Author: Moshe Yaalon
Publication: The Washington Post
Date: August 3, 2006
URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/02/AR2006080201517_pf.html
The conflict in the Middle East is about much
more than Israel and Hezbollah, or even Hezbollah's Syrian and Iranian sponsors.
What is at stake are the very rules of war that underpin the entire international
order.
Sadly, judging from how most of the world
has responded to Israel's military action against Hezbollah, these rules have
been completely abandoned.
The rules of war boil down to one central
principle: the need to distinguish combatants from noncombatants. Those who
condemned Israel for what happened at Qana, rather than placing the blame
for this unfortunate tragedy squarely on Hezbollah and its state sponsors,
have rewarded those for whom this moral principle is meaningless and have
condemned a state in which this principle has always guided military and political
decision making.
Faced with enemies who openly call for its
destruction and victimized by unremitting wars and terrorism since well before
it was born, Israel has risked the lives of its citizens and its soldiers
to abide by this principle in a way that is unprecedented in the history of
nations.
Here is but one of countless examples: In
2003, at the height of the Palestinian terror war against Israel, our intelligence
services discovered the location of a meeting of the senior leadership of
Hamas, an organization pledged to the annihilation of the Jewish state and
responsible for some of the deadliest terrorist attacks ever carried out against
Israel.
We knew that a one-ton bomb would destroy
the three-story building and kill the Hamas leadership. But we also knew that
such a bomb would endanger about 40 families who lived in the vicinity. We
decided to use a smaller bomb that would destroy only the top floor of the
building. As it turned out, the Hamas leaders were meeting on the ground floor.
They lived to terrorize another day.
Imagine for a moment that the United States
had advance knowledge of the meeting place of al-Qaeda's senior leadership.
Does anyone believe that there would be a debate about what size bomb to use,
much less that any leader would authorize insufficient force to do the job?
So while it is legitimate to question whether
Israel should go to such extreme lengths to avoid civilian casualties, it
is preposterous to argue that Israel uses excessive force. Even more absurd
was the shameful statement last week that Israel appeared to have deliberately
targeted U.N. officials -- a statement fit for a knave or a fool, not for
the secretary general of the United Nations. Rather than lead the fight against
those who target civilians and use them as human shields, Secretary General
Kofi Annan has strengthened them.
It is clear to any objective observer that
Hezbollah is using Lebanese civilians as human shields. It builds its headquarters
in densely populated areas, embeds its fighters in towns and villages, and
deliberately places missiles in private homes, even constructing additions
to existing structures specifically to house missile launchers.
The reason terrorist groups such as Hezbollah
use human shields is elementary. They try to exploit the respect for innocent
human life that is the hallmark of any civilized society to place that society
in a no-win situation. If it fails to respond to terror attacks, it endangers
its own citizens. If it responds, it runs the risk of killing innocents, earning
world opprobrium and inviting diplomatic pressure to stand down.
Hoping to retain its high moral standards
in the face of such a cynical enemy, Israel has made every effort to avoid
harming civilians. We have dropped fliers, sent telephone messages and broadcast
radio announcements so that innocents can get out of harm's way. In doing
so, we imperil our own citizens since, by losing the element of surprise,
we invariably allow some of the enemy to escape with their missiles.
But at Qana, Hezbollah responded to Israel's
compassion with more cynical brutality. After launching missiles at Israel,
the terrorists rushed inside a building. When Israel fired a precision-guided
missile to strike at the terrorists, scores of civilians, including children,
were killed.
The difference between us and the terrorists
is clear: We endanger ourselves to protect their civilians. They endanger
their own civilians to protect themselves.
If tragedies such as Qana are not to be repeated,
then, rather than condemning Israel, the world should be directing its anger
at Hezbollah and at the Syrian and Iranian regimes that support it.
Terrorists are fanatics, but they are not
idiots. If the terrorist tactic of using human shields helps them achieve
their goals, they will utilize it. If it undermines their goals, they will
abandon it.
If we want to live in a world where civilians
are never used as human shields, then we must create a world in which employing
such measures results in the unequivocal condemnation of terrorists and in
forceful action against them by the civilized world.
If the world were now blaming Hezbollah, Syria
and Iran for the innocent Lebanese killed, hurt or displaced in this conflict,
then it would be sending a powerful message to every terrorist group on the
planet: We will not tolerate the use of human shields. Period.
Instead, those who condemn Israel have sent
precisely the opposite message. They have told every terrorist group around
the world that the use of human shields will pay huge dividends, thereby providing
them with a powerful weapon that endangers innocents everywhere.
The writer, a retired lieutenant general,
was chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces from 2002 to 2005. He is now
a distinguished military fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy.
