The Truth About the Israel Defense Forces, ‘The World’s Most Moral Army’ – Israel News – Haaretz

Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot is the latest in a long line of commanders to place the Israeli military on a pedestal it can’t justify.

Source: The Truth About the Israel Defense Forces, ‘The World’s Most Moral Army’ – Israel News – Haaretz

An Israeli soldier alongside Egyptian prisoners during the War of Independence.GPO

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“From the day it was founded, the army has sanctified important values, among them human dignity and the purity of arms. These values are based on many years of Jewish heritage,” IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot wrote last week, gilding the lily in a letter distributed to all soldiers.

It is not like Eisenkot to be sanctimonious or ignore troubling facts. But this time he badly miscalculated in presenting a desired ideal as the reality. In his laudable efforts to defend the rules of engagement and distinguish between support and covering up, Eisenkot adopted the official, false line that ascribes to Israeli soldiers and the system within which they act a different, higher set of morals than that in other armies. This, at best, is self-delusion based on partial information.

Eisenkot is not the only one. Before him, there was Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon: As commander of a paratroop battalion and then a brigade and eventually IDF chief of staff, he did not teach his soldiers the bitter lessons of the 1950s – including the murder of prisoners in the Mitla Pass in the Sinai War. Instead, the Kafr Qasem massacre by Border Policemen in 1956 was the only thing to be remembered as a black flag.