Eliav
Shochetman
In the course of the
IDF’s activity in Jenin, which was conducted in the framework of the
Defensive Shield operation (spring 2002), warnings were received that
if a ground operation was carried out, it would entail a heavy price
in dead and wounded. Yet then-Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer
rejected the proposal to bomb the area in question from the air so as
to avoid casualties, and ordered that the ground operation be carried
out.
In this operation,
thirteen IDF soldiers were killed and many were wounded. The defense
minister’s justification for his order was that harming Palestinian
civilians had to be avoided at all costs, even if it meant harm to IDF
soldiers. In fact, all the civilian residents of the Jenin refugee
camp were given an advance warning to evacuate the camp, which many of
them indeed did.
This article aims to
show that under the circumstances, the order that was given to the
IDF, despite the warnings, did not accord with the common rules of
morality, the rules of international law, the rules of Israeli law, or
the tradition of Jewish law.
The IDF’s supreme
obligation is to protect the lives of its soldiers, and any military
operation that is capable of preventing such losses must be carried
out, even if enemy civilians are likely to be harmed (unintentionally)
as a result. The responsibility for any such harm lies with the terror
organizations that force Israel to fight and defend itself in the
first place, and in this case the IDF had discharged its obligation
with its advance warning to all the civilians to evacuate as quickly
as possible.
The first part of the
article (which appeared in the previous issue, No. 91) deals with the
aspect of the Jewish legal tradition, and the second part (appearing
in the present issue) focuses on the common rules of law, the
international rules of law, and the stipulations of Israeli law.
