Army's ethics chief: Israel put on fair fight in Gaza

By KARIN LAUB / The Associated Press

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NETANYA, Israel — In some ways, Brig. Gen. Eli Shermeister's job is one of the toughest in the Israeli army. Shermeister serves as the Israeli army's ethics watchdog, at a time when the military is under international scrutiny for its behavior during its Gaza invasion.

That puts him in the front line of a war of words that extends into the white-hot realm of "war crimes," "anti-Semitism," "atrocities" and "blood libel." But his job is made easier by the fact that most Israelis support his contention that they have nothing to be ashamed of.

"I didn't see in the Gaza operation anything that can teach us or show us that something in the moral attitude of the IDF (military) was ... changed or spoiled," Shermeister said in an interview with The Associated Press at an officers' school in Netanya, north of Tel Aviv. [...] One army officer, Maj. Gen.

Gadi Eizenkot, has spoken of the "Dahiya doctrine," named after the Beirut suburbs considered a Hezbollah stronghold where Israel destroyed dozens of buildings in 2006. "We will wield disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction.

From our perspective, these are military bases," Eizenkot told the daily Yedioth Ahronoth in October. "This isn't a suggestion. This is a plan that has already been authorized." The army would not confirm such a doctrine exists, but acknowledged many similarities between the Lebanon and Gaza wars. In Israel, debate about the Gaza offensive came late and quickly fizzled.

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Date confirmed on the page (folio).

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Photo caption: "A Palestinian man plants a tree Tuesday during a protest demanding the right to farm land near the border with Israel, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip.

The protesters replanted trees in an area destroyed by Israeli forces during the recent offensive." Credit: KHALIL HAMRA/The Associated Press — a Palestinian AP photographer, and one of only two pictures in this batch in which Palestinians are doing something other than being killed or throwing something.

The story also reports that last month the Maariv and Haaretz dailies quoted from a discussion at a military prep school in which unidentified Gaza war veterans described vague rules of engagement, an "anything goes" atmosphere, and two cases of fatal shootings of Palestinian civilians caught in the war zone, and that the military prosecutor's office concluded the reports of the killings had been based on hearsay.

Also named: Col. Bentzi Gruber.

Cite this clipping

"Army's ethics chief: Israel put on fair fight in Gaza," The Jackson Sun, 10 April 2009. Covering Palestine archive, CP-2009-043. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-2009-043