Moral conduct and removed privileges

It is popular to holler about the alleged immoral character of the Israeli Defence Forces. This is of course always done without any consideration to the fact that the IDF is involved in operations of war. In a war situation, tragical mistakes do happen, innocent people die and get injured. Sometimes even individual soldiers fail to follow the general moral codes and orders. We simply have a human factor involved.

However, when these mistakes are taken out of context it is easy to create an image of a systematic immoral conduct. Not only do you need to take a look at what routines there are on measurements taken after incidents like these, but also modus operandi of the opponent, and in what situations the soldiers find themselves.

About one and a half year after Operation Cast Lead, an Israeli soldier is now facing charges over the shooting of two Palestinian women. The soldier disregarded the IDF's rules of engagement and fired at a group of civilians that according to witnesses waived a white flag. This is the third indictment against soldiers who participated in the operation, where the two pervious ones were for theft and illegal use of credit cards, and overstepping authority.

Please show me one military force in this whole wide world that never has incidents like these. And please, put the IDF into comparison with Hamas, who oppresses, kills and tortures their own people, while celebrating every Israeli civilian victim they deliberately succeed to hit. And no, there are no extenuating circumstances just because they are the underdog.

To finish off with something completely different, I am happy to note that the Israeli Supreme Court is starting to clean up among the slackers and racists in the Haredi swamp. Mikael Tossavainen wrote nicely about this on his blog.