Israeli military uses The New York Times to confirm plans for future war crimes

In an extraordinarily-crude propaganda piece in The New York Times published earlier this week, the Israeli military confirmed its plans to commit war crimes as part of any future attack on Lebanon.

The article, written (literally) through the “lens” of the Israeli army, is focused on claims that Hezbollah has “moved most of its military infrastructure” into villages in southern Lebanon “and around their perimeters.” For Israel, “this amounts to using the civilians as a human shield.”

Kershner’s report is based on “maps and aerial photography provided…by Israeli military officials”, and most of the claims made by the army are regurgitated uncritically. The purpose of reaching out to the newspaper, from Israel’s point of view, is made clear.

Effectively, the Israelis are warning that in the event of another conflict with Hezbollah, many Lebanese civilians will probably be killed, and that it should not be considered Israel’s fault.

This declaration of intent is the latest in a long line of similar threats and promises. Just last month, an Israeli brigadier-general promised “an even harsher blow” than in 2006, and said that it is “hard to envision the homes in these villages, which are so close to the borderline, remaining standing after the next war.”

Last October, as outgoing IDF Chief of Staff, Benny Gantz threatened to “take Lebanon and knock it back 70 or 80 years, in all areas”, while in September, Israeli television reported that the army was preparing for “a very violent war” against Hezbollah.

In January 2014, air force chief Major-General Amir Eshel, boasting of Israel’s “significant deterrence” that was “bought in blood”, declared that civilians who remain in so-called Hezbollah “bases” will “simply be hit.” Reducing villages simply to “bases” – a disturbing echo of the Nakba – is at the heart of the infamous ‘Dahiya Doctrine’, as expressed by Major General Gadi Eisenkot.

The ‘Dahiya Doctrine’ is a reference to the 2006 war, when Israel destroyed the Dahiya neighbourhood of south Beirut. In 2008, Eisenkot, then-head of the IDF’s Northern Command, promised that in a future war with Hezbollah, “what happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on.”

We will apply disproportionate force on [the Lebanese village] and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases. This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved.

Israel’s position is both hypocritical and criminal. Firstly, on the issue of “human shields”, this is the army that has a track record in literallyusing human shields to hide soldiers during operations. This includes in Gaza last summer, as well as in the West Bank, where “Israeli soldiers force[d] a family member to escort them throughout the house” during a raid in the Hebron area. Last October, Israeli forces used a Palestinian home as a military observation point.

In addition, during the 2006 war, Israeli forces themselves launched attacks on Lebanon from residential areas, as Human Rights Watch documented. Indeed, the head of the civil and international law branch at the IDF Judge Advocate General’s office told the NGO: “We are a small country. If you said you can’t put an artillery piece within 30 kilometers of a village, we couldn’t operate.” Not a logic the IDF affords Palestinians in the tiny, densely-populated Gaza Strip.

The Arab Association for Human Rights investigated how “temporary military installations from which missiles were fired into Lebanon during the war” were placed “in very close proximity” to Arab communities, and in some cases, “inside the Arab locales.” Meanwhile, Israeli military assets are located in population centres; Lebanese civilians “are living in a military compound”, a senior Israeli military official told The New York Times – speaking “at military headquarters in Tel Aviv.”

Aside from the hypocrisy, the Israeli military’s position and planned attacks are in contravention of international humanitarian law. In 2006, Israel’s then-Justice Minister Haim Ramon said that in light of the warnings issued to civilians to evacuate, “all those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah.” As Human Rights Watch noted, a warning to leave “does not give [Israel] carte blanche to blindly attack.”

The facts are clear: the Israeli military has declared that it will hit Lebanon even harder than last time. In 2006, Israel killed almost 1,200 Lebanese, a third of whom were children. An additional 4,000 were injured, and almost one million displaced. According to Amnesty International, Israel deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure.

Afterwards, the head of an IDF rocket unit admitted: “What we did was insane and monstrous.” He added: “we covered entire towns in cluster bombs.” A UN official later decried as “completely immoral” the fact that “90 per cent of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict when we knew there would be a resolution.”

The article in The New York Times is a PR exercise, to be viewed in parallel with more substantial efforts at actually changing the interpretation of the Laws of Armed Conflict so as to whitewash Israel’s war crimes. The piece notes, almost regretfully, “the inevitable international censure that comes with civilian casualties.” That censure – and, surely, legal accountability – is guaranteed if, and one hopes it does not come to this, Israel conducts its planned atrocities in Lebanon.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.