Still shooting and crying
By Meron Benvenisti
Haaretz, March 12, 2004
The debate over the "code of ethics" that is supposed to act as a guideline for the army in its war on terrorism continues to heat up. The participants don't balk at using blunt language to sharpen the dilemma: Is the attempt to preen oneself with moral principles in the course of conducting violence that is flagrantly immoral a case of hypocrisy aimed at cleansing the conscience - or is the violent situation fomenting a situation of moral twilight, in which any attempt to cope with the ambiguity is preferable to an all-or-nothing approach?
As the debate rages, we have learned that the army is also busy at work formulating an "ethical code for proper behavior at checkpoints" and has even laid down a new, "humane" policy that will facilitate things for the Palestinians, who will enjoy an improved infrastructure at the checkpoints and will have the benefit of manpower that speaks their language. The commanders of the School of Military Law of the Israel Defense Forces have discovered that the separation fence, too, needs an ethical approach, as its ongoing operation requires "human assistance" from soldiers, and they face moral dilemmas.
So many "codes of ethics" are being written that it's all too possible that the members of the military will find themselves adrift when they try to figure out what's permitted and what's forbidden. There is no doubt that this feverish preoccupation with formulating a moral guide for the bewildered reflects the distress of the formulators and their superiors, both because they are truly disturbed by the serious departures from the rules of ethics that are occurring in the territories, and because they are concerned about the image of the IDF as a "moral, humane army." In short, they are continuing with the classic Israeli occupation: shooting and crying.
How ironic it is that the profound moral crisis into which the Israeli society has been plunged by the occupation and the suppression of millions of people is reflected not in accusatory ads published by the human rights group B'Tselem, but in the reports initiated by army sources about "ethical initiatives." And the more the events in the territories multiply - the arbitrariness and the acts of collective punishment, the "targeted assassinations," the house demolitions and the uprooting of fruit groves, the "arrest of individuals wanted for questioning" - the more the clauses of the "codes of ethics" multiply, according to an iron rule: It's not the actual measures that are undertaken that are subject to an ethical test, but only some of their results.
The measures themselves - however illegal they may be under humanitarian international law - are ostensibly obligated by "the reality that the terrorists have forced on us" and therefore are not to be considered in terms of moral dilemmas but in terms of "our very survival." And we will try to cope with the results of our actions on the basis of a rule formulated in these words: "In cases where the conclusion is that the damage is significantly greater than the benefit, the attack should not be carried out, and alternatives should be sought" (Yuval Yoaz, "Rules of behavior during an armed conflict - Version 1.0," Haaretz, March 10). "Damage and benefit" - when the lives of small children are at stake - is of course a formula that, in the view of the authors of the document, sits with the principles of classical ethical thought. The perpetual claim of a "ticking bomb" is meant to silence any ethical consideration.
The argument that the occupation is not ethical and therefore every action deriving from it cannot be ethical, either, is rejected because, supposedly, the question of the occupation and the "war of the settlements" is a political one and therefore not relevant to the ethical question. But what about the "codes of ethics" of the checkpoints and the fence? First you establish a system of dozens of checkpoints - which, according to testimony by IDF commanding officers themselves, are worthless from the security point of view, their only goal being to placate the settlers and act as means of collective punishment. And afterward you lay down an "ethical code" and suitable arrangements to consolidate this travesty. The army builds an arbitrary and aggressive separation fence along a route that is the very epitome of the immoral; and then, when the wrong done to hundreds of thousands of people is exposed, the army suddenly discovers that it has to formulate an "ethical code" that will make it possible for schoolchildren to get to school and for sick people to get to hospitals.
Indeed, a university degree is needed to understand evil and to lay down what morality obliges us to do. The hypocritical attempts to create "codes of ethics" for acts that are illegal and immoral is intended to cloak a brutal, cynical and manipulative system in a mantle of respectability. This system is taking advantage of the naivete of people who are sensitive to moral values and who believe that any improvement is for the better, even if the entire system is arbitrary and bad. The "shooting and crying" syndrome has contributed to the consolidation of hypocrisy, which allows us to continue with the bad deeds while professing belief in "the rightness of the way." The time has come to put an end to this.
