See No IDF Evil

I'm in the throes of grading and I'm traveling for most of the period from now through New Year's. But I did want to quickly (for me; it's all relative) speak a bit about the way the American Jewish community is adopting a "see no evil" approach to IDF activities in the Gaza Strip (and beyond).

There are plenty of reports of IDF soldiers targeting non-belligerents. The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem just accused IDF snipers of killing two women sheltering in a convent "in cold blood". Reuters claims IDF tank fire deliberately targeted its journalists in circumstances where there were no nearby belligerents. MSF likewise claims Israeli forces deliberately targeted its medical personnel (I remember this one because MSF initially did not accuse any particular party of responsibility, which gives credence to the notion that it was not reflexively lobbing out an allegation but rather actually engaged in some measure of investigation). One could go on.

One thing that often isn't part of these conversations is the catastrophically high levels of overt racism that exist towards Arabs in the young (which is to say, military-age) Israeli population. If roughly a third of population from which Israel is drawing its soldiers endorses things like "stripping Arab Israelis of their citizenship" and otherwise endorsing hate against Arabs, it would be stunning if we didn't see significant instances of at the very least indifference towards protecting Arab civilian life, if not outright infliction of war crimes. That'd be true in all circumstances, but particularly in the context of this conflict and the brutal Hamas massacre that precipitated it. Meanwhile, David Ignatius reports what many have seen, which is that soldiers drawn from the more radical parts of the settlement project basically view their IDF service and their status a price tag raiders as more-or-less interchangeable. Given all that, the denialism that IDF forces likely are in a non-trivial number of cases either deliberately attacking protected persons, or at the very least not paying due heed to Palestinian life is absolutely incredible.

One place one "pro-Israel" American Jews could retreat to would be to concede abuses may be occurring, but say that they (a) are not policy and (b) should be investigated and punished as appropriate. The first part is likely true (or true-ish; whether the rules of engagement are properly respecting the legal boundaries about proportionality and distinction is an open question). The second part causes problems. Even before the current conflict, it was increasingly apparent that potential war crimes that occur in the midst of combat operations will never be significantly investigated or punished by the Israeli government. Just convicting and then commuting the sentence of Elor Azaria almost ripped the country apart; the current government is full of zealots one whose general approach to vigilante Jewish violence targeting Arabs is to propose giving the perpetrators medals. Nobody actually expects significant or serious Israeli investigations into alleged war crimes committed by its soldiers.

But accepting that IDF soldiers likely are, in non-trivial numbers of cases, engaging in criminal conduct towards Palestinians during combat operations would put into stark relief the paucity of actual investigation and punishment, at which point it'd be virtually impossible to defend the Israeli government's conduct. Far easier to take advantage of the fog of war to cover one's eyes to the primary instances of abuse. That such denialism relies on almost impossibly optimistic presuppositions about the IDF's professionalism and its putative status -- more of a slogan than an empirically-testable proposition -- as "the most moral army in the world" is besides the point.