My Military's Moral Low

Since the major military operations in Gaza stopped last week, the
full effects of the heavy-handed assault that my country conducted
there have become increasingly clear. Our leaders' responses to the
carnage are shocking: after each "misfire" of our artillery, hitting a
school or hospital, some high-ranking general or politician apologizes
for the "mistake." Usually they talk about a Hamas militant firing from
the area or using civilians as human shields.

As a former soldier in the artillery forces of the Israel military,
I watch and shake my head in disbelief. From the Qassam rockets falling
on Sderot and other Israeli cities in the South, we know that Hamas
intentionally targets civilians with their bombs, but I wonder how the
men and women of my country's artillery corps can do what they are
doing while our leaders speak with such cynicism. I wonder what has
happened to the moral compass of the Israeli military.

Drafted into the Israeli military in 2000, I served in the artillery
corps as a gunner in artillery crew M109. The bombs we used, which are
also being used today in Gaza, have a 50 meter kill radius. Anybody
caught within 200 meters is likely to be wounded. Because these bombs
are imprecise, our military regulations prohibited firing them to
within a 350 meter radius of fellow soldiers in an open area (or within
250 meters if they were in an armored vehicle). To fire these shells
into a heavily populated area like Gaza City carries a known risk of
injuring and killing civilians within this range.

Experts reviewing the evidence have also concluded that soldiers in
Gaza have also fired white phosphorus shells, which were in the arsenal
when I served in the army as well. These shells contain 116 small
wafers of phosphorus. To maximize their effect, the shells explode some
tens of meters before they hit the ground, sending 116 flaming wafers
over an area up to 250 meters.

Since the beginning of the current incursion, I have been watching
the news with anger and shock. I am stunned that the soldiers of my
country are firing artillery into a densely populated city, and that
the ammunition they are using appears to have involved white
phosphorus. With the high number of Palestinian civilian casualties in
this incursion, my military has outdone itself in cultivating disregard
for the loss of civilian life. Even if our political and military
leaders cannot know the precise civilian cost of each shell, we do know
well in advance that the weapons are using now in Gaza will have severe
consequences for the human beings in a wide radius around them.

As a soldier who used these weapons in Lebanon, I am outraged at our
leaders' apologies and explanations for loss of innocent civilian life.
Minister of Defense Ehud Barak is a decorated former head of military
who should know what every combat soldier learns in basic training.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert led an unsuccessful war in Lebanon only two
years ago, and we remember the dire civilian consequences (still
unfolding) of our military's use of cluster bombs there.

I want to know what goes on in the heads of these experienced
leaders when they decide to use such weapons in the field, this time
using artillery fire in a densely populated urban area. I wonder
whether they think they can get away with their claims that they were
aiming only at terrorists.

Challenging them, we must quote not only the numbers of dead
civilians, many of them women and children, but we must also say openly
that the methods used by our military were ones with known results. Our
government knew in advance that the artillery shells would result in
hundreds of civilians dead and wounded and thousands of homes
destroyed. When they decided to move forward anyway, they did so in
complete disregard of international law, dragging our military to a new
moral low.