Q&A: The Fighting in Gaza
The Fighting in Gaza
Question
What is the Rabbi’s impression—can soldiers’ deaths in Gaza right now be reduced by means of massive bombardment and so on, even if that would kill more civilians? Or, put more bluntly: is your impression that our soldiers are dying because the IDF is being careful about enemy civilians?
Answer
It’s quite clear that to some extent, yes. That has always been the case. But it can be justified if it is done in a reasonable proportion. You take measured risks with soldiers’ lives in order not to inflict devastating harm on masses of enemy civilians. Of course, this is also necessary for practical reasons (our standing in the world and international law). I do not get the impression that unreasonable risks are being taken for that purpose. On the contrary, in a war like this the expected number of casualties would have been much higher. It seems quite clear that they are not being overly restrained here. We are very much walking a tightrope on this issue, and in my opinion this is actually being handled very well (unlike many other things).
The claims of the various armchair experts that we should just bring down all the buildings with airstrikes are nonsense, of course, for several reasons. See the explanation in MK Tzvi Sukkot’s excellent article: https://rotter.net/forum/scoops1/831094.shtml
In war, soldiers are killed, and anyone who expects this to be a calm and enjoyable outing is mistaken and misleads others.
Discussion on Answer
What I mean to ask is whether you think this failure is present only at the level of policy decisions, or also at the level of commanders during battle.
I don’t know. I assume there are such cases and situations, but I have no information about the extent of it (how many such cases there are and to what degree the consideration in them was unreasonable). Of course, there are also opposite cases.
Do you think that if a country like the United States were conducting the battle, it would be more aggressive?
(I’m asking about aggressiveness both on the policy level and in the fighting itself…)
I have no idea.
I checked,
and we’re not the USA.
So even if, hypothetically, the USA would act differently, we can’t.
Like I explained to my wife: even if, hypothetically, Rothschild would replace our kitchen with a newer one despite the insane cost (and I doubt it),
I’m still not Rothschild, just a poor schnorrer.
And in general, not specifically about this war—do you think this is indeed a pathology our army suffers from?