Why Israel Deliberately Targets Civilians.

Israel typically goes to great lengths to downplay their targeting of civilians. The usual pattern is that the Israeli Defense Ministry will claim they’re firing with precision, avoiding civilian casualties at all costs, and further that any civilian casualties documented are a result of Hamas’ human shield tactics. However, following the devastating surprise attack on Israel last Saturday, the Israeli establishment has taken a noticeable and seismic turn. On Tuesday, the IDF spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, stated flatly that the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy. An unnamed defense official told Israel’s Channel 13 that Gaza will eventually turn into a city of tents; there will be no buildings. Benjamin Netanyahu has called on Gaza residents to leave, and he will operate forcefully everywhere. Due to Israel enforcing a total blockade on top of the already existing land, air, and sea blockade that has existed for 16 grueling years, Gazans are unable to flee to Israel, so they sought to go to Egypt. But on Tuesday afternoon, the Israeli Air Force repeatedly bombed their only way out at the Rafah Crossing. That crossing remains closed, and Egypt is now pleading with Israel to stop bombing it in order to let in aid. Most people are taking shelter in schools operated by the UN. Sewage facilities have been hit, leaving solid waste accumulating in the streets. The Jabalia refugee camp, according to the Associated Press, has been raised to the ground. The camp had a population of 100,000 in just one-half of one square mile; its population density was higher than that of Manila, the highest of any city in the world. Of course, this happens every few years. The last major offensive of this magnitude was Operation Protective Edge in 2014, which destroyed 18,000 homes and killed over 2,000 people, the majority of whom were civilians. But you already knew that. Today, I wanted to not only comment on the current situation, but I also wanted to go over the strategy that Israel is pursuing. It is their usual one: the deliberate targeting of civilians. Though this story is usually heavily suppressed.

The story begins in 2006 when Israel and Lebanon were fighting a brutal conflict that killed thousands and ultimately ended in Israel’s embarrassing defeat. Military affairs analyst Bill Aron even called it a failure. Israel overestimated the purity of its intelligence and the efficacy of its strategy and technology and underestimated Hezbollah’s skill and resilience. The psychological effect that this loss had on the Israeli establishment was palpable. Since the earliest days of the Zionist project, Israel relied on what Ze’ev Jabotinsky referred to as the “iron wall” or Israel’s defense capacity. With a stunning defeat, Israel was no less than desperate. The time had come to find a different target. Tiny Gaza, poorly defended but proudly defiant, fitted the bill. Despite their defeat, Israel would take one important lesson away from its war with Lebanon: the complete obliteration of the Beirut suburb of Dahiya, and a new initiative led by former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot would bear its name. What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on. This isn’t a suggestion; this is a plan that has already been authorized. Israeli pundit Yon London would write an op-ed gushing about the new strategy, and forgive me for the lengthy quote, but its candidness is frankly quite shocking. The Dahiya strategy is a term that will become entrenched in our security discourse. Dahiya is the Shia quarter in Beirut that our pilots turned into rubble during the Lebanon war. In the next clash with Hezbollah, we won’t bother to overtake fortified Hezbollah positions. Rather, we shall destroy Lebanon, and we won’t be deterred by the protests of the world. Thus far, the Dahiya strategy was not adopted because Israel attempted to cling to the distinction between good Lebanese and bad Lebanese. This is both good and bad. It’s bad because north of us, there is a state that is entirely malicious. It’s good because there is no longer any need for complicated distinctions. Israeli strategist’s new point of view is that Lebanon is an enemy. We have failed in our sophisticated attempts to distinguish between innocent individuals and sinning leaders. Without saying so explicitly, we reached the conclusion that nations are responsible for their leaders’ acts. In practical terms, the Palestinians in Gaza are all Khaled Mashal, the Lebanese are all Nasrallah, and the Iranians are all Ahmadinejad. Too bad it did not take hold immediately after the disengagement from Gaza. We deluded ourselves into thinking that the people are not the same as their leader and that the people only care about making a living. Such explicit calls for genocide by a public figure are quite rare in the documentary record, especially ones written with so much clarification. In slightly but barely less explicit terms, retired Major General Giora Eiland would invoke Dahiya in his policy prescription for Israel in the event of another war with Lebanon. Serious damage to the Republic of Lebanon, the destruction of homes and infrastructure, and the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people are consequences that can influence Hezbollah’s behavior more than anything else. Those of you who have seen my videos on the Korean War will be reminded of the American strategy over the course of that conflict. As the US Air Force put it, “The psychological impact of bringing the war to the people is a catalyst that destroys the morale and will to resist.” The notorious General Curtis LeMay would lead the bombing campaign in Korea. He very well may have been an early pioneer of the Dahiya doctrine. “There are no innocent civilians. It is their government you are fighting; the people you are not trying to fight an armed force anymore, so it doesn’t bother me so much to be killing the so-called innocent bystanders.” LeMay was only carrying on with his Second World War strategy where he obliterated scores of Japanese cities and killed hundreds of thousands of people. At least he was self-aware: “If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals.” The first battle in which Israel debuted its Dahiya strategy was the 2008 invasion of Gaza, which the Israelis called Operation Cast Lead. Israel’s interior minister recommended

that the IDF should decide on a neighborhood in Gaza and level it, and in the words of Israel’s deputy prime minister, “It should be possible to destroy Gaza so that they will understand not to mess with us. It is a great opportunity to demolish thousands of houses of all the terrorists so they will think twice before they launch rockets. They should be razed to the ground so thousands of houses, tunnels, and industries will be demolished.” Following the war, the United Nations released a report of their fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict. The mission concluded that what occurred was a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate, and terrorize a civilian population. The destruction of food supply installations, water sanitation systems, concrete factories, and residential houses was the result of a deliberate and systematic policy to make the daily process of living and dignified living more difficult for the civilian population. The repeated failure to distinguish between combatants and civilians appears to the mission to have been the result of deliberate guidance issued to soldiers. Despite all of the open Israeli posturing prior to the war, the backlash to the fact-finding mission report was so great that it resulted in a recantation by its principal author, Richard Goldstone, in a Washington Post article. In 2014, Operation Protective Edge would amazingly be even more destructive than Cast Lead. Amnesty International roundly condemned Israel’s deliberate destruction and targeting of civilian buildings and property on a large scale carried out without military necessity. I’ve never seen such massive destruction ever before. In the ensuing carnage, Israel would destroy 22 schools and target UN-run schools being used to shelter civilians, including a UN elementary school in Beit Hanoun which killed 13, a UN boys’ school in Rafah killing 12, and a UN girls’ elementary school in Jabalia killing 20. The precise location of the Jabalia elementary girls’ school was communicated to the Israeli Army 17 times. What’s more, Israel possessed GPS coordinates of all the UN facilities that it targeted but still attacked them with artillery and precision-guided missiles. UN Relief and Works Agency sent twice-daily communications to Israel’s Coordinator of the Government Activities in the Territories and Coordination Liaison Administration, informing them of the global positioning system coordinates of premises currently being used as designated emergency shelters. Israel also destroyed or damaged 17 hospitals, 56 primary care facilities, and 45 ambulances. Gaza’s only rehabilitation center, Al-Wafa Hospital, was also completely destroyed. Israel fomented a media blackout and even banned human rights organizations from the strip during the war and even afterward. But the sheer scale of the carnage would inevitably be exposed. In the end, over 2,200 Gazans lost their lives, of which 1,500 were civilians, 550 of them children. Comparatively, 73 Israelis lost their lives, of which six were civilians, including one child. In another stark example of the insane firepower of the Israeli Army, just one house in Israel was destroyed during the war compared to 18,000 in Gaza. And thus, Dahiya was fulfilled yet again. Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies would write about the lengths that Israeli officials would go to appear disproportionate and perhaps even unstable. One official went so far as to state that Israel had to make its enemies feel it was crazy.