Ethical Dilemmas

An excellent Jerusalem Issue Brief presented by Major Gen. Amos Yadlin on the immensely difficult dilemmas faced by Israel in fighting their war for existence: Ethical Dilemmas in Fighting Terrorism.

Here is a brief extract but make sure you read the whole thing for it is good.

A new model of warfare - the counter-terrorism war - requires a new set of rules on how to fight it. The other side is fighting outside the rules and we have to create new ethical rules for the international law of armed conflict, in keeping with the traditional IDF concept of "the purity of arms." Terror is easier to fight in non-democratic states. King Hussein used a lot of force in 1970, with no supreme court, and without being exposed to the media, and terror stopped in Jordan. In 1982 in Hama, Syrian President Assad killed 30,000 people and he got rid of Islamic fundamentalist terror. Yet Israel cannot use these means; we have to do it in an ethical way. Our job is preventing terror. Yet we face a tragic dilemma. Whatever we decide when fighting terror, some innocent people are going to get hurt. On the one hand, there are the Israeli citizens that the terrorists want to kill. On the other hand, the terrorists are hiding behind innocent civilians. It is very important when people's lives are at stake that there is a moral understanding and precise rules for moral conduct. How do we differentiate between terrorists and non-terrorists? Everyone who is directly involved in terror is a legitimate target. Those who are indirectly involved in terror are not a legitimate target. Some asked if the collateral damage was producing future terrorists. We found that because of the level of incitement, the collateral damage only raised public support for terror from 95 to 96 percent. In August 2002 we had all the leadership of Hamas in one room and we knew we needed a 2,000-pound bomb to eliminate all of them. Think about having Osama bin Laden and all the top leadership of al-Qaeda in one house. However, use of a 2,000-pound bomb was not approved - we used a much smaller bomb - and they all got up and ran away. We should do the job at the checkpoints ethically, professionally, and as fast as we can because we have to care about the many times the ambulance is really carrying somebody who needs help. The bottom line is that Israel has to fight terror because terror declared war on us. In the current war Israel has lost over 1,000 people - equivalent to the U.S. suffering 45,000 dead and 300,000 wounded. We can win, but we must do it ethically as the Jewish people, as a democratic state, and as IDF officers who respect our ethical profession.

Differentiating Between Terrorists and non Terrorists How do we differentiate between terrorists and non-terrorists? International law says one may target any soldier. Today, everyone in Israel will agree that one is allowed to kill someone carrying a ticking bomb. But where do we draw the line? We know that everyone on the other side who belongs to a certain mosque may support terror because in that mosque they are inciting to terror. Everyone on the other side who watches Palestinian TV may support terror because the entire Palestinian media is supporting terror. Is it legitimate to attack them? No. We have to learn who belongs to the operational terror chain, which includes the suicide bomber, the one who produces the explosives, and the driver. Everyone who is directly involved in terror is a legitimate target in this war on terror. Those who are indirectly involved in terror are not a legitimate target. The one who brings in money to the Hamas charity in Nablus, who is indirectly involved in terror, will be arrested by the legal system and not targeted by a military action. The same holds for the preacher in the mosque who says that all Jews are pigs and monkeys. The principle of liability also comes into consideration. How liable is it that someone who has committed ten suicide bomber deliveries will do the eleventh? Until he announces his retirement from the terror attack business, he is on the list based on liability. If he retires, the legal system will take care of him, not the military. Deterrence is also a principle to be considered. If Israel is seen to be targeting every terrorist, this tells the terrorists that they have to worry about being terrorists. In the case of preventive action based on liability or deterrence, since the prevention of imminent threat is not as clear, the bar of collateral damage is much higher. We are not allowed collateral damage when we are operating based on liability or deterrence. The principle of proportionality in Israel's actions is based on the amount of danger: How imminent? How great is the threat? Is it mega-terror? Is it a weapon of mass destruction? Is it chemical terror? Some members of the committee asked if we weren't creating wonderful rules of engagement for fighting terror, but that the collateral damage was producing future terrorists. We looked very seriously at this issue of the long-term consequences of operations against terror and found that because of the level of incitement, the collateral damage only raised public support for terror from 95 to 96 percent, and not from 30 to 90 percent. Nevertheless, we decided that from an ethical point of view, whenever possible, we must give early warning to those who are living around terrorists. Sometimes from an operational point of view this will cancel the operation because the terrorist whose neighbor is being warned will disappear. This is balanced on a scale and, if the threat is not imminent, a decision is sometimes made to let the terrorist run away and look for an opportunity to target him in a place where there will be no collateral damage.

A story is also told of two IDF soldiers in Rafiah who paid for their lives because they were trying to help a Palestinian woman get some water when Palestinian snipers killed them.