Sunday, April 26, 2009

Israel at 61: My article published in The Seattle Times

The original version, which I had to cut by 200 words, is posted underneath the published piece.
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Guest Columnist No simple answers
By David Brumer
Special to The Times

As Modern Israel approaches its 61st birthday, there is much to celebrate. Yet existential threats and challenges still haunt the tiny Jewish state. The new government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu is bolstered by the inclusion of the Labor Party, shifting an otherwise right-wing coalition more toward the center. Security is the paramount issue of the day, with Iran racing toward nuclear capability and its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, continuing to project a hateful jihadist ideology toward Israel.

Israelis have also grown weary of the international community's disproportionate criticisms levied against their country. It seems that no amount of concessions or withdrawals affords it the legitimacy to defend its citizenry against unending attacks across internationally recognized borders.

It should be remembered that Israel withdrew all settlement communities from Gaza in 2005. Yet rockets continued to rain on southern Israel, long before Israel imposed a partial blockade against the Hamas government, after its violent takeover of Gaza in June of 2007. Attacks against Israel escalated to intolerable levels last December, leaving Israel with no other viable option but to respond forcefully, and so it launched Operation Cast Lead.

Never in modern history has a military gone to such lengths to minimize civilian casualties, dropping leaflets, making thousands of warning cellphone calls, suspending missions, and using precision bombing whenever possible. And this against an implacable enemy that deliberately embeds itself in civilian populations.
There are no simple answers when it comes to prosecuting such asymmetrical wars. Forty percent of Israeli Defense Force casualties came from friendly fire, a harsh reminder of those difficulties, compounded by the inherent confusion in the fog of war. Yet Israel has been excoriated by a world quick to judge and condemn. Accusations of war crimes abound, ironically, with the loudest hectoring coming from the very countries that participated in NATO air bombardments in Kosovo in 1999, when NATO aircraft flew more than 38,000 combat missions, killing as many as 1,500 civilians in a 10-week period.

Meanwhile, Durban ll, the United Nations World Conference against Racism in Geneva this week, is proving to be a repeat of the thinly veiled Israel hate-fest that took place back in 2001 in South Africa, this time with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as "the guest of honor." The unasked question: why is Israel singled out and held to an impossible standard of perfection, when all around her human rights abuses are daily occurrences?
Understandably then, Israelis are less than sanguine about the prospects for a quick resolution of hostilities, living in a region rife with hateful ideologies and genocidal intentions against the Jewish people. Still, the Netanyahu government has committed itself to working to help the Palestinians in the West Bank build a civil society from the bottom up, creating the necessary infrastructures and economic prosperity that will be the prerequisite for any viable, future Palestinian state.
So what's to celebrate? The enduring, indomitable spirit of the Israeli people, who despite all the adversity, continue to build a thriving, dynamic society. All around Israel construction is booming, the arts are flourishing, and scientific advances keeps Israel on the cutting edge of today's technological revolution.
Israel is a leader in green technology, from wind to solar energy to electric cars that will one day run on national grid lines. Recently, Israeli geneticist Professor Karen Avraham uncovered tiny molecules called microRNA's, in the inner ears of mice, a discovery that could lead to the cure of human deafness. At Poria Hospital in Tiberias, the number of languages, cultures and religious practices in one ward often outnumbers the medical staff.
This is part of the rich tapestry of modern Israel that continues to inspire and hold out hope that someday, all peoples of the Middle East can live together in harmony, prosperity and peace.
David Brumer of Seattle is on the executive committees of StandWithUs/Northwest & the Seattle Chapter of the American Jewish Committee.
Copyright © 2009 The Seattle Times Company

As Modern Israel approaches its 61st birthday, there is much to celebrate, yet existential threats and challenges still haunt the tiny Jewish state. The new government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu is bolstered by the inclusion of the Labor Party, shifting an otherwise right-wing coalition more towards the center. Still, the Israeli people voted predominantly for more hawkish parties, reflecting the country’s somber mood. Security is the paramount issue of the day, with Iran racing towards nuclear capability and its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, continuing to project a hateful jihadist ideology, with Jews and Israel being the primary targets of that wrath.

Israelis have also grown weary of the international community’s disproportionate criticisms levied against their country. It seems that no amount of concessions, withdrawals, or compromises affords it the legitimacy to defend its citizenry against unending missile attacks, ambushes, and kidnappings across internationally recognized borders, with Lebanon in the north, and Gaza in the south.

It should be remembered that Israel withdrew all settlement communities from Gaza in 2005. Yet rockets continued to rain on southern Israel, long before Israel imposed a partial blockade against the Hamas government, after its violent takeover of Gaza from fellow Palestinians in June of 2007. With newer long-range missiles endangering one million Israelis in southern Israel, attacks escalated to intolerable levels last December, numbering as many as 70-80 a day. Hamas’ refusal to extend an already fragile cease-fire left Israel with no other viable option but to respond forcefully, and so it launched Operation Cast Lead.

Never in modern history has a military gone to such lengths to minimize civilian casualties, dropping leaflets, making thousands of cell phone calls & text messages to warn of impending attacks, suspending missions, and using precision bombing whenever possible. And this against an implacable and amoral enemy that deliberately embeds itself in civilian populations, uses its own people as human shields, an enemy whose cowardly leaders hide in the bunkers of hospitals, leaving their women and children exposed to attack.

There are no simple answers when it comes to prosecuting such asymmetric wars. Forty per cent of Israel Defense Force casualties came from friendly fire, a harsh reminder of those difficulties, compounded by the inherent confusion in the fog of war. Yet Israel has been excoriated by a world quick to judge and condemn. Accusations of war crimes abound, ironically, with the loudest hectoring coming from the very countries who participated in NATO air bombardments in Kosovo in the spring of 1999, when NATO aircraft flew over 38,000 combat missions, killing as many as 1,500 civilians (by NATO’s own reckoning) in a 10 week period.

Meanwhile, Durban ll, the United Nations World Conference against Racism in Geneva this week is proving to be a repeat of the thinly-veiled Israel hate-fest that took place back in 2001 in South Africa, this time with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as “the guest of honor.” This on the heels of “Israel Apartheid Week” (March 1-8), another international hate-fest against Israel that saw new levels of vitriol and physical violence on campuses around the world. The unasked question at these events: why is Israel singled out and held to an impossible standard of perfection, when all around her real apartheids (sexual, gender, religious, etc.) are daily occurrences?

Understandably then, Israelis are less than sanguine about the prospects for a quick resolution of hostilities, living in a region rife with hateful ideologies and genocidal intentions against the Jewish people. Still, the Netanyahu government has committed itself to working to help the Palestinians in the West Bank build a civil society from the bottom up, creating the necessary infrastructures and economic prosperity that will be the prerequisite for any viable, future Palestinian state. United States envoy George Mitchell and Tony Blair, mediator for the Quartet ( the U.S., E.U., Russia, U.N.) are working together with the Netanyahu government to foster that development.

So what’s to celebrate? The enduring, indomitable spirit of the Israeli people, who despite all the adversity, continue to build a thriving, dynamic society. All around Israel construction is booming, the arts are flourishing, and scientific advances keeps Israel on the cutting edge of today’s technological revolution. Israel is a leader in green technology, from wind to solar energy to electric cars that will one day run on national grid lines. Recently, Israeli geneticist Professor Karen Avraham uncovered tiny molecules called microRNA’s, in the inner ears of mice, a discovery that could lead to the cure of human deafness. And an Israeli therapist and martial arts expert, Alex Kerten, has developed a dance treatment for patients suffering from Parkinson’s Disease. At Poria Hospital in Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee, the number of languages, cultures and religious practices in one ward often outnumbers the medical staff. This is part of the rich tapestry of modern Israel that continues to inspire and hold out hope that someday, all peoples of the Middle East can live together in harmony, prosperity and peace.


David is on the Executive Committees of StandWithUs/Northwest & the Seattle Chapter of the American Jewish Committee. He is also a geriatric social worker and psychotherapist. David is the recipient of a Certificate of Congressional Recognition for Excellence in Public Diplomacy in Support of Israel on behalf of his work with The Israel Project. Visit his blog, BRUMSPEAK, at

http://brumspeak.blogspot.com

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Tuesday, April 7, 2009

"May our Camp be Pure": The Highest Moral Aspirations of the IDF

Danny Zamir, a Major in the IDF reserves and Director of the Yitzhak Rabin Pre-army Leadership Development Program, responds eloquently to the false accusations, slanders, and pouncing by the media, following a gathering by graduates of that pre-army leadership development program who participated as combat soldiers in Operation Cast Lead. Those soldiers participated in order to process their battlefield experiences and maintain the highest standards of ethical behavior, even in asymmetrical warfare. Only an army as moral as the IDF would even consider such an undertaking. But in a world so ready to demonize the Jewish state, such activities became fodder for Israel attackers. How ironic; the combat soldiers voluntarily participated to learn from their experiences, to improve their conduct and that of the IDF as a whole. Instead, their private stories were seized upon as further evidence of Israel's immorality.
Zamir's elaboration of what really transpired should make Jews the world over proud of our people. While not perfect, we strive to act decently, and morally, in the face of unspeakable indecencies.
david brumer
seattle

It is out of their commitment to the moral code that the soldiers spoke and their accounts were submitted; purity of arms requires continuous examination of our actions and intentions. "May our camp be pure." This is the watchword borne by my soldiers in the IDF, not only because this is how they've been educated by their commanders and their officers, but because this is the essence of their belief and their national heritage, a belief and heritage shared by and uniting us all: secular and religious, right and left, in the IDF and outside it. It is a source of pride and of confidence in our way, even in times of venomous attacks from every quarter - such as transforming a sensitive, personal discussion among combat soldiers back from the battlefield to mendacious claims of policies that involve so-called war crimes.

And see Herb Keinon's 'Isolated acts of vandalism don't make soldiers war criminals'

Personal code of IDF soldier: 'May our camp be pure': Danny Zamir

A number of articles published recently in The New York Times quoted or were based on words spoken by myself and by graduates of the pre-army leadership development program which I head (the "Rabin Mechina") - graduates who participated as combat soldiers in Operation Cast Lead and who met recently to process personal experiences from the battlefield. Both explicitly and by insinuation, the articles claim a decline in the IDF's commitment to its moral code of conduct in combat, and moreover, that this decline stems from a specific increase in the prominence of religious soldiers and commanders in the IDF in general, and from the strengthening of the position of IDF Chief Rabbi Avichai Ronsky in particular.

It was as if the media were altogether so eager to find reason to criticize the IDF that they pounced on one discussion by nine soldiers who met after returning from the battlefield to share their experiences and subjective feelings with each other, using that one episode to draw conclusions that felt more like an indictment. Dogma replaced balance and led to a dangerous misunderstanding of the depth and complexity of Israeli reality.

There are, to be sure, important political differences between myself as a social-democratic Zionist and Zionists of other political opinions. But there exists among us a very broad consensus regarding the moral character of combat - a moral character to which the IDF is committed and educates its soldiers, a character positively influenced by religious mechinot and by the special personal qualities of my colleague Rabbi Ronsky. The guiding principle that directs IDF combat soldiers, both in their planning and conduct in combat, encompasses a balance between two needs: to defend soldiers' lives and to minimize harm to the civilians behind whom terrorists try to hide. This is expressed in the tension between the necessity of opening fire when the soldiers' security and battle conditions require, even when there's a danger to civilians (providing advance warning to the extent possible), and the absolute obligation to hold fire and to act with due compassion toward civilians when it appears that they have no evil intent. In addition, basic respect toward civilians' belongings and their religious and spiritual property is part of this moral code.

These guidelines and the obligation to uphold them are an inseparable part of the Jewish-Zionist world of IDF soldiers, and deeply anchored in generations of Jewish heritage, particularly in the doctrine of military conduct renewed by the early socialist-Zionists a century ago. They called this principle by a name that's unlikely to have been given by any other nationalist movement fighting for its independence: "Purity of Arms" - that is, preventing harm to those not involved in or supporting the combat. This moral commandment remains a central motto of the IDF; it is the complete opposite of the code of conduct of Islamist terror organizations such as Hamas, whose judgment on every Israeli and Jew is death.


"Purity of arms" is not part of their world, not even in theory. The outsider may not understand this, but we - the Jews of the State of Israel - live this every day, every hour. In order to appreciate this moral code, one must note the context in which it operates. The State of Israel is under a prolonged attack by the Hamas movement - a fundamentalist Islamic terror movement, based on a racist and ultra-nationalist ideology that seeks the killing of Jews for being Jews and the actual elimination of the State of Israel as its declared aspiration, and formally part of its foundation platform. And bear in mind that Hamas is not a marginal extremist underground, but a movement freely chosen by the Palestinians to head their elected government. Our war against an unrestrained terror organization that uses civilian populations as human shields in various ways, such as hospitals and masquerading as women and children, presents the IDF - an army obligated to an ethical code of combat based on humanism and international law - with almost impossible complexities.

The nature of combat in complex conditions (such as in Gaza) brings with it difficulties and failures. The greatness of an army fighting under such conditions lies in its aspiring to "zero errors" and in its openness to examining its failures - finding them and fixing them. If it's possible to learn something from the real Israel - and not that which the media (including Israeli media) makes such efforts to portray - it would be from the uproar of emotions and the frank discussions that have taken place within Israeli society in the wake of the soldiers' accounts. It is out of their commitment to the moral code that the soldiers spoke and their accounts were submitted; purity of arms requires continuous examination of our actions and intentions. "May our camp be pure." This is the watchword borne by my soldiers in the IDF, not only because this is how they've been educated by their commanders and their officers, but because this is the essence of their belief and their national heritage, a belief and heritage shared by and uniting us all: secular and religious, right and left, in the IDF and outside it. It is a source of pride and of confidence in our way, even in times of venomous attacks from every quarter - such as transforming a sensitive, personal discussion among combat soldiers back from the battlefield to mendacious claims of policies that involve so-called war crimes. And so may it be.

Atty. Danny Zamir (Major, IDF reserves) Director, Yitzhak Rabin Pre-army Leadership Development Program.

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