ISRAEL: THE WORLD’S MOST MORAL ARMY
Many nation's armies experience controversies and moral dilemmas. However, there is no other army like that of the Israeli Defense Forces, or IDF, that does more to protect and defend citizens in combat zones.
Why you may ask? A few reasons. Israel is a decent country with Western values, founded on Western principles. Israel has no more interest in war than Mongolia. But, unlike Mongolia, Israel is surrounded by countries and terror groups that seek to destroy it.
Also, the IDF is composed overwhelmingly of citizen soldiers. Israel is a small country with a small professional military, so it heavily relies on its citizens to help defend itself. These are ordinary citizens, from business CEO's to fast food workers, who are called upon to defend their home country. They don't want to kill or fight. They only want to defend themselves and their fellow Israelis.
Nowhere was the morality of the IDF demonstrated better than in the Gaza war in 2014. The war was started by the Islamic terror group known as Hamas. In the first half of 2014, Hamas launched hundreds upon hundreds of rockets at Israeli civilians. After repeated demands to stop the rocket launches, the IDF sent precision missile strikes on various locations of Hamas rocket launchers, disabling them. Soon after, the IDF advanced into Gaza to infiltrate and destroy a network of terror tunnels that Hamas had dug to attack Israeli communities near the Gaza border.
The IDF took extraordinary measures to warn Gaza civilians of the incoming strikes on targeted areas that Hamas had control of. They dropped millions of leaflets with detailed maps of where the strikes would land, broadcast over the radio urgent messages to leave the area, and even called civilians on their cell phones, individually, to warn of the strikes.
Let me repeat that.
The IDF called tens of thousands of Gazans, some of them Hamas supporters, and told them to leave the area and move to safety.
Never, in the history of war, has an army phoned an enemy and told them to move to safety.
Of course, the IDF made mistakes during that war. There are mistakes in every war, because war is chaotic and confusing. But, mistakes are not war crimes. On the other hand, Hamas committed countless war crimes in the name of official government policy. Hamas deliberately positioned their rocket launchers and other military equipment in heavily populated civilian areas such as schools, hospitals, mosques, and apartment buildings, and forced the residents to remain in their homes as IDF strikes rained down on them. Numerous websites showcase Palestinians staging their deaths and faking being shot by snipers. It's so common, there's even a term for it: "Pallywood". Palestinian Hollywood.
Unfortunately, the Hamas leaders know that Israel is the world's most moral army. They take full advantage of the IDF's decency and adherence to the laws of war. No other army takes such risks to protect civilians as the Israeli Defense Force does.
EDIT AS OF WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2018: My previous article, based off PragerU’s video with the same title, is, surprise, still relevant today. According to Hank Barrien at The Daily Wire, this Monday more than 400 rockets were fired by Hamas into Israel. This number has more than likely climbed since then. What’s more, is the fact that this is the highest number of rockets fired into Israel in the history of this entire conflict. Just imagine, for a second, that one rocket, not 400, not 100, not 10, but one, was fired into your city. How would your government respond?
Firing almost half thousand rockets at Israel is bad enough, and completely unwarranted, but what’s worse, is where these rockets are being fired. According to videos from Israeli citizens, Hamas fires rockets indiscriminately, sometimes hitting civilian centers, housing, or even schools and hospitals.
Even more maddening, but not surprising, is the fact that Hamas stores their rockets inside schools and hospitals. Tell me, how in the world is Israel supposed to prevent Hamas’s rockets from being fired in the first place? Should they target the sites where Hamas stores its rockets? They could, but imagine the absolute fit that the media would throw. Israel cannot win until the media and the United Nations realize that Iranian-backed Hamas is, and has always been the reason that young Israeli boys and girls cannot go to school, for fear that their school will be blown to pieces by a rocket, that nurses and doctors are constantly on high alert, keeping their most important patients in the basements of hospitals, and that the innocent Jews, Christians, and even Muslims that live in the most liberal country in the middle east, fear for their lives almost every day.
Works Cited
Berrien, Hank. “Hamas Fires Record Number Of Rockets At Israel. U.N. Sec-Gen: Exercise Restraint.” Daily Wire, The Daily Wire, 13 Nov. 2018, www.dailywire.com/news/38274/hamas-fires-record-number-rockets-israel-un-sec-hank-berrien.
PragerU. “Israel: The World's Most Moral Army.” YouTube, YouTube, 7 Dec. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN1MkAGuVyY.