Moral Code Intact

Israel has faced the failure of its intentions to teach Hamas civil manners. Hamas, it appears, will not be amenable to patterning itself after the IDF's attempts to pre-alert Palestinians to vacate areas that have been targeted for assault because they house Hamas installations or weapons caches or assault infrastructures.

Hamas appears to have solidly rejected a protocol they could adopt such as sounding a warning, or dropping explanatory leaflets on Israel's border communities before lobbing Kassam rockets. It just isn't their thing.

After all, if civilians are killed, this is a triumph. One that merits much jubilation. Celebrations that include entertaining Palestinian children by shooting off rounds of ammunition in joyful exuberation of success. Not to mention the hero status accorded those successful in picking off innocent women and children through the brave and courageous actions of Islamist jihadists.

This is a relativist thing; one culture and one tradition and one heritage is quite simply different from another. Values and imperatives don't necessarily meet in a concord of mutual recognition. The Bedouin past of raids and bloody aggression against competing clans and tribes has not yet dissolved from the mindsets of current Arab populations, the original patterning is simply too valued.

And then there is the State of Israel, another belligerent in the geography of the militant and aggrieved Middle East. The drummer Israel marches to has some relation to that of the others; territorial integrity infused with a motivation to endure the ongoing traumas of assault. That nation is little different from most others, but it does adhere to a humane moral code.

One that, unfortunately, does become slightly frayed at signal times of existential angst. And, like other human societies, it happens to value its own in excess of the value extended toward others. Although it likes to think it agonizes somewhat more than do others over the sometimes-necessity to sacrifice the lives of others to save the lives of their own. That too is human nature.

And, like all other human societies, it has its share of sociopaths and psychopaths. Although those of the faith do tend to think of themselves as being more worthy than the 'others'. Israeli media have published the revelations of soldiers involved in the recent Gaza onslaught admitting having knowledge of the occurrence of disregard for the safety of Palestinian civilians.

Incidents of outright brutality, of inhumane contempt for the rights and the protection of Palestinians have been bruited about in the media. The general atmosphere of righteousness has been tarnished by the unwholesome fact that some members of the IDF failed to use their intelligence in interpreting official orders and in the process innocent people were killed.

This is not a matter of self-congratulation, but a recognized tragedy, a human failure that no decent country takes gladly unto itself. The IDF chief of staff has announced that soldiers whose actions can be proven to have been grossly inappropriate will be held to account. The country has a moral obligation to see that this is indeed done.

Conscripts to the military who violate the country's and the IDF's moral code of conduct must understand that such actions will not be tolerated. All the more so when they are faced with an intractable enemy complacent with its own inhumane agenda of forcing the status of human shield on civilians. They must understand that they hold themselves to a higher standard.

They expect no less of themselves, nor does the world, eager to leap upon the country at any perceived lapse, holding it to a standard of judgement not expected of any other country.