Top IDF attorney: I will never call IDF the most moral army in the world

[Jefferson23]

Maj. Gen. Danny Efroni, the man charged with probing the IDF’s actions during last summer’s Gaza war, says he is determined to uncover potential wrongdoing, regardless of external pressures.

By Amos Harel and Gili Cohen | Apr. 9, 2015

Last November, some two months after the war in the Gaza Strip ended, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey surprised a few people. Speaking at a conference in New York, he said Israel went to “extraordinary lengths” to prevent injury to innocent people in Gaza. “The Israel Defense Forces is not interested in creating civilian casualties. They’re interested in stopping the shooting of rockets and missiles out of the Gaza Strip and into Israel,” he added.

It is unlikely Dempsey’s statement will satisfy the committee from the United Nations Human Rights Council that is currently formulating its final report on the mutual accusations of war crimes by both Israel and Hamas during last summer’s Operation Protective Edge. However, the U.S Army commander’s words do reflect an increasing understanding in Western armies of the constraints with which Israel has to contend in conflicts with terror organizations in densely populated areas. This understanding is the result of a two-pronged effort on Israel’s part: in the legal arena, with the military prosecutor’s close monitoring of decisions taken during the war and investigations of suspected offenses afterward; and in the public diplomacy arena, mainly by close contacts with other armies.

After the war, the Pentagon sent a team of experts to Israel to hear about conclusions being drawn from it, in particular concerning harm to civilians. In parallel, a team of senior Israeli officers – headed by permanent General Staff committee chairman Maj. Gen. Noam Tibon and Military Advocate General Maj. Gen. Danny Efroni – went on a working visit to Washington on the same matter. Then, in February, Efroni took the initiative to host a conference in Israel attended by dozens of top military legal people, from 14 countries, who discussed democracy’s war on terror.

The military prosecution is now parrying contradictory pressures. Ever since the war ended, the international community has been expecting clarifications from Israel – along with punishment of commanders – because of the killing of civilians during the fighting. Even according to the mildest version of events, more than 1,000 Palestinian civilians were killed by IDF fire, among them hundreds of children. The Israeli government is hoping that the work by the military advocate general and his people will allow to it to fend off at least some of the criticism in the international arena.

in full: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.651148

[oberliner]

1. Which army is the most moral in the world?

I don't think there are a lot of candidates vying for that title.

[Smithryee]

2. The Swiss Guards

of Vatican City?

Just a pure guess..

[shaayecanaan]

4. I don't think that anyone else is stupid enough

to make that claim. I think Bradley burston once wrote that it is equivalent to wearing a sign saying "kick me".

[Little Tich]

3. Good luck with the whitewashing.

The reason why there is reason for the world to suspect that war crimes were committed, is that there seems to have been some civilians that died, and that the areas where they were, were targeted even when the IDF knew there could be civilian casualties.

I have no problem saying that the IDF has the lowest moral standards of any army in the Western world.

Perhaps Russia has higher moral standards. I don’t know, after all they rebuilt Grozny.