause alarm or distress to Mr Reitblat.
The charge states they placed their hands inside their trousers and on to their genitals before rubbing them on to a flag of Israel. It is also alleged they made comments of an offensive nature within Mr Reitblat's presence, contrary to the Criminal Law Act.
An alternative charge states the pair behaved in a threatening or abusive manner likely to cause a reasonable person to suffer fear or alarm by acting in the manner described, contrary to the Criminal Justice Act. Donnachie's reactions on his Facebook page:
Chanan Reitblat, the victim, tells me that this did not happen in a public area, like at a campus Zionist organization. The events happened in Reitblat's dorm room where he had put up an Israeli flag on his own personal bulletin board!
Reitblat emailed me that they told him... ...that I support terrorists and should be held liable for putting up a "terrorist symbol" in my room- pretty much that I deserve what's coming to me.
After they left my room, they went on an hour long rant throughout the hall about how Jews have no claim to Israel and that Israel is a terrorist, Nazi state. Reitblat is traumatized by what happened in his own room, as one can imagine, telling me that this was an "awful month" for him. This is what happens when anti-Israel hate is allowed to fester - it emboldens the haters to take things further and further. And things are pretty bad in universities in Scotland nowadays. UPDATE: Commenter Elise notes that this is the school that the new royal couple attended. Wonderful. 
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| PA policemen shoot Jewish civilian worshipers, killing one. Posted: 24 Apr 2011 03:36 AM PDT From JPost: One Israeli worshiper was killed and four were wounded in Nablus early Sunday morning after their vehicle was shot at by a Palestinian Authority policeman as the group was exiting the city from prayer services held at Joseph's Tomb. Magen David Adom said one person was in serious condition, one in moderate condition and two others in light condition.
The Palestinian police officer who opened fire told investigators in the Palestinian security forces that he identified "suspicious" individuals and fired at them, the IDF said. The shooting took place in an area of Palestinian Authority security jurisdiction. The PA policeman was being interrogated by Palestinian security officers. Several hours after the incident, dozens of Palestinians rioted near Joseph's Tomb and set tires on fire, Israel Radio reported. Settlers claimed that Palestinians vandalized the holy site in the wake of the attack.
...The death of a 25-year-old male was pronounced at the scene. The victim was identified as Ben Yosef Livnat, the nephew of Minister of Culture and Sports Limor Livnat (Likud). Livnat was married, a father of four and was a resident of Jerusalem. JoeSettler at The Muqata fills in details: Ever since Israel foolishly gave away Joseph's tomb to the Palestinians (which led to the abandonment of an Israeli soldier (Madhat Yusef) at the site who bled to death, and the destruction of this Holy site by the Palestinians), Breslev Hassidim and others have a made a point of regularly returning to the Jewish holy site to ensure that the Kever isn't abandoned completely.
Sometimes the IDF coordinates visits in the middle of the night and brings in busloads of people (unless they think it is too dangerous), but more often Breslev Hassidim sneak in and out in the middle of the night.
Early this morning (5:40AM), after finishing their prayers a carload of Breslev Hassidim were attacked by Palestinian policemen.
Originally 3 carloads of Jews arrived at the tomb to pray, but PA policemen waiting there shot in the air and 2 of the cars immediately left. The third carload of Breslevers stayed to pray.
After the prayers, when the Hassidim were driving out, the Palestinian policemen (trained and funded by the US) drove their PA police jeep up to the car with the Hassidim in it and opened fire.
One Israeli, Ben-Yosef Livnat (age 30) was killed and 3 more injured. Livnat is the nephew of Minister Limor Livnat.
Nablus/Shechem Governor Jibril al-Bakri admits his policemen did the attack, calling it a "security incident" not a "terrorist attack". He also confirms the witness report that they first shot in the air when they saw the Breslev Hassidim who arrive there every week.
9:42 AM Arabs are trying to burn down Kever Yosef right now. (5 Molotov cocktails thrown at Beit Yonatan in Jerusalem Old City this morning). Ma'an throws in a baldfaced lie, with no qualification whatsoever: Palestinian security officials told Ma'an that dozens of armed ultra-Orthodox settlers entered the Joseph's Tomb site without coordinating with the Palestinian side and thus they were not escorted by Israeli forces.
The Palestinian officers told them they were not allowed to be there without coordination, but they did not obey the orders. Instead, they pulled out their own guns and pointed them toward Palestinian officers. Breslov chassidim with guns? Oh, please. YNet adds: One of the Breslovers who was in the second car in the convoy and was lightly wounded told Ynet: "We arrived at the tomb like on many occasions in the past. Near the tomb we saw a spikes chain. One of the guys jumped out of the car and moved it aside.
"At this point a uniformed Palestinian police officer with a Kalashnikov in a jeep woke his colleagues up and they started firing into the air…I was in the front seat. We started driving fast in the direction of the tomb; we got out of the vehicles and kissed the tomb.
"When we got back to the vehicles the police shot at the vehicles, they were screaming 'Allahu Akbar'. It was crazy, they were shooting to kill. I screamed at the driver to drive out of there quickly. When we got to Har Bracha we attended to the wounded." From the Oslo Accords 1995 Interim Agreement, Appendix III, Annex 1, Article 32: 2. Both sides shall respect and protect the listed below religious rights of Jews, Christians, Moslems and Samaritans:
a. protection of the Holy Sites;
b. free access to the Holy Sites; and
c. freedom of worship and practice. If Israel withdraws from Hebron and Bethlehem, then Jews wishing to visit their holiest places would be placing their lives into their own hands every single time. And in order to soothe the sensibilities of Muslims who of course would be incensed at the idea of Jews in their midst, those visits would also have to take place in the middle of the night in armored buses - a far cry from "free access." For some reason, the rights of Jews to worship at their holy places is not worth much to the world. Neither is Palestinian violations of signed agreements. 
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