“David Ben-Gurion”, a woodcut
portrait by Mervin Jules (1912-1994).
The State of Israel has for
long promoted the idea that its armed forces have rigorously pursued an ethical
code when involved in military operations. Alongside the Zionist narrative of Israel
being a democratic nation embedded in the midst of authoritarian states is that
of a country in possession of the “world’s most moral army”. It is a narrative
which has increasingly worn thin during the prolonged campaign against the
Palestinian Gaza strip since 2023. Many are becoming apprised of the fact that
the killing of civilians as a strategy of waging war is deeply ingrained in
Israeli military doctrine. The following letter to the editor of a provincial
American newspaper in 1997 sheds light on an ever present modus operandi which
evolved into the “Dahiya doctrine”, applicable to the destruction of Lebanese
population centres, and the “Mowing the grass” policy which was applied in
Gaza. It is a policy which has now evolved into one with the goal of
exterminating as much of the Palestinian population in Gaza in order to pave
the way for their total removal in accordance with the longstanding aspirations
of Political Zionism.
Editor of the Reformer:
In a recent letter to the
editor, Bob Grossbaum blames the cycle of violence in the Middle East firmly on
the Palestinians.
The picture he paints is of a
plucky and beleaguered Israel constantly “living with border raids by
terrorists, bombings … shootings … minings, etc.” These raids are carried out by Arabs whose
“mindset” is one of hostility to Israel’s “modern ways.”
That there is violence
against Israel is true, of course and is well reported in the U.S. Not so well
reported, however, is the vastly larger scale of violence that Israel delivers
on its neighbors as part of a long-standing policy of intimidation and provocation.
Although it is not well
advertised in the U.S., it has always been Israeli policy to deliberately
target Palestinian civilians in Lebanon and beyond for political reasons. This
policy is independent of, but hides behind, any terrorist attacks on Israel. But
don’t take my word for it. Israeli policy is quite explicitly spelled out in
the various writings and speeches of the policy makers themselves.
In his “Independence War
Diary,” Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion wrote in 1948 that
Israel must “strike mercilessly, women and children included. Otherwise the
action is inefficient. At the place of action there is no need to distinguish between
guilty and innocent.”
The policy was confirmed as
ongoing by General and Chief of Staff Mordechai Gur during Israel’s 1978
invasion of Lebanon. Gur said in an interview in al Hamishmar (May 10,
1978) that “For 30 years, from the War of Independence until today, we have
been fighting against a population that lives in villages and cities.”
Veteran Israeli military
analyst Ze’ev Schiff, writing in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz a few
days later (May 15, 1978), was surprised at Gur’s frankness but didn’t dispute
him: “In South Lebanon we struck the civilian population consciously, because
they deserved it, … the importance of Gur’s remarks is that the Israeli army
has always struck civilian populations purposely and consciously… even when
Israeli settlements had not been struck.”
Prime Minister Moshe Sharett
lamented Israel’s policy in his “Personal Diary,” published in 1979: “the long
chain of false incidents and hostilities we have invented, and so many clashes
we have provoked.” Sharett himself referred to Israeli policy as a “sacred
policy”. Sharett also quoted another Prime Minister, Moshe Dayan, as saying the
Israeli raids in Lebanon “make it possible for us to maintain a high level of
tension among our population and in the army. Without these actions we would
have ceased to be a combative people.” Sharett wrote that “the conclusion from
Dayan’s words are clear: This state … must see the sword as the main, if not
the only, instrument with which to keep its morale high and to maintain its
moral tension. Toward this end … it must adopt the method of
provocation-and-revenge.”
The policy was again admitted
by a high-level Israeli government official in 1981. On Aug. 16 in reply to a
letter by Prime Minister Menachem Begin, former U.N. Ambassador and Foreign
Minister Abba Eban wrote in the Jerusalem Post that “the picture that
emerges (from Begin’s letter) is that of an Israel wantonly inflicting every
possible measure of death on civilian populations in a mood reminiscent of
regimes which neither Mr. Begin nor I would dare mention by name.” Eban supported
the policy, though: “there was a rational prospect of the cessation of
hostilities.”
In other words civilians
would be deliberately bombed for political reasons. This is exactly what
happened when Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, killing 20,000 people. Almost all
of the dead, and their “afflicted” families were civilians. And again in 1988,
Israeli policy was explained from the top. This time it was by Minister of
Defense Yitzhak Rabin, who we remember now as the recently martyred man of
peace. Rabin said in the Jerusalem Post on Sept. 8 that “We want to get
rid of the illusion of some people in remote villages that they have liberated
themselves,” adding that bombing these villages "will make it clear to them
where they live and within which framework.” Would civilians be killed by these
raids? Not accidentally according to Rabin: “more casualties … is precisely our
aim.”
At this point, readers may be
asking themselves why the Israeli policy is not mentioned much in this
country. The reason is because Americans pay for it. Israel is totally
dependent on U.S. aid, and what is Israeli policy is U.S. policy. Mr. Grossbaum
may prefer to believe that Palestinians are the only ones carrying out terrorist
attacks against civilians. However, Israeli prime ministers, defence ministers,
generals, chiefs of staff, ambassadors, foreign ministers and military analysts
would say this is not so. They would say that Israel conducts an on-going
military campaign of intimidation aimed deliberately and consciously at
civilians and independent of any terrorist attacks against Israel.
Given that the evidence
supports them, I would agree.
Michael Fulton
Putney
© 1997, Michael Fulton and
the Brattleboro Reformer/© 2025, Adeyinka Makinde (Preamble).
Source: The Brattleboro
Reformer, Saturday, October 25th, 1997.
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