Conduct Matters

     Hey, did you know that Gaza, where the Gazans live, once was completely controlled to Israel and Israel by their own free choice gave it back to the Palestinians? Yes, Israel conquered that territory – from Egypt – in 1967, and in 2005 disengaged – that is, all military basis they had there were removed and deployed somewhere else, same as all the settlements that Israelis had there.

International people say that Israel “kept” controlling, but this seems to be for the sole reason that Israel still have an eye on it, and controls the common border – how would they not? They are a Country that needs to consider their security. But yes, they stepped back from that piece of land.

How can it not be thought of as an attempt for peace? Of course that now, after all the money that the Gazan government, namely Hamas, received from international sources and spent in tunnels and weapons and training soldiers for attack, after all the terrorism not only planned but executed, Israelis are not sure about the exact next steps. Yes, but what is the conspiratory take on this story? That Israel gave them land back so they could later practice “ethnic cleansing”?

And why is this simple fact just not told? Why all the bias in the world of Education, press, even entertainment?

For instance, you can talk about the deal, the release of Israeli hostages from the hands of Hamas and Palestinian prisoners from Israel, as a “hostage exchange”. You can then say that Israel released Palestinian prisoners that included “woman and children”. Yes, there were minors there – not necessarily children – like 14 year old boys who tried to stab someone, things like that, that started to happen frequently and led Israel to lower the detention age. And this is precisely the kind of thing that people have been using for years to say that Israel is “tyrannical”. Like arresting people “just” for participating in public stonings. Man, that means throwing as much hard stones as you can hoping it hits someone’s head.

And that makes you think on what is worthy of news and what is not. For instance, yes, a lot of journalists can “forget to say” that the powerful Iran backs those groups, but can they say that Iran doesn’t back those groups? What Iran says? That they don’t support Terrorism, they just support “Resistance” against Israel and US influence… More sincere than some journalists, at least.

Also, a lot of times, they show destruction in some areas in Gaza, one of their favorite images, for sure. Always without the proper context, without commenting that Hamas has installations in residential areas, and without saying that Israel dropped millions of paper flyers from the sky warning people about the areas they would have to strike. They do it whenever circumstances allow them to.

This kind of image is what they use to influence ordinary people to believe in the existence of War Crimes, especially people who never took a time to think and search about the subject. Images of destruction seem to make us think there is something wrong there. Yes, there is a War, it is a bad thing that wars exist.

But the concept of War Crimes is not about the mere existence of damage. War is basically about damage. You aim to damage your enemy – in the case, Hamas – and unfortunately collateral damage happens. Ethics in War is about “Conduct”.

Now I would like to make a kind of digression to think about the concept of “Conduct” more broadly. We know that it is impossible to complete avoid that bad things happen in this turmoiled World, but we expect that the leaders present a good and ethical conduct, situation by situation, one day at a time.

In civil life, it is not only about the current politicians in office, but everybody in any position of power.  Are they doing their best to help people with what they need? Providing opportunities of education, health, freedom, good conditions to seek for prosperity?

You can see that there is a lot of people in Israel doing good jobs, but what about the conduct of the leaders in Gaza, that is, Hamas? With the resources they have, and they do have resources, are they providing anything but authoritarianism, indoctrination and martyrdom? They openly aim all that falls in their hands to their violent fight, and make no room for any idea of real peace, that is, recognizing that something called “Israel” can exist.

We can’t have an international situation where a violence-driven regime is preferred over a Democratic Country. Yes, of course know it is not only about the conduct of the leaders regarding internal issues, the conduct toward neighbors matters a lot.

But think: we have a situation where a side that never express any allegiance to the International Law have it’s acts of aggression extremely relativized, and the side who declare their allegiance to the Laws, who shows up at International Courts and all that, is quickly judged by instant frozen images without context.

The very reason why there even exists such a thing as “War Crimes” – at least in the Western World – is that going to War itself is not always a crime. Not if it’s goal is a necessary and urgent defense. And one thing about defense is that, if someone is attacking you, to defend yourself you must make him stop. If for that, you have to move your body forward and give him a push, it doesn’t suddenly make you the aggressor.

After decades of Terrorism not only planned but executed, having Israeli citizens aimed at, stabbed, bombed, even in moments where the political direction was to look for peace, and all that with no reaction of International Organizations but judging Israel whenever they strike back, and now, after Hamas proven to be able to do something, in October 7^th, in horror and scale that nobody thought they could, Israel decided to go to war.

But of course the ethic obligations remain. That’s where those Laws come in – like the law that you have to differentiate your fighters from your civilians, which Hamas don’t do (Idf is all in uniforms)  and can’t use human shields, which Hamas does (Israel evacuates their population from danger when they can). It’s about conduct, careful analysis of events and context, not quick news.

For instance, an important – and misunderstood – concept is “Proportionality”. It doesn’t mean that the number of deaths on the winner side must be close to the number of deaths in the losing side. You fight wars to win, and the protection of civilians on the other side doesn’t depend only on you.

What matters is how each strike was crucial for the goal, which have to be to destroy your enemy’s military capabilities, and how you access possible collateral damage. For example, striking an area because maybe there are fighters there, with no actual intelligence to confirm it, and doing that not once by mistake, but over and over again, causing a lot of civilian casualties with no actual military advance, that would show that it is aiming to hurt the population itself.

Idf’s great achievements in terms of destroying a lot of Hamas capabilities – and killing the main leaders, shows what their goal is. They have the obligation to be ethic, but don’t have the real control of numbers of deaths, considering the ideology of martyrdom and human shields.

There is a very sad reason, but a good reason, why you can’t make one side obliged to avoid all the consequences of the enemy’s misconduct. This would incentivize precisely this misconduct. Think, if the enemy was obliged to avoid all the consequences of your bad behavior towards your own population, then behaving badly for your own population would make you invincible.

Remember, war is, and must always be, the last resource. But if there weren’t people who are committed to the good values of peace and freedom, and also go to war, the World would have been turned into a very dark totalitarian iron cage long ago. Which is the dream of people like the leaders of Iran, for reasons people like us can’t really understand.

Also, safety is a necessary part of what makes a country. A country is a place for human beings to live in, and it has to be minimally safe. Safety is about the future. If someone suddenly opens a big door for danger and horror, how can you say your family is minimally safe if you leave that door open?

It is all very sad, but remember, soldiers fight on the last resources, last hopes. To avoid things to go that far, well, this is why politics exist, supposedly. The International Community can’t never say they weren’t warned about indoctrination for violence and authoritarian regimes.

But the political world is always policed by the intellectual world, that never even tries to see the Israeli side, because in fact they don’t think Israel should even exist, as they said many times. A very small country that got it’s independence 76 years ago, with displacements of both Muslins and Jews in the still huge and all around Muslin Middle East, in a century that redefined the World’s Geography – a small Country chosen among all the countries in the World to be “The One That Shouldn’t Exist”.

People do scream from far away when Israel decides that they need to fight those forces. This is like saying that the Israelis have to resign to be undefended, because when attacked they can’t fight back. Or saying that Jews can only defend themselves from a Genocide – what’s the intention of killing as many Jews as you can at random? – after it happens, like the Holocaust. Or, at least, that they must resign to live their lives normally, accepting that, from time to time, something will come from outside to collect a “few” lives.

            When they got into South Lebanon, the Israelis found everything set, by Hezbollah, to execute the plan called “Conquer The Galilee”. Again, why the finding of a ready plan of cruel and bloody invasion is not news-worth?

            Hezbollah was going to invade Israel from the North and execute a bigger October 7^th. There would be a lot of Israeli families trying to find a place to hide, in a morning, or during the night, a lot of armed masked men in black with no heart seeking them. And if they get you, there is no possibility they will have mercy. It’s over. That would happen all over Israel’s North. Sounds like a nightmare or what?

            To explain how I feel about the whole situation I'm seeing, in more simple terms, I will make an illustration.

            Imagine you are at your small house with your family, and a bunch of guys start coming from far away shooting. They screams something you disagree with, but you scream back that there must be some possibility of negotiation. For peace. No response. They just keep approaching and shooting.

            As they hit and kill someone of your family, you start shooting back. Those guys are bringing their families with them, but you don’t aim at their families. Again, you scream for some kind of negotiation. No response again.

            He keeps coming and shooting, aiming at your family and you shooting back, aiming at him. You hit someone of his family, then you scream for him to just stop, surrender. Nothing.

            As he gets closer and closer, and killed a lot of your family, your loved ones you swore to protect, you shoot more and more. Still not aiming at his family, but the closer he comes, the more you shoot. In the end, you killed him. But more people of his family died than of yours. Would it be right if the World judged you as a murderer? A World that was watching and doing nothing?

            Yes, there is something happening in the World, something big. And I hope someday everybody’s conduct will be carefully analyzed.