I’ve devoted a good deal of my life to Israel. I’ve studied, read, visited, lived, breathed it. Not in the way diehard pro-Israel fanatics do. But in a different way that matched my own intellectual and political proclivities. It’s a subject that is rich, varied, troubling, bedeviling, and exhilarating. But every once in a while I learn something I never thought possible; and I don’t mean this in a good way.
Tonight, my Israeli source informed me that Sgt. Guy Levy, serving in the armored corps, was captured by Hamas fighters. He had been part of a joint engineering-armored-combat unit searching for tunnels. Troops entered a structure and discovered a tunnel. Suddenly, out of the shaft sprang two militants who dragged one of the soldiers into it. By return fire, one of the Palestinians was killed, while the other fled, presumably with the soldier.
This Israeli report, which was censored by the IDF, says only that the attempt to capture the soldier failed. It says nothing about his fate. The expectation of anyone reading it would be that the soldier was freed. But he was not. In order to prevent the success of the operation, the IDF killed him. Nana reports that the IDF fired a tank shell into the building, which is the same way another captured soldier was killed by the IDF during Cast Lead.
I would presume that once the militant fled into the tunnel with his prisoner that the IDF destroyed the tunnel and entombed those within it, including the soldier. I would also presume that the IDF knows he is dead because they retrieved his body.
To the uninitiated this will seem a terribly strange, uncivilized, even immoral act. But that’s where I learned something I’d never known before about the IDF. There is an unwritten secret regulation written by the IDF High Command, but nowhere codified in writing. Its existence is protected by military censorship. Journalists have rarely written about it. When they have it’s usually been in code or by inference.
It’s called the Hannibal Directive. Though the Wikipedia article doesn’t explain the reference to Hannibal, I assume it relates to the death of the great Carthaginian general, who took poison rather than allow himself to be captured by his mortal enemy, the Romans. Though Sara Leibovich-Dar wrote in 2003 that the name came from a military computer!
In my long history of dedication to this subject, I’ve rarely seen anything that has disturbed me as much. The Hannibal Directive is:
…A secret directive of the Israel Defense Forces with the purpose of preventing Israeli soldiers being captured by enemy forces in the course of combat.
…The order, drawn up in 1986 by a group of top Israeli officers, states that at the time of a kidnapping the main mission becomes forcing the release of the abducted soldiers from their kidnappers, even if that means injury to Israeli soldiers.
The order allows commanders to take whatever action is necessary, including endangering the life of an abducted soldier, to foil the abduction…
As happens so often in these cases, an IDF commander instrumental in drafting the order denied the horrific logic of the directive and then offered an example of how he would proceed which only confirmed it:
In a rare interview by one of the authors of the directive, Yossi Peled…denied that it implied a blanket order to kill Israeli soldiers rather than let them be captured by enemy forces. The order only allowed the army to risk the life of a captured soldier, not to take it. “I wouldn’t drop a one-ton bomb on the vehicle, but I would hit it with a tank shell”, Peled was quoted saying. He added that he personally “would rather be shot than fall into Hizbullah captivity.”
In other words, the IDF will do almost everything in its power to prevent capture of its soldiers including killing him. It might not put a bullet directly in his brain, but it would certainly shell a home or vehicle in which he was situated.
Perhaps there’s a lingering bit of the liberal Zionist I once was here, but I’d always heard that Israel never leaves a soldier behind. It does everything possible to bring all its troops home, and once captured does everything possible to retrieve or free them.
All this time I was sorely mistaken. When all hope is lost of liberating the soldier from captivity, he dies. What’s equally disturbing is that the existence of the directive is an open secret. Commanders warn their soldiers that no one may be captured and that if you are you must commit suicide. If you can’t do that, then they will do their best to kill you. Perhaps they don’t articulate it precisely in those words, but that’s the clear intent.
Lest you think Hannibal is a theoretical regulation, it has been implemented before and captured soldiers have been killed by the IDF. Most recently it happened during Operation Cast Lead:
During the war there was a case where the Hannibal directive was invoked. An Israeli soldier was shot and injured by a Hamas fighter during a search of a house in one of the neighborhoods of Gaza. The wounded soldiers’ comrades evacuated the house due to fears that it was booby-trapped. According to testimony by soldiers who took part in the incident the house was then shelled to prevent the wounded soldier from being captured by Hamas.
You have every right to ask: what soldier in his right mind would follow such an order. There are thankfully examples of ones who refused. But there are a number who didn’t including the tank commander who fired on his comrade in that home in Gaza, killing him.
You also have a right to ask how the IDF could approve such a regulation. The answer is it didn’t. It has never been vetted by military lawyers. If it had been, the High Command might’ve been told it was an illegal, immoral directive which had no standing. Then the IDF would have to implement an order its highest legal authorities had deemed treif. That would never do. So neither the generals, nor the Judge Advocate has ever delved into the matter. It is yet another example of the national security state refusing to examine the deepest, most troubling principles on which it is based.
Implementation of the Hannibal Directive comes on the heels of the freeing of Gilad Shalit after five years in captivity. The nation freed 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in order to release Shalit. Israeli hardliners screamed bloody murder about freeing murderers with blood on their hands. Some said it would have been better if Shalit had died rather than face this ignominy.
I believe that Benny Gantz and Bibi Netanyahu aren’t prepared to go through such a trauma again. They believe their constituency would understand if they killed a soldier rather than lose him to capture. Let’s make no mistake about this: it is a purely political calculation. A nakedly, cynical political calculation. It suggests that the interests of the nation trump the life of the individual. These are considerations of an authoritarian state and not a democratic one. A democracy values the individual. It recognizes that the nation cannot exist without the individual. Even that the nation should not exist unless it respects and values that individual.
The Hannibal Directive perverts such principles. It embraces a fascist perspective in which the individual is subsumed within the mass. He has no specific individual value unless he is serving the interest of the nation. And his interests may, when necessary be sacrificed to the greater good.
I thank Dvorit Shargel for raising an important, and thorny issue. She implored me to consider the trauma of Levy’s family hearing their son was killed not by Palestinian fire, which would be painful enough, but by his own comrades.
It’s very doubtful the IDF would tell the family the truth unless it had no other choice. So then the question is, should we allow the IDF to lie just to cover up the use of the Hannibal directive and allow the family to believe he was killed by the enemy instead of his own?
My answer to this reluctantly is No. The greatest good is served by transparency. By knowing the truth, telling the truth, forcing everyone involved to explain what they did and why. Secrecy and pandering helps no one, even the dead soldiers’s family. I am sorry if this causes them added suffering. But blaming me is blaming the messenger not the real culprit.
Here is some of the discussion around the matter conducted by military ethicists (if there can be such a thing):
Dr. Avner Shiftan, an army physician with the rank of major, came across the Hannibal directive while on reserve duty in South Lebanon in 1999. In army briefings he “became aware of a procedure ordering soldiers to kill any IDF soldier if he should be taken captive by Hizbullah. This procedure struck me as being illegal and not consistent with the moral code of the IDF. I understood that it was not a local procedure but originated in the General Staff, and had the feeling that a direct approach to the army authorities would be of no avail, but would end in a cover-up.” He contacted Asa Kasher, the Israeli philosopher noted for his authorship of Israel Defense Forces’ Code of Conduct, who “found it difficult to believe that such an order exists,” since this “is wrong ethically, legally and morally”. He doubted that “there is anyone in the army” believing that `better a dead soldier than an abducted soldier’.
On this point however Asa Kasher was apparently wrong. In 1999 the IDF Chief of StaffShaul Mofaz said in an interview with Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth: “In certain senses, with all the pain that saying this entails, an abducted soldier, in contrast to a soldier who has been killed, is a national problem.” Asked whether he was referring to cases like Ron Arad (an Air Force navigator captured in 1986) and Nachshon Wachsman (an abducted soldier killed in 1994 in a failed rescue attempt), he replied “definitely, and not only.”
The legality of the order has never formally been examined by the IDF’s legal department. According to Prof. Emanuel Gross, from the Faculty of Law at the University of Haifa:…”Orders like that have to go through the filter of the Military Advocate General’s Office, and if they were not involved that is very grave,” he says. “The reason is that an order that knowingly permits the death of soldiers to be brought about, even if the intentions were different, carries a black flag and is a flagrantly illegal order that undermines the most central values of our social norms.
I hate to harp on this, but liberal Zionists enjoy claiming Israel is a nation of laws. That is upholds the rule of law. But this is clearly not the case. No democratic nation would permit such a directive after undergoing legal review. So the answer in Israel is simply to prevent it from undergoing any such review. It allows the flourishing of a secret code that governs critical aspects of the Israeli military.
I have read you CV as much as is available on the web. I am making the assumption that you may have some knowledge of ‘halachah’ so you must know of the law יותר מדמיהם meaning e.g. that if sefer torah is stolen with a worth of $20,000 by a non-Jew if the monetary request is not reasonable then the price is not paid. This is also germane to captives because it would encourage more kidnapping and this has been demonstrated in the past by various events the most recent the Shalit deal. So now Israel is telling Hamas that they cannot pressure Israel in this way anymore. Sometimes sacrifices for the general population must be made.
” It suggests that the interests of the nation trump the life of the individual. These are considerations of an authoritarian state and not a democratic one. A democracy values the individual. It recognizes that the nation cannot exist without the individual.” This is the point at which “nationalism” becomes “super nationalism,” in which the individual is dissolved in the myth of the greater state, here the Jewish tribe. Zionism was ALWAYS, at every point, a myth creating a state and that state is an idol worshiped by Jews, blasphemy notwithstanding.
Individuals create and animate the state in a liberal philosophy. In an archaic, fascist philosophy the state creates and animates the individual. Zionism was never simple “Jewish nationalism” as the bases for nationalism were absent, ie. it was not formed of a population in situ with common language and traditions. Jewish life and language is dispersed throughout the world and throughout history. Hence, the myth of origination, tribal identity tied to the land, exile and redemption….all of it myth. Jews attached to the myth created a mythic state and the state then creates the individual actor. A soldier is sacrificed because of the “national” problem he creates when captured. In a liberal state, there is no national problem that precedes the individual’s rights, most especially the right to life. Richard is right about this and I think that Zionism creates this national problem, not military exigencies. My point is simply that Zionism was never ever “liberal” because of the need for elaborate distortions, the need to synthesize commonalities where none existed. Zionism is not merely racism, it is state worship, idolatry.
there is an obvious diff between state worship and the ‘land of israel’ promised to the Jews. even the basis of the Zionistic theory emanates from the Torah and people believe in a Jewish state for Jews, hardly idolatry.
if you choose to counter by citing the 3 oaths mentioned in the Talmud, the Gra remarks that two of the 3 are null today and only the temple cannot be built until the coming of the messiah.
Religious fanaticism, in other words.
@ raziel: First, a sefer torah is different than a human being. Second, how do we value the worth of a human being? How do we determine what price is to great to redeem a human being? Are you prepared to put such a value on someone else’s wife, husband, brother, sister, mother, or child? I’m not.
Individuals make the ultimate sacrifice for the state in fascist regimes.
“Individuals make the ultimate sacrifice for the state in fascist regimes.”
so by default you admit that the US is a fascist regime. as far as that goes all countries who maintain armies work on this theorem.
the question you pose on the value of a human life is a hard question but again i will refer you to the laws of יהרג ולא יעבור
I posted a link to this article on the https://www.facebook.com/StandingWithIDF “Prostitutes for the IDF” page Let’s see how long it lasts.
Wonder if any historians know if any other army in history had this policy.
Slaughtered, by your own military to prevent capture? I don’t even have to imagine how that negatively impacts IDF initiative and morale!
There’s nothing “secret” and no “conspiracy drawn up in the middle of the night by generals” about the Hannibal protocol. That’s just what it is – a protocol of what to do in case there is an attempt to kidnap a soldier. It is a list of automatic reactions to perform once it is initiated (e.g. Calling the Air Force and asking for a helicopter to arrive to the scene, stuff like that). Every army has many such protocols for various scenarios. And yes, it calls for extreme prejudice when trying to prevent this event, with less caution than usual for the prevention of a friendly fire incident. It is sensible and entirely legitimate.
I believe that just proves they are also capable of killing the 3 “kidnapped” teenagers, claiming the blame for the kidnap and killing to be on Palestinians, just to start a war and execute a pre-planned agenda!!
No Rania, it was not a false flag. Deal with it
Yes Janet, it was. Hamas had nothing to do with those kidnapped teenagers. Israel responded without thinking and now 1,000 innocent people are dead.
Janet you should deal with the fact that it wasn’t Hammas either. This was actually reported by Israeli authorities.
No Janet, you are an idiot, deal with it.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/07/hamas-didnt-kidnap-the-israeli-teens-after-all.html
It was attributed at first to the Hamas because the suspects were related to the organization. That was probably a mistake, but in no way does that suggest your false flag loony theory is right.
I’m guessing (and I Richard of Occam would agree here) that the kidnappers were either working on their own accord, or more likely under instructions from another non-Hamas organization who wanted to hurt Israel. Plenty of these around.
I’m not saying i’m happy with how the Israeli govt handled the entire case, but as far as conspiracy theories go, i’ve seen much better ones than this.
@ leeor:
Not true either. Hamas considers this family dangerous and it has nothing to do with Hamas. The family freelances on its own. It never claimed credit on behalf of Hamas nor did Hamas itself ever take credit for the attack (though Hamas did refuse to denounce the kidnapping publicly).
The false flag crap is ridiculous & I just deleted a comment claiming this.
[don’t even try to publish garbage like this here.]
wrong again, Richard. He was killed by an anti tank missile eith the rest of his tank’s crew. Your source lied to you, unless it was you who made the whole story up.
@ Nimrod: You don’t even offer a source yourself. BTW, Nana said an IDF tank shell was fired into the structure in which the soldier was. Not an “anti-tank” shell. But a tank shell. Hamas doesn’t have tanks.
You don’t even have a source who could’ve lied to you. You just made your whole comment up. Now who’s wearing no clothes??
@Richard, Nana reporters, like yourself and your “Israeli source” wouldn’t tell the difference between a tank shell with a HEAT warhead and a reconciles rifle shell (which the Hamas does use) to an anti tank missile. You’re all a bunch or armatures when it comes to military hardware and you know it.
Hamas released a video showing an anti-tank missile hitting a structure next to a bunch of IDF troops from the armored corps which just entered that structure, and it’s probably that case. Say the word and I’ll provide a link to it in youtube.
@ Nimrod: I love your English malapropisms. They’re charming. Especially the “reconciles” rifle and this:
You’re claiming, even after Ronen Bergman & Guy Zohar confirmed Levy was killed by an Israeli shell that a Hamas video shows them killing Levy! Wow, that’s either foolhardy or brazen or both. I’ll stick with Bergman. His sources & judgment are superior to yours.
Richard, This is what I heard although my understanding of spoken Hebrew is not the best. At 1:40 in the Nana report to which you linked, the anchor asks the reporter about the status of the abducted soldier. The reported just said that there are particulars of the incident that have not been released.
Interesting to see if more on this will emerge.
I ses no problème with This secret law…..it in any case ensures the Sovereignity of a state and its national inteligences are not compromised….this Is what defines a nation
This article is misleading and you are effectively making damage to Israel, and as a Jewish person, you should be ashamed.
Hannibal principal is known by every Israeli and is accepted by every Israeli joining the IDF.
In a matter of abduction, you will do anything to prevent your capture, even if it means triggering your own grenade.
Believe me, every Israeli would prefer dying instead of being captured by these cruel animals, that as a Jewish Israeli person would do you unimaginable things, and might even kill you at the end, after taking every bit of intelligence you have.
And finally, the only Jewish state’s interest is much greater than one soldier’s interest, we rather have one dead soldier, and suffer the pain of his death (we feel every dead soldier in our hearts, these are our brothers and sons), than having a whole country captive to a savage organization’s demands, releasing thousands of prisoners that ultimately kill other Israelis (yea, some of Shalit’s released prisoners have already killed Israeli citizens).
This is a war which u know nothing about! Don’t judge us while sitting in exile.
“captured by these cruel animals” – it seems you Zionists don’t even try to hide your crude racism, do you? Anyway, last time I checked, when Gilad Shalit was captured, the “cruel animals” didn’t damage as much as a strand of hair on his head, while “the good humane Israel” tortures thousands of prisoners on a regular basis, only recently an autopsy conclude a Palestinian prisoner died as a result of torture.
How do you settle your world view with the above facts? It seems you need some pretty good skills in logical gymnastics…
Professor Dershowitz, paging Professor Dershowitz.
Dude almost every soldier would rather be dead than be in captivity. They would torture him physically and mentally.
They didn’t torture Shalit at all. He was far more valuable alive & healthy than tortured or dead.
They most certainly did torture Shalit. He is scarred, mentally, for life.
Nope. Not a scratch on him as was reported by the Israeli doctors who examined him. No torture, no abuse. Reported in Israeli media at the time as well. Do you have a credible source who says otherwise? You don’t, do you?
Do you even know anything Richard? It seems like ur just pulling half truths off ur sleeve.
Gilad Shalit was occasionally beaten every time his captives felt the need for it.
He came back a quarter of his original weight.
For years he didn’t get to converse with someone, hear the media, see the daylight. And of course he was interrogated the first few month, in ways neither me nor you know nothing about.
If that’s not torture, what is?
Arab prisoners are treated like guests in a hotel compared to what shalit has gone through.
@ Yogev Smila: You’re lying buddy. Shalit has NEVER spoken of being beaten. And anyone who loses 3/4 of their body weight as you claim has already starved to death. Of course, Shalit didn’t eat well. How do you feed a prisoner you have to keep in hiding? Do you take him to a Parisian restaurant every Sunday night for a splurge?
As for not getting to converse, my heart goes out to him. He’s alive. 1,000 Gazans aren’t.
The last half of that comment is correct in more ways than you can imagine. In your comment you prove that about most matters related to it that you know nothing about it.
If Arab prisoners are “treated like hotel guests” can you explain why Mustafa Dirani was raped & sodomized by Doron Zahavi while in captivity??
While the “moral humane” Israel’s Shabak tortures Palestinian prisoners en masse. How do Zionists settle these facts with their world view? I still haven’t received an answer.
A post that is filled with inaccuracies and ridiculous claims:
Hannibal Directive is not a secret. It is well known military directive (every Israeli solider, and practically every Israeli citizen is aware of it).
It simply states that when an Israeli solider (or an Israeli civilian) is captured, the kidnappers must be stopped by all means possible. The kidnappers do not get “impunity” because they captured a hostage – they get hit!
If the Soldier or citizen is hit as a result of such an exchange of fire – that is a terrible price to pay, but it will be paid. In any other hostage situation, in any country and army in the world the response would be the same. The alternative is that a successfull kidnapping provides practical impunity for the kidnappers/ terrorists.
Now re-read the above blog post, and see how a perfectly reasonable, practical and worldwide acceptable modus operandi can be portrayed as “horrible”…
This blog post is disgusting.
@ Dan: Of course Hannibal is secret. The fact that some may know it exists doesn’t mean they’ve seen it, know what’s in it. Do you for example know the precise wording? Only one full article has ever been written about it in the Israeli media & that was in 2003. Others reference it obliquely.
Your claim about other armies is also false & either you speak from ignorance or you’re deliberately lying. When Bo Bergdahl left his post & was captured the U.S. likely could’ve killed him, but didn’t. I know of no army today which has such a directive. If you have evidence to support your claim, produce it.
As for ‘disgusting,’ that would be you for defending the murder of your fellow Israeli soldiers.
[comment deleted–commenter moderated. Further violations will result in banning.]
I’m norwegian. If our police had killed civilians in a hostage situation, they would be investigated and punished if there were some degree of intent in the killing of civilians.
And Richard would be more than welcome to write “Norwegian police murders hostages!”.
[comment deleted–comments must be DIRECTLY related to the post.]
@Richard – its really, REALLY, heartwarming to see that you are exercising censorship! please continue doing so… as Lincoln said, you can only fool some of the people some of the time…
@ Dan: You’re an dumbkopf for two reasons. One, because if you’d read the comment rules linked above the comment box, which it explicitly says you must read before publishing a comment, you’d know that ALL first-time comments are moderated. EVEN people I agree with (of whom you are decidedly not one).
If you’d read the comment rules you’d also know that comments must be DIRECTLY related to the post. Any that aren’t are off topic & subject to deletion. That’s what happened to you. And because of your snappy, but ignorant comment here, you’ve earned moderation. Only comments that respect the comment rules will be published in future.
the hebrew wikipedia article links to 7 articles in the israeli press, including most major newspapers, have a look.
@ ike man: Just as I said–did you even read my post–only one that I’m aware of deals fully with Hannibal. The others refer to it but don’t deal exclusively or in depth with it.
Mr. Silverstein, the questions you were dealing with in this article, but i must say – the soldier you mentioned- may he rest in peace – is not involved in the incident. so please remove his name and picture. it doesn’t change the essence of the dilema anyway.
the questions you were dealing with in this article – are very interesting and important
THe image and name comes from Yisrael HaYom. The picture is still on the website. So until/unless someone gets Yisrael HaYom to admit a mistake I’m going with a more credible source than your unsupported claim.
Why don’t you keep your opinions to yourself for now. Apparently you posted the wrong picture, but someones family is in mourning and they really don’t need to read your rantings and those of your source. This war is devastating to those of us who actually live here and we must deal with it. You are welcome to move here and take an active role. Or stay in exile and write about other atrocities such as Russian terrorists shooting down commercial airliners.
What proofs do you have about that ? To say that ?
About ‘ Russians terrorist” shooting down air planes ?
I mean , forensic proofs , do you have ? or are you just parroting fox news, CNN ?
Forensic proofs , do you know what this really means ?
Show us, right now , I am very interested.
Apparently, you’re accusing Yisrael HaYom of posting the wrong picture. Since the picture is still featured in its article, apparently you’re blowing smoke.
And you’re welcome to go elsewhere. No one iinvited you here nor does anyone much care for your opinion about any subject. But thanks so much for dropping by. If you need a receipt for Hasbara Central (paid by the comment) let me know.
You didn’t just advance the “Russia did it” meme that was coming out of the pipes of Israeli assets like McCain, CNN (owned by Aviv Nevo of Tel Aviv in majority by privity), Fox News (Rupert Murdoch – Israeli asset with access to raw NSA data feeds), and the Neocons under Nuland and her husband Robert Kagan’s “Foreign Policy Initiative” PNAC 2.0 did you?
Youuuu did. *palm to face*
“It embraces a fascist perspective in which the individual is subsumed within the mass”. I am surprised Israel has held out for so long and is still holding out. Nationalist Authoritarianism can be the only future for Israel. It is already creeping in. The only thing that can (and probably will) realistically destroy Israel is itself.
To save lives, use the ‘neighbour procedure’ …
IDF’s ethics guru slams High Court ban on human shields
Sometimes a risk may cost a life …
IDF can condition paratrooper induction with anthrax nerve gas ‘medical’ experimants
The Hebrew version of the report on my views, in the Hebrew Edition of Haaretz, includes in the subtitle the clarification that I do not hold the views ascribed to me in the report. It also mentions the possibility of getting a copy of the document I had written for the court and see that the Haaretz reporter is a liar.
You should ask yourself why the English edition of Haaretz does not include in its subtitle that clarification.
Thanks Richard for your outstanding journalism in reporting this. When Israel was massively bombing Gaza a few years ago, supposedly to pressure Hamas to release Shalit, I thought at the time: Israel is trying to kill Shalit, to make the problem go away, and then blame his death on Hamas. Your story here confirms my suspicions.
well, now all of the soldiers deaths in combat now under scrutiny, this kid’s death in the picture obviously included.
I see sophisticated Hasbaratniks here. At least they’re not denying Israel killed this kid, or claiming that “it’s not the Jewish way.”
Civil trial attorney Baruch C. Cohen: The Hannibal Protocol – better to be killed than taken captive?
Aug. 20, 2012 – The protocol was developed in the mid-1980s by Likud MK Yossi Peled (then OC Northern Command), National Security Adviser Ya’akov Amidror (then a colonel and chief of intelligence), and former IDF Chief of General Staff Maj. Gen. (res.) Gabi Ashkenazi (then a colonel and head of intelligence at the Northern Command). It picked up support after the Jibril deal in 1985, in which 1,150 terrorists were exchanged for three soldiers.
The “Hannibal Protocol: Rules of Engagement,” drafted while the IDF was still in Lebanon, instructs a soldier how to act professionally to prevent an attempted abduction. But the highest levels of the IDF fear that the message is now being passed on to younger soldiers too radically, and that they are receiving the impression that a dead soldier is better than a live captured one.
…
The last time the Hannibal Protocol came up was two years ago, when civilian Yakir Ben-Melech tried to sneak into the Gaza Strip and was shot by IDF troops. The army denied that it had been following the protocol, saying that Ben-Melech had been trying to cross the border on his own.
The Israeli media reported that Yakir Ben-Melech, 34, had bled to death after he was shot under the “Hannibal procedure”, designed to prevent Israelis from being taken captive alive by enemy forces.
One critic, Uri Avnery, a former Israeli legislator and leader of Gush Shalom, a small radical peace group, defined the procedure as meaning: “Liberate the soldier by killing him”.
The controversial directive, which was once one of the army’s best-kept secrets, was drafted more than 20 years ago after the Israeli government had come under domestic pressure to release hundreds of enemy prisoners for the return of three captured soldiers.
The question came up again during the serious terror attack in mid-August near Eilat, when terrorists tried to drag an Israeli into Egypt.
This is really awful. How to take a decision like that in the middle of a combat ? Kill your partner , thinking that There is always a probability that the captured soldier can escape captivity later ? If there is life , there is always hope. Wondering what horror could come next about this army ?
Yes, it is unfortunate if it is true. Because Hamas and other enemies of Israel abuses prisoners and does not comply with typical conventions. It is more of a reflection on Israel’s adversaries. If true
@ Janet: Can you show any evidence to support that Hamas “abuses” Israeli prisoners? If not, you’re violating comment rules. Support yr opinions or they’re worthless.
Here is some evidence
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/10/04/241833.html
Evidence from HRW ? Lol . Give me a break.
Human Rights Watch is a propaganda agency for the US government.
Mother Agnes Mariam attacked by human rights watch.
http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2013/october/02/mother-agnes-mariam-attackedby-human-rights-watch!.aspx
“Since when does a human rights organization take to arguing the case for a military attack that will kill scores of innocent civilians? If you are Human Rights Watch, it’s all in a day’s work. The US regime’s favorite “human rights ” organization, which once praised the Obama Administration’s continuation of its predecessor’s torturous CIA “extraordinary rendition” program”
It is a known fact that the US in WWII had a similar procedure with the Navajo indians whose language they used as encryption.
Every Navajo ‘encryptor’ had a body guard assigned to him that in the case of him being caught or maybe even wounded in order to shoot him so as not to reveal the encryption system.
There is no morality in war and no humanitarianism except when it can be applied without loss to the engagement at hand.
As far as raping women and the such it is immoral and obviously serves no end.
@ fake walter benjamin: I can’t bear calling you “walter benjamin,” since you’ve appropriated a name you have no right to. But at any rate, there were at most several hundred Navajo code talkers to whom this policy applied. Hannibal applies to ALL IDF personnel. That’s MUCH different.
There is & must be minimal morality in war. That’s why there are war crimes that have been adjudicated in courts of law. You’re simply excusing an immoral secret directive which I’m happy to say many IDF commanders have objected to & refused to implement.
Raping women, contrary to what you claim, does serve an aim of war. It terrorizes the civilian population, cows it, & make it more pliable.
Rather my brother in arms kill me and my kidnapper, than giving my kidnapper the joy of torturing me and my nation. Gilad shalit is a pussy.
The honneur of a nation.
I really pity Gilad, for not being considered first of all, a humain being.
It is really sick.
I have heard of it before, but it’s no surprise. Israel is devoid of morality. It slaughters civilians with monotonous regularity; what’s the life of one soldier?
“The Japanese military’s attitude towards surrender was institutionalised in the 1941 “Code of Battlefield Conduct” (Senjinkun), which was issued to all Japanese soldiers. This document sought to establish standards of behavior for Japanese troops and improve discipline and morale within the Army, and included a prohibition against being taken prisoner.[11] …Most Japanese military personnel were told that they would be killed or tortured by the Allies if they were taken prisoner.[14] The Army’s Field Service Regulations were also modified in 1940 to replace a provision which stated that seriously wounded personnel in field hospitals came under the protection of the Red Cross Convention of 1864 with a requirement that the wounded not fall into enemy hands. During the war this led to wounded personnel being either killed by medical officers or given grenades to commit suicide.[15]”
From Wikipedia:
Note Richard that a relatively civilised convention, the Red Cross convention of 1864, was replaced by a barbaric code and that similar rationalisations were used as now by some of your correspondents: you will be tortured or killed.
I think that both in the case of the Israelis and the Japanese it was and is mainly a matter of tribal pride. A Jew should NEVER be subject to an Arab which as a prisoner he is. Hence also the excessive “exchange rate” as far as prisoners are concerned. This cannot be a matter of military considerations. You don’t liberate one thousand potential enemies to free one of your own who as a prisoner cannot harm you militarily (Shalit was a lowly soldier and certainly not privy to military secrets). It was saying: one of us is worth a thousand of you lot.
Well we know what happened in Greek drama to persons guilty of hubris – they were heading for nemesis, destruction. The Japanese certainly were.
I also take exception to various correspondents claiming that you are in “exile” . How can that be? You are an American (who happens to be a Jew), born in America and living there – presumably even in the place of your birth. Don’t these characters understand that such claims provide an impetus to anti-Semitism?
Lord Edwin Montagu, the only Jewish member of the British cabinet when the Balfour Declaration was issued, certainly understood it. You probably remember the beginning of his famous memo on the matter to his colleagues.:
“Memorandum of Edwin Montagu on the Anti-Semitism of the Present (British) Government – Submitted to the British Cabinet, August 1917
I have chosen the above title for this memorandum, not in any hostile sense, not by any means as quarrelling with an anti-Semitic view which may be held by my colleagues, not with a desire to deny that anti-Semitism can be held by rational men, not even with a view to suggesting that the Government is deliberately anti-Semitic; but I wish to place on record my view that the policy of His Majesty’s Government is anti-Semitic in result will prove a rallying ground for Anti-Semites in every country in the world.”
His reasoning was simple and sound: if Jews are being told that Palestine is their natural home, they are implicitly also told: you don’t belong here.
The disagreeable reactions of the hasbarists among your correspondents are of course familiar to people showing a new window on something. They are being told that the window isn’t there, or that you can’t see anything through it or that is has been there all along. The last one was preferred by most of the hasbara-niks. God forbid that you have a scoop on something.
ZIONISM USES JEWS AS HUMAN SHIELDS!!!!!!!!!
Hey Netanyahu, did you murder him because he looks more like me than you? Go ahead, blame it on Hamas. It’s very effective. Been working quite swimmingly. I think I’m finally pro-Israeli now. Whew…
So you are saying that in the battle field the fighting forces sometimes have to face impossible decisions with terrible outcomes either way?
Surprise, surprise! And I thought that war was a clean, sterile, happy thing.
@ Golesh: No, I’m saying that before even getting to the battle field IDF soldiers are prepared to kill their fellow soldiers if necessary. A blatantly illegal, black flag order approved by no one except three members of the High Command and debated by no one. A schandeh!
What was a tanker doing out of the tank and inside a building?
Have you got a source specifically saying that Guy was the soldier being kidnapped? Can you post proof?
@ Amir: Not “kidnapped” but “captured.” Yes, read my post about Ronen Bergman.
This is like Stalin’s “not one step back” Order, except that bit of ruthlessness was openly stated to all Soviet military personnel and the general Soviet populace. This is just the secret “we’ll kill you indirectly if you get captured because it’s easier that way” rule right out of Orwell’s “1984.” Sergent Guy Levy is a real-life Comrade Ogilvy, but in reverse; he wasn’t created as a fictional deceased soldier to fill in a gap in newspaper archives, he was a living person killed so that the press could gloss over his wartime death. Insanity.
This really is appalling – soldier prepared to kill their comrades if it seems they are being taken captive. I know of no other Army in the world who have such a directive. It reminds me more of the barbaric “Honour Killings” popular with various backward tribes in underdeveloped countries where a girl who refuses to marry on her parents order or smiles at the wrong boy is then murdered by her own family – something about the entire family being “defiled”. The complete conversion of Israel into a militarised State closer to ancient Sparta rather than any contemporaneous nation. Even North Korea would baulk at this directive
In the following (certainly not secret) article from 2011, the IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz refers to Hannibal directive and states that killing a soldier to prevent captivity is not allowed.
Unfortunately, I failed to find an English version.
http://www.haaretz.co.il/1.1536203
I can just hope that your source mislead you, and that Guy Levi was not killed to prevent his captivity.
I was educated in my Zionist childhood and youth in the light of the myths Massada and bunker Mila 18: We shall not fall living into the hands of the murderers. The myth of Masada has spread a historian named Josefus Flavius, which made in a very specific moment in his life a very important decision: (At this time I did not know about this, of course) He was the commander of the Galilee section of the Jewish revolt against the Romans. When the city Yodfat, his headquarter, was besieged, and it was clear that they will not defeat the Romans, they decided to commit suicide. Joseph ben Matityahu, as he was then called, was the last, and he decided at that moment, which made history, not to kill himself. He was taken prisoner, and to him we owe the principal historical source about the “Jewish War” against the Romans. What he described about the last days of Masada, with the dramatic speech of Elazar Ben Yair, could be a processing of his own history. Anyway, Zionism has made the myth of Masada to its cornerstone, as well as the logic of Mordechai Anjelewicz, the commander of the ghetto uprising in Warsaw. The army of Israel – it turns out – is affected from it too. It is impossible for me to say if all the details are correct in this article, but if so, then it is something we should think about it.
This doesn’t surprise me but rather than viewing it as a betrayal, I see it as a kindness. We have all seen what happens to hostages in that part of the world. Civilians are kidnapped and killed, soldiers captured at a time like this face risk of torture, beatings, and a horrible death. The kindness is in a quicker end than will likely be received after capture. I am surprised that this offends.
Israei’s have dehumanized Palestinians to the extent that they think death is preferable to falling into their hands.
They also look down on them so much that they cannot bear the humiliation of having one of their own captured by them.
Meanwhile in their own prisons and police stations Palestinians are routinely beaten up, humiliated and tortured.
How sick can a society get.
don’t mix mistakenly Hamas with Palestinians. a whole different creature.
tell THAT to the soldier’s family
“soldiers captured at a time like this face risk of torture, beatings, and a horrible death.”
On the contrary, his value to Hamas alive would be far greater than any short term revenge. Gilad Shalit being a perfect example; infact that is a precedent Israel appears to not want to repeat.
Problem here is IDF will have problems getting troops into commited combat mode – hence they are getting utterly beaten (not exagerrating one bit) in the direct combat situations against Hamas fighters, just as they did against Hezbollah. Israel can drop all the bombs itl ikes but it can not beat Hamas from the air, and it can not beat them on the ground, so are they just going to bomb it until everyone is dead? Andthen claim the offshore Gaza gas resevers for themselves?
The report by Mr Silverstein is full of errors. Here are some major ones.
1. The command was written and distributed as a document decades ago. It is classified, for justified operational reasons, hence not every person in military uniform has seen it. The ROE part of it is not classified in nature.
2. The JAG has always been involved in producing new versions of the command. I myself talked to the then JAG in order to suggest a revision of the wording of the command so that the wrong interpretation will disappear. The command was later revised accordingly.
3. MOST IMPORTANTLY: The command says that the force should try to foil the attempted abduction of the sodier and use fire for that purpose, but “not if this means creating a high probability of killing the soldier. The value of the soldier’s life is higher than the value of foiling the abduction”. This is quoted (and translated) from the command.
4. I have written and talked against the wrong interpretation numerous times since 1995. References abound.
@ Asa Kasher: For readers who don’t know, Prof. Kasher is Israel’s leading “military ethicist.” He used to actually stand for some principles and was willing to chide the IDF & state when it violated moral principles. But he’s become a rubber stamp for immorality, double speak and Israel war crimes.
You can see that in his comment. He says that the Hannibal Directive was “distributed,” but that means it’s only available to military and intelligence personnel. He claims that it is “classfied,” which is normal lexicon means “secret.” It is secret because of “operational reasons.” But keeping it secret from the Israeli public doesn’t serve operational security. That is, unless the Israeli public is “the enemy.” Such secrecy prevents the public from debating the morality of the directive.
His claim that Hannibal is only used to foil the capture of a soldier and not the killing of the solider to prevent his capture is directly contradicted by the reality in which a number of IDF soldiers have been killed during capture attempts. Prof. Kasher has deliberately not said that Guy Levy wasn’t killed under a Hannibal Directive nor argued that the Operation Cast Lead soldier wasn’t killed under the same directive. He hasn’t refuted the IDF attacks on Lebanon just after Regev & Goldwasser were captured when Israel thought they might be alive. These attacks on roads Hezbollah might use to transport the prisoners was believed to be an attempt to kill him and those who held him.
Also, for a moral philosopher to not note the distinction between “abduction” and “capture” shows that he too has become captive to Israel’s distorted reality in which its soldiers can never be captured by other soldiers fighting a legitimate battle against Israel. They may only be “abducted” or “kidnapped” by “terrorists.” It’s one thing for the propagandists to observe such linguistic duplicity. But for a philosopher to share in the duplicity is shameful.
Dear Richard, your article is full with guesswork over half facts,
The only so called trustworthy claim you made was that you know israel.
Yet , from the content of your text it is clear you are biased.
Your text does not deserve the claim by claim dissproval that Professor Asa Kasher done,
Anyone believing half facts with dubious guesswork, must be biased as well.
The choice between being captived by a brutal enemy to death is a complex choice. Many throughout history chose death. Prsonally I would have preferred death, as would many soldiers (and civilians) in many simmilar situations. Especially when it is captivity by Hamas. Whether is moral or not to try to spare someone of such a thing in all costs, including ths cost of his life, is not such a simple question as Silverstein presents it.
Regadless of what really happened in this case (considering the way you presented it, there is no reasons to believe any of the other claims you made), to present it as “Israel Murders IDF Soldier to Prevent His Capture” and to refer to it as a shocking crime is such an extreme, pathetic, ridiculous case of taking out of context and oversimplification. Seems like Silverstein would go to any length to try to pesent Israelis as monsters.
As for the Hannibal Directive – it doesn’t says what you claim it does. http://www.haaretz.co.il/literature/letters-to-editor/.premium-1.2382380 And as mentioned before, even if it would, it wouldn’t have been necessarily immoral and or illogical.
Terrible things happen in war, and this is a war. But it still is pitting a society that would rather not go to war, and would rather not have to invoke a “Hannibal Directive,” against a society that purposely straps bombs onto its children and puts children in front of terrorist fire, and loudly declares that it loves death. You may wish to stand on the side of your niceties, but it will lead you to be slaughtered. Don’t tell me they don’t have a choice, because they do.
@ DavidAK:
Holy Moses! A society that would rather not go to war has engaged in five major wars since 1948 and countless mini-wars including the current one. Wow, I’d hate to think what would happen if Israeli really wanted to go to war!
The rest of your comment is garden variety Islamophobic racism. Puerile lies as well. Earns you moderation.
”To the uninitiated this will seem a terribly strange, uncivilized, even immoral act. But that’s where I learned something I’d never known before about the IDF. There is an unwritten secret regulation written by the IDF High Command, but nowhere codified in writing. Its existence is protected by military censorship. Journalists have rarely written about it. When they have it’s usually been in code or by inference”
What is uncivilized and immoral is this SHOAH against Palestinian poeple.
Yes, we are leaving a real SHOA and live.
Shame on you Zionists and you must know tha God will punish you in this life and and the other.
You will live eternally in the HELL for all what you are doing against the Palestinians.
To the Hell Zionists, to the hell
Prefer death to Hamas capture?? Gilad Shalit **was not** tortured during his captivity!
Palestinians have a right to resist, and get their People back too.
Israel is writing Palestinian’s future history, the Gaza “wars” will be taught to future generations the same way the history of the siege of Masada is taught to Israeli children, and I presume that sad result of the Masada siege is not lost on those that issue the Hannibal directive.