Extracts from Times on line January 11, 2009
Read the complete article here http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/dominic_lawson/article5489436.ece
No, we are not all Hamas now
By Dominic Lawson
Those who claim the IDF also deliberately
targets civilians don’t have to believe the official spokesman’s denials: they could speak to someone such as
Colonel Richard Kemp, who commanded British Army campaigns in Afghanistan and Northern Ireland, and was most recently senior
military adviser to the Cabinet Office. Kemp told me that “Hamas deploys suicide attackers
including women and children, and rigs up schools and houses with booby-trap explosives. Its leaders knew as a matter of certainty
this would lead to civilian casualties if there was a ground battle. Virtually every aspect of its operations is illegal under
international humanitarian law – ‘war crimes’ in the emotive language usually reserved for the Israelis”.
Colonel Kemp points out that if the IDF had no regard for civilian lives it would never have leafleted and
telephoned residents in Gaza, warning them when it was about to attack their area: after all, that also gives Hamas notice
– hardly the act of an army devoted to military victory at all costs. Similarly, the IDF’s unilateral commitment
to a daily three-hour ceasefire to permit the evacuation (to Israel) of casualties, and for the passage of “humanitarian
aid”, also allows Hamas time to regroup and redeploy for future attacks.
Of course, none of these arguments can penetrate the brains of the superannuated Stalinists, vicarious jihadists
and attention-seeking actors and pop stars who think it’s cool to go on marches chanting, “We are all Hamas now”.
Even if these luvvies might not be aware that on Christmas Eve Hamas legalised crucifixion as a punishment for those who “weaken
the spirit of the people”, and have been shooting such political enemies in the head when they find them in hospitals
conveniently injured by Israeli bombing raids, they still deserve to be dismissed as useful idiots for a depraved death cult.
This is not exactly the classical doctrine of deterrence: it’s supposed to stop people attacking you
in the first place. Yet the Israeli attack on Gaza is part of the same policy of delayed deterrence. Paradoxical though this
might seem, it is also essential if the process towards an independent Palestinian state is to have a future. For until the
people of Israel believe that such a state – including the heights of the West Bank, which overlook Tel Aviv –
is not a threat to their own existence, they will never support a government which abandons those territories, won in an earlier
war of self-defence.
If you believe otherwise, go to Yad Vashem.
dominic.lawson@sunday-times.co.uk
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BBC Interviews Col. Richard Kemp on
Civilian Casualties
Resulting from
Israel’s War on Hamas
January 9, 09
Transcript provided by Jock Falkson
“I think Israel has very little choice other than to carry on with its military operations until it reaches
the conclusion it needs which is to stop Hamas from firing rockets at its people in its territory.
“It has set
out on this operation to do that and the civilian and military deaths on all sides of course are absolutely tragic. But Israel
doesn’t have any choice apart from defending its own people.
“Until such arrangements are in place, not
just for Hamas to accept that they must stop attacking Israel territory, but also that any such agreement is enforced. Until
those arrangements (are enforced) Israel has no choice but to completely dominate the area.
“I think –
I would say that from my knowledge of the IDF and from the extent to which I have been following the current operation, I
don’t think there has ever been a time in the history of warfare when any army has made more efforts to reduce civilian
casualties and deaths of innocent people than the IDF is doing today in Gaza.
“When you look at the number
of civilian casualties that have been caused, that perhaps doesn’t sound too credible – I would accept that.
“However,
Hamas, the enemy they have been fighting, has been trained extensively by Iran and by Hezbollah, to fight among the people,
to use the civilian population in Gaza as a human shield.
“Hamas factor in the uses of the population as a major
part of their defensive plan. So even though as I say, Israel, the IDF, has taken enormous steps - and I can tell you about
some of those if you’re interested - to reduce civilian casualties, it is impossible, it is impossible to stop that
happening when the enemy has been using civilians as a human shield.
Interviewer: (“But what about) the criticism
of UN eyewitnesses who talk about a house where people were advised to move for safety and 24 hours later it was bombed by
Israel?”
“Well of course I can’t really comment on the detail of that – I don’t have
any of the facts available on that. And I have no doubt that any allegations like that will be looked into very seriously
by Israel.
“Of course, the Israel Army operates under a strict code of conduct and are answerable to the Israeli
government and the Israeli courts. And if it turned out that there was a deliberate crime committed I have no doubt that the
people would be held to account. They would be answerable to an Israeli court.
“But of course, it’s not
just a matter of the IDF trying to prevent casualties in a situation where the enemy is using them as a shield, but it’s
also ... war itself.
“The whole nature of war, any military commander will tell you this, war is chaos. War is
full of mistakes. There’s friction all over the place and if you just take for example the way we operate in Afghanistan
and in Iraq, we operate – our British forces operate in Afghanistan and in Iraq - there have been innumerable mistakes
by the British, the American and by all the forces. These things do happen, it’s a real tragedy but it’s just
what happens when you go to war.”
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