"Shoot and cry" used to just be an Israeli cliche about the guilt soldiers felt after committing unspeakable acts while serving the Israeli occupation. Now it appears to have become official military doctrine. The New York Times has picked up the story of the soldier testimonies from Gaza. From the Ethan Bronner article "Soldiers’ Accounts of Gaza Killings Raise Furor in Israel":
Amir Marmor, a 33-year-old history graduate student in Jerusalem and a
military reservist, said in an interview with The New York Times that
he was stunned to discover the way civilian casualties were discussed
in training discussions before his tank unit entered Gaza in January.
"Shoot and don’t worry about the consequences,” was the message from
the top commanders, he said. Speaking of a lieutenant colonel who
briefed the troops, Mr. Marmor said, “His whole demeanor was extremely
gung ho. This is very, very different from my usual experience. I have
been doing reserve duty for 12 years, and it was always an issue how to
avoid causing civilian injuries. He said in this operation we are not
taking any chances. Morality aside, we have to do our job. We will cry
about it later.”
Bronner tries to help the Israelis cover their tracks with the usual justifications that the proportion of civilians killed was low, but he can't escape the fact that the plan all along seems to have been to intentionally kill civilians. Bronner quotes Aron Ezrahi, a political scientist at Hebrew University:
Unfortunately, I think that selective use of killing civilians has
been very much on the agenda for fighting terror . . . The army believes that a weak spot of Israeli
deterrence is its strong commitment not to kill civilians, and there
has grown the sense that it might have to temporarily overcome that
weakness in order to restore deterrence.
A "group of the world's most experienced judges and human rights investigators" renewed calls for a war crimes investigation into the Gaza war. Today Richard Falk, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said the Israeli attack "would seem to constitute a war crime of the greatest magnitude under international law." If there was a policy to intentionally kill civilians in Gaza there needs to be accountability. These soliders are now talking in an effort to help ease their conscience and share their concerns about the direction of their country. I hope they will be just as willing to testify in court.
