War crimes?

A friends from Jerusalem wrote this 2 years ago, and it still is of current interest, as so many things in the Middle-East

War Crimes?

Innocent civilians die in wars. This is a tragic but inevitable truth. An army uses the same bridges and the same power plants as the civilian population. Bases are commonly placed in densely populated areas and government buildings are located at the centers of nations' capitals. All these are legitimate targets in war and when civilians are killed in military actions against those targets it is, for the lack of better words, an unfortunate consequence.

Germany alone suffered 2 million civilian deaths during World War II, most of them presumably completely innocent. This is the price of war, a war started – in the aforementioned case – by Germany. Accordingly, you would be hard pressed to find someone willing to call the deaths of 2 million German civilians (barring isolated exceptions) a war crime.

Why is it then that war crime allegations are routinely raised against Israel every time a military action causes the death of civilians? The figures on civilian deaths during the current Israeli operation in Gaza vary, depending on the source, between 10%-30% of the total deaths. Similar figures exist for many wars and conflicts fought over the last decades across the globe.

Although it can be reasonably argued that, because of the continued use of civilian shields by Hamas, we should expect above average civilian casualties it is not necessary for the general argument of this article. It remains that civilian casualties are within the average (and accepted) range of such numbers.

It is this that makes it clear that the problem is not, and never was, civilian deaths. The actual question that proponents of the 'excessive force' and 'war crimes' arguments raise concerns nothing else than the legitimacy of military action in the first place, civilian deaths or not. The misuse of civilian deaths is, just like 'Zionism is racism', an attempt to drag the argument over Israel's right to defend itself into a more politically correct light. A place where the PR battle can be fought realistically.

Israel should strive to drag the argument back to its natural place, and win it by default. The state of Israel, like any other state, has the right to defend itself against attack, and thousands of rockets landing on Israeli soil over the last years are most certainly an attack. Furthermore it should be stressed that what is a war crime, not to mention highly immoral, is the intentional targeting of civilians. This war crime is sadly practiced routinely by Israel’s enemies.