On August 21, The
Jerusalem Post reported that the Rabbinical Council of
America (RCA), an association of Orthodox rabbis, had called on
Israel to reevaluate its military rules of war in light of
Hizbullah's "unconscionable use of civilians, hospitals,
ambulances, mosques and the like as human shields, cannon fodder
and weapons of asymmetric warfare."
Rabbi Basil Herring,
executive vice-president of the RCA, was quoted as saying, "Our
traditional sensibilities tell us that it is not right to risk
the lives of our soldiers to minimize civilian deaths on the
other side."
We beg to differ. Surely
Rabbi Herring is not suggesting that we should have
carpet-bombed southern Lebanon and killed tens of thousands of
Lebanese civilians to avoid the Israeli casualties that go with
sending troops in on the ground?
There are some who would
counter with the opposite position. They ask whether the damage
inflicted on Lebanon was excessive - and whether the IDF
sufficiently followed its code of ethics.
All Jews should be proud
of those Israeli rules - even those sitting in the Diaspora. The
basic principle of "purity of arms" says: "The IDF servicemen
and women will use their weapons and force only for the purpose
of their mission, only to the necessary extent, and will
maintain their humanity even during combat. IDF soldiers will
not use their weapons and force to harm human beings who are not
combatants or prisoners of war, and will do all in their power
to avoid causing harm to their lives, bodies, dignity and
property."
The Post also
quoted Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu of Safed as saying: "Our corrupt
military morality, which tells us that our soldiers must
endanger their lives to protect enemy civilians, is the reason
we lost the war."
Another Orthodox rabbi
from the North, Rabbi Tzefania Drori of Kiryat Shmona, said,
"Anti-Semites demand that we use Christian morality while our
enemies act like barbarians."
As if this gratuitous
reference to "Christian morality" isn't bad enough, he went on
and said we should follow "Jewish morality," which dictates that
"he who gets up to kill you, get up yourself and kill him
first."
YES, JEWISH morality does
allow for a preemptive strike. But preventing civilian deaths is
not "Christian morality" - or if it is, they got it from the
Jews! The Talmud (Sanhedrin 57a and 74a) commands us not to use
excessive force. The Talmud says that if you kill someone who is
coming after you when you could have stopped him with lesser
force, like maiming a limb, you have committed a capital
offense.
Maimonides codified as law
that Jews must avoid civilian deaths by leaving an "escape
route" for anyone who wants to flee. We are told we cannot
besiege a city on all four sides; we must only encircle it on
three sides, leaving non-combatants a way to escape. The IDF's
dropping of leaflets before bombing was an attempt to fulfill
this mitzva, even if it meant some of our enemies were also
given a warning to leave.
Not only are we to allow
people to escape, but the Torah commands us not to engage in
gratuitous destruction. Deuteronomy 20:19 forbids Jews to
destroy fruit trees to make siege engines in a time of war - a
passage which later authorities (like Maimonides) extended to
the principle of bal taschit, forbidding any kind of
unnecessary destruction of property, whether in times of war or
peace, whether it's your property or someone else's property.
YES, IT is painful when
more of our soldiers die because we try to minimize civilian
deaths by sending in ground troops rather than dropping bombs.
But this also comes from the wisdom of our tradition. The Talmud
(Sanhedrin 74a) tells us that you cannot kill an innocent person
to save your own life. Raba said, "Let him rather slay you than
that you should commit murder; who knows that your blood is
redder? Perhaps his blood is redder."
