Talk about shooting the messenger: Danny Zamir, director of the Yitzhak Rabin military preparatory academy at Oranim College, organized a meeting of his graduates to discuss their experiences in Gaza. The resulting soldiers’ testimonies of cold-blooded murder of Gaza civilians have riveted Israeli attention for the past week. Ethan Bronner wrote a N.Y. Times Week in Review story about them as well.
But Zamir’s efforts haven’t sat well with a certain patriotic constituency within Israeli society, one that sees the IDF as a sacred national institution that is beyond reproach. Though I’m sure Zamir didn’t expect to be lionized for his efforts, he probably didn’t expect to be vilified either.
Not only have Israelis accused him of smearing the IDF, they’ve accused him of aiding and abetting the nation’s enemies who are only waiting to pounce upon such stories to justify their hatred of Israel. The IDF itself initiated this campaign by revealing that Zamir had been imprisoned briefly in the 1990s when he refused to guard a settler group holding a provocative religious ceremony at Joseph’s Tomb. They attempted to shoot the messenger.
The campaign also took the form of attacks like this one (Hebrew) in the Israeli right-wing press. Assaf Oron also notes that one person in the online comment thread falsely claimed the testimonies had been debunked. Another IDF regiment commander claimed the stories were unsubstantiated after little more than a quick internal inquiry. Assaf’s rejoinder is telling:
Well, that settles it. The IDF never lies. Only dirty leftists do.
Zamir himself seems to be a throwback to an earlier era in the IDF when officers wrestled with moral and political dilemmas. When they strove not just to fight, but to understand why they were fighting. It’s important to hear his portrayal of his motives for airing the testimonies:
For some reason, many of those who responded angrily to the failures depicted in the soldiers’ stories connected our project to a leftist worldview or to opposition to military service.
The demand to uncover any failures of the army’s ethical code during the Gaza operation must never be seen as “against” the IDF. Precisely the opposite [is the case]. This is an act that derives from a sense of responsibility for, and full participation in what happens within the army, which is, after all, composed of all of us.
The claims that the mass media exposure of the acts of our soldiers will serve as lighter fluid in the hands of Israel haters is unjustified. Israel haters don’t require such material [to peddle their hate]. On the contrary, an innocent Arab civilian grappling with Israel’s image, seeing the forthright discussion surrounding this episode will see before him a living, breathing democratic society struggling with its failures.
…Enough lies and hatred. Morality is strength, not weakness.
Unfortunately, the Danny Zamirs of Israeli society have largely been passed over by historical events. The high standards and moral values he attempts to uphold have been trashed by so many within the army itself and the political echelons. But we must still appreciate the heroic efforts made by such as him to uphold a sense of national decency and honor in the midst of fighting a war. If Israel had more of him it might not be in the quagmire it is in.
It isn’t surprising that in the midst of such smears and pressure that Zamir appears to equivocate about the value of the Gaza war itself. It seems almost a sop to his Israeli opponents that he concedes basic elements of anti-Hamas propaganda (such as the claim they they use human shields). In truth, and this is a weakness of Zamir’s approach, he is less interested in the question of whether the war should have been fought than in HOW that war was fought. A man of his word, as limited as that might sometimes be, he tells us his chief concern is for the IDF itself and he leaves the more difficult political questions to others.
A minor correction to your translation of the excerpt from Zamir’s article (and you might consider including the link to the Hebrew original) – he doesn’t say an “innocent Arab civilian” but “innocent Western citizen”.
Well first of all Hamas’ statements about a truce fall into the category of their contrary statements to western media etc – I hope the Obama administration will pursue them to find out how serious they are. I’m a believer in 242, which means land for peace. Withdrawing from the OPT without a peace deal would be a strategic liability. Israel needs to pursue policies that will get Palestinian consensus on something along the lines of a Geneva Accords. This means stopping settlement expansion, removing checkpoints etc etc. But, given what’s happened in Gaza and Lebanon, unilateral withdrawal wouldn’t be very sensible.
Wikipeida is good on the issue of recognition
link to en.wikipedia.org
Somehow, Hamas have to show that they acknowledge the right of Israel to sovereignty over part of the land – one per cent would do for me. Now Israel has done that – unfortunately it’s only shown it’s willing to create a Palestinian bantustan, but I believe that to be more than what Hamas are prepared to accept (the odd contrary statement to the western media notwithstanding, which should of course be pursued seriously by concerned third parties). There’s no point in embarking on negotiations in Hamas if there is no possibility to end the conflict. Long-term truces are pointless; it would be better to stay in the OPT than to go down that road.
Just when I was beginning to believe you actually had a few good things, informative things to say about the conflict, you prove me wrong. A long-term truce is what Hamas is offering w/o any negotiations haven’t happened yet. For you to make the horrible statement that you’d rather continue Israel’s heinous Occupation because Hamas doesn’t offer you what you want BEFORE there’s been ANY negotiations is ridiculous. I’m sorry you don’t recognize that.
Richard – I don’t know what you mean by recognising Hamas. I am talking in formal terms – the international system works via recognition. The idea that Israel has to recognise Hamas is as meaningless as saying Iran should recognise Israel’s right to exist. Israel has done deals with the Palestinians over the issue of recognition – deals which unfortunately (and for this Israel has to take a large share of the responsibility) haven’t made much progress beyond the stage of rhetoric, but Hamas can’t even bring themselves to make that rhetorical commitment.
But if we were to accept your formulation, how would we get out of the morass? What if I said “Israel has no obligation to recognise Hamas unless and until Hamas is willing to recognise Israel”?
I don’t know what this means. It sounds like a definitive statement, but is empty of meaning.
I find it odd that you say that Hamas must recognize Israel, but Israel has no such obligation to recognize Hamas. And I don’t have a clue what you mean by “formal terms.” The PLO did not recognize Israel before it began negotiating with Israel. Why change the rules solely for Hamas?
I don’t believe either party needs to recognize the other BEFORE they negotiate. The goal of negotiations is to get to recognition & acceptance of ea. other. But this may not be a precondition (unless you merely want to set up terms that destroy the chance of any negotiation happening).
How do I find out if I’ve got dynamic IP? It happens both when I write from my home laptop and when I write from work…
I think this comment was moderated as well & not published immediately. But it should’ve been since I approved a comment of yours yesterday fr. this IP. I’m a little befuddled why you’re in moderation given that you’re using the same IP as last night. I’ll look more closely at my moderation list to see if any of the IPs you use are still in there. But I already checked last night & they weren’t as far as I could tell.
But I do apologize for the inconvenience.
Richard – is there any chance I can be taken off moderation? It’s a bit frustrating to post responses to people only for them to be seen ten hours later.
I’m trying to figure out why you’re being moderated. I can’t find either yr e mail or IP in my moderation list. Is it possible that you’re using dynamic IP? If so, my blog is set up to moderate all first time IPs, which would be why your comments are being moderated.
Well, Peter, I think you’re overly concerned with the Holocaust. It’s not forbidden territory, but analogies should be accurate, and I’ve seen nothing here to suggest that the Warsaw Ghetto analogy is.
As for Gaza, I think that the discourse between left and righ or zionist and anti-zionist or however you want to phrase it would be improved when both sides acknowledged that the following two statements can be simultaneously true.
1) Israel does a number of terrible things.
2. Israeli bad deeds are exaggerated.
2 does not exclude 1; 1 does not exclude 2, yet most discourse is built around the assumption that one excludes the other.
Well I think that both Palestinians and Jews should have national and political collective rights, but not one at the expense of the other, hence the need for a sensible partition (hopefully leading to a more integrated solution in the long-term).
Well I do – broadly speaking – support the Geneva Accords now. I just don’t think it’s realistic at this point in time.
RE. Jaffa – I don’t think it gives me any inherent rights to change the polity of the state, although it should give me rights vis-a-vis my property and the wrong that was done to me, on an individual level.
I agree w. you about that.
But that was exactly what revisionist Zionism was about, wasn’t it? Jews came to Palestine to create a Jewish state, and in a land where the existing population is about 95% non-Jewish, that means changing the polity. That’s not changed by the fact that Palestine wasn’t a sovereign Palestinian state but a province of the Ottoman Empire, and then under British mandate. Neither did the fact that some millennia ago Jews had ruled the land give the newcomers any inherent rights.
So why should the Jewish population between the sea and the river enjoy national and political collective rights while Palestinians are reduced to individual owners of property?
Richard – I’m not questioning the extent of the destruction – I’m saying if it was a ‘free-for-all’, i.e. kill and destroy whoever and whatever you want, a hell of a lot more people would have been killed, and many more places destroyed.
As for right of return, even Noam Chomsky acknowledges that large-scale implementation of the right of return would see Israel become an Arab state. That would mean the destruction of Israel, although it wouldn’t necessarily entail physical harm to its Jewish citizens.
Do you support the implementation of the right of return? There’s nothing ‘convenient’ about my neglecting to acknowledge Geneva etc – if that settlement is supported by the various peoples of the land, I will support it too.
Some of the Arab refugees lived on this land long before I did; some are the grandchildren of those who lived on this land long before I did. I don’t believe that bestows inherent rights, anymore than I should have inherent rights when it comes to Germany or Poland.
You are right about Hebrew – I didn’t mean for it to come out as a prerequisite. What I meant was some way of securing the recognition of the returnees that the country was a Hebrew-speaking democracy (although Arabic should also be privileged). I see no other way of understanding the provision of ‘willing to live in peace with their neighbours’. If you’re coming to change the polity, you’re not willing to live in peace.
I think Geneva & the Saudi initiative are the real hopes for ending this conflict. I’m glad to hear that you would support them if Israelis & Palestinians would too, though it would be nice to have you support it NOW, rather than waiting to see that others support it later.
You don’t believe if I lived in Jaffa in 1948 & was physically expelled that this bestows “inherent rights” on me?
I’m glad to hear that. I agree with you.
The issue of the right of return is far more complicated, as you and I both know, particularly as the relevant resolution speaks of “willing to live in peace with their neighbours”. Given that the right of return is used as the trojan horse to destroy Jewish statehood, it’s clear that Israel is right to oppose it. Having said that, if the Palestinian refugees agreed to come and serve in the army and learn Hebrew (those who were able to do so, of course, like everyone else), I would have no problem accepting their return en masse.
“Israel regularly dismisses the UN”
I think you mean that Israel regularly dismisses UN General Assembly resolutions, which aren’t binding.
The Saudi analogy is apt – both states have the same rights and responsibilities accorded them by the international system (right to exist not being one of them).
The Abbas point is absurd – Abbas wrote his phd thesis or something twenty years ago; he clearly doesn’t hold the same views now, in contrast to Ahmadinejad, who regularly parrots them whenever he gets a chance.
“Destroy Israel?” How will the exercise of the right of return “destroy” Israel? I wish you and many others using such careless, imprecise language would take greater care. What you really mean to say is that it will unalterably change the demographic makeup of the Jewish state and force it to come to terms with something it has always refused to do: that it expelled 700,000 Arabs from Israel in 1948 in a primal national sin.
You also conveniently neglect to acknowledge that both the Geneva Accord and Saudi Initiative propose amending the terms for exercising the Right of Return so that most refugees would receive financial compensation and not physically return (though some would). This exercise of the Right of Return would not “destroy” Israel, though it would allow it to come to terms in at least a basic way with the crime it committed in expelling its Arab inhabitants.
As for compelling a native of pre-1948 Israel to learn Hebrew as a condition for returning, I find that notion laughable. Should we make it a condition for Native Americans to attain U.S. citizenship that they learn to speak English? Keep in mind these Arab refugees are people who lived in this land long before you or most Israelis did. What right do you have to impose on them a language that is alien to them? This is precisely the problem I have with the condesenscion of these sorts of ideas. BTW, should we also compel them to root for Betar Yerushalayim? Why not compel them to paint their homes (if they have one) blue and white with a Jewish star?
Not everywhere in Gaza was attacked Peter; you make it sound like the whole area was a shooting range (maybe you even believe it), in which case a hell of a lot more people would have died.
Uh, that’s pretty much what it was. You’re not there. I’ve read accounts by multiple journalists who have been there since the war and they directly contradict you. 4,000 homes were completely destroyed. Tens of thousands without shelter. Could you tell us a few major neighborhoods which remain unscathed? A few post war pictures might be good visual aids as well.
I am not sure to which comments this refers to. I have no sympathy to an argument that had Israel wanted to kill much more people it could have done so. Israel knows it cannot really engage in carpet bombings, but does everything to push the line. Use of cluster bombs in Lebanon and WP in Gaza (and Lebanon) is really nothing more in my eyes than state terror.
Not everybody was attacked? Well, not everybody was attacked in Sderot either, judging by the number of casualties through the years, n’est-ce pas? And I am not sure what is more horrific: not to know whether you are going to be attacked or not or to expect an attack with almost a certainty. In fact, from people who visited Sderot, this point is often voiced and I appreciate it: to leave in constant danger of a Qassam falling on you, even though it is known as abysmally ineffective, is indeed a horrible thing. So, what can be said of Gazans, who have been living under the Damocles sword of much greater effectiveness for years?
I’m merely asking questions; not drawing conclusions.
Does that mean you don’t think it’s a war crime if it doesn’t kill anyone?
Silly question. If it is a war crime, then let’s bring to justice every Israeli gunner who’s ever fired a rocket or tank shell on a civilian area in Lebanon or Gaza–not to mention all those cluster munitions–whether or not they killed or injured anyone. I don’t see justice in b&w terms as you seem to. Justice is relative. You get as close to justice as you can.