The myth of the world's most moral army
Supporters of Israel’s military describe them as “the most moral army in the world”. Their devastating death toll disproves this slogan but, despite that reality, it’s often repeated by officials who should really know better. Let’s debunk it:
I've never known an army to take such measures to attend to the enemy's civilian population, above and beyond what international law requires
American military talking-head John Spencer made this claim. The claim rests on the widely promoted fact that Israel does, sometimes, tells civilians to evacuate areas prior to attacking them. So, what’s wrong with this claim?
Well, for starters, it entirely ignores the life-ruining impact that internal displacement has had on Gazans. It also frames civilian warnings as “unprecedented” when they are, in fact, a common prelude to atrocities. Warning leaflets were dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki before the crimes against humanity committed there. Even Mexican crime syndicates drop warning leaflets on the populations they put at-risk, but you’re at no risk of hearing Spencer praise the world’s most moral cartel.
Forewarning civilians is not “above and beyond what international law requires”, it simply is what international law requires. Despite this requirement, the IDF frequently kill scores of civilians without warning. This practice is both loosely socialised (through a near-total absence of firing regulations), and rigidly enforced (through the creation of unmarked 'Kill Zones' that IDF soldiers are ordered to shoot everybody inside of).
Disregard for Palestinian life is also demonstrated by the IDF’s use of civilians as human shields, and their forcing civilians to inspect potentially booby-trapped tunnels on their behalf. “Our lives are more important than their lives” IDF soldiers were told when ordered to do this.
The steps the Israeli military has taken to prevent civilian casualties in Gaza might go further than what the US would have done if it were in Israel’s place
White House spokesperson John Kirby made this claim and, because both the U.S. and Israel assign a Non-combatant Casualty Value (NCV) to their targets, we can roughly quantify the extent to which it’s untrue. Israel assigns NCVs of 15 to 20 for low-ranking targets, meaning that it considers 15 to 20 dead civilians a fair trade for killing one suspected militant. By comparison, the NCV that the U.S. assign to a low-level commander is typically zero.
Israel has been know to assign NCVs as high as 300, meaning that it considers 300 dead civilians a fair trade for killing a high-ranking commander. By comparison, Osama Bin Laden’s NCV was 30.
A generous interpretation of Israel’s low appraisal of Palestinian civilian life is that they have a high appetite for “collateral damage” in order to swiftly achieve their war aims. What follows will disabuse you of that notion.
Of course innocent civilians were killed. War is chaotic and confusing and mistakes are frequent.
British military talking-head Colonel Richard Kemp made this claim & it was echoed by British ex-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
The central lie here is that the IDF only targets civilians by mistake. The deliberate killing of civilians, both on the ground and from the air, is commonplace in the IDF.
No toddler gets shot twice by mistake. They're dead-center shots.
It’s also IDF policy to attack non-military targets like public buildings, infrastructure, and high-rise blocks (which they term power targets) in order “to harm Palestinian civil society”.
Another IDF policy systematically preferences attacking suspected militants while they are in their homes, usually at night while their whole families were present. The system they use to coordinate this is called, I shit you not, “Where’s Daddy?”
We were not interested in killing [Hamas] operatives only when they were in a military building or engaged in a military activity. On the contrary, the IDF bombed them in homes without hesitation, as a first option. It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home. The system is built to look for them in these situations.
Making matters worse, the IDF knew while doing this that their “AI targeting system” was deeply flawed:
Human personnel often served only as a “rubber stamp” for the machine’s decisions, just to make sure the target is male. This was despite knowing that the system makes what are regarded as “errors” in approximately 10 percent of cases, and is known to occasionally mark individuals who have merely a loose connection to militant groups, or no connection at all.
This… seems bad, but at least it’s being investigated right?
Why don’t we see what they [Israel] find in terms of the decision making process that led to this terrible outcome [the killing of seven aid workers by Israel]
Another shameful quote from White House spokesperson John Kirby, echoing the position taken by Israel at the International Court of Justice. Kirby has since doubled down on his absurd view that Israel, the perpetrator of the alleged crimes, is capable of investigating itself.
There is, of course, plenty of evidence that Israel is unwilling to hold itself accountable. It rarely opens investigations against junior-ranking soldiers and completely refrains from investigating decision makers at the top command levels. It also drags its feet when investigating, for example, several investigations commenced in 2014 were still ongoing in 2022.
The result of all this is that a meagre 0.17% of all incidents reviewed by Israel’s “fact-finding mechanism” have resulted in prosecution. By comparison, the system that Israel uses to prosecute Palestinians has a 99.7% prosecution rate. The purpose of a system is what it does.
Israeli intelligence agencies also illegally surveil the activities of the International Criminal Court (ICC), in part to determine which incidents are being referred to the prosecutor’s office. Israel then retroactively opens investigations into these cases and then rejects the ICC’s mandate on the grounds that Israel has an ongoing investigation.
Israel also ran a campaign of bribery, smears and intimidation against ICC prosecutors.
You don’t want to be getting into things [prosecuting Israeli war crimes] that could compromise your security or that of your family.
The things that they said to these prosecutors wouldn’t seem out of place in a Martin Scorsese movie.
There would be a ceasefire in Gaza tomorrow if Hamas frees hostages
This is one of Joe Biden’s favourite lines. It’s been contradicted again, and again by Israeli officials who seem set on sabotaging hostage deals in favour of prolonging their “war”. The IDF have also done their part to drag things out: refusing to secure the territory that they attack which obliges them to reinvade and flatten territories over and over again.
This costly and seemingly self-defeating behaviour has led analysts to conclude that the IDF’s real war aim is to destroy Gaza and displace its civilian population. This interpretation is supported by comments from Israeli ministers, who are self-described fascists, in support of ethnic cleansing. These ministers are already holding secret talks with third-countries like Congo, who they hope can be bribed to accept ethnically cleansed Palestinians. Property developers are already salivating at the prospect of Israeli beachfront property in Gaza.
Conclusion
The IDF are at war with the very idea of Palestine. They are systematically slaughtering and displacing Palestinian civilians. They are lying about their intent to investigate their own crimes and surveilling and intimidating the international courts attempting to hold them to account. If you live in Germany, Italy, the U.S. or Britain then your elected representatives are lying to you in order to defend the IDF, all while arming them to the teeth.
The IDF has no claim whatsoever to the moral high ground and anybody telling you otherwise is a shameless liar.
Update: This article was revised on 30/08/2024 to add more nuance and context to the section about Non-combatant Casualty Value (NCV). For even more context see +972 Mag’s excellent reporting, upon which this article is based.