Exclusive: Israeli commander: 'We rewrote the rules of war for Gaza'

[Scurrilous]

Civilians 'put at greater risk to save military lives' in winter attack - revelations that will pile pressure on Netanyahu to set up full inquiry

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"A high-ranking officer has acknowledged for the first time that the Israeli army went beyond its previous rules of engagement on the protection of civilian lives in order to minimise military casualties during last year's Gaza war, The Independent can reveal.

The officer, who served as a commander during Operation Cast Lead, made it clear that he did not regard the longstanding principle of military conduct known as "means and intentions" – whereby a targeted suspect must have a weapon and show signs of intending to use it before being fired upon – as being applicable before calling in fire from drones and helicopters in Gaza last winter. A more junior officer who served at a brigade headquarters during the operation described the new policy – devised in part to avoid the heavy military casualties of the 2006 Lebanon war – as one of "literally zero risk to the soldiers."

The officers' revelations will pile more pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to set up an independent inquiry into the war, as demanded in the UN-commissioned Goldstone Report, which harshly criticised the conduct of both Israel and Hamas. One of Israel's most prominent human rights lawyers, Michael Sfard, said last night that the senior commander's acknowledgement – if accurate – was "a smoking gun."

Until now, the testimony has been kept out of the public domain. The senior commander told a journalist compiling a lengthy report for Yedhiot Ahronot, Israel's biggest daily newspaper, about the rules of engagement in the three-week military offensive in Gaza. But although the article was completed and ready for publication five months ago, it has still not appeared. The senior commander told Yedhiot: "Means and intentions is a definition that suits an arrest operation in the Judaea and Samaria (West Bank) area... We need to be very careful because the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) was already burnt in the second Lebanon war from the wrong terminology. The concept of means and intentions is taken from different circumstances. Here (in Cast Lead) we were not talking about another regular counter-terrorist operation. There is a clear difference."

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"The Yedhiot newspaper also spoke to a series of soldiers who had served in Operation Cast Lead in sensitive positions. While the soldiers rejected the main finding of the Goldstone Report – that the Israeli military had deliberately "targeted" the civilian population – most asserted that the rules were flexible enough to allow a policy under which, in the words of one soldier "any movement must entail gunfire. No one's supposed to be there." He added that at a meeting with his brigade commander and others it was made clear that "if you see any signs of movement at all you shoot. This is essentially the rules of engagement."

The other soldier in the war-room explained: "This doesn't mean that you need to disrespect the lives of Palestinians but our first priority is the lives of our soldiers. That's not something you're going to compromise on. In all my years in the military, I never heard that."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/exclusive-israeli-commander-we-rewrote-the-rules-of-war-for-gaza-1887627.html

[bemildred]

1. Sharon's Last Option: Build a Wall So Tall Even Birds Can't Fly Over

Every so often it just seems like a good time to repost this:

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Byrne: How could General Sharon--Prime Minister Sharon--be getting it so wrong, by your analysis?

Van Creveld: It's not a question of personalities, it's a question of the balance of forces. I'll use a metaphor that I'll take from Lao-tzu--the Chinese sage who lived about 2,400 years ago--'a sword put into salt water will rust'--it is only a question of time. And this is happening to the Israeli army and to the Israeli society, almost regardless of who is leading it.

We have arrived at the point where, if you will, like Johnson in Vietnam, we are constantly asking the other side for a ceasefire, and the other side either will or will not respond as it pleases him--the reason being of course that they have so much less to lose.

Byrne: The reason being also, in a sense, that it's what isn't about, isn't it? A ceasefire would provide security for the Israelis, which is what they want, but it would not providestatehood for the Palestinians, which is what they want.

Van Creveld: Exactly. The other side will definitely not have a ceasefire without some considerable political achievement. If I were Arafat and the Palestinians, I would not put an end to this intafada, because the way I see it, from the first day of the first intafada they have been winning.

http://www.counterpunch.org/creveld1116.html