The goal now is to jump off the ship and not sink along with it. Israel makes many American Jews uncomfortable as she reminds them of their own unwelcome roots. Their conscious choice—to normalize Israel by making her as liberal and peaceful as America—is based on their subconscious wish that Israel cease to exist. By connecting Israel to American Jewry, Israelis subject themselves to untold political pressures.

More importantly, American Jews act as a beacon to post-Zionist Israeli Jews. If Jews can live outside Israel, be respected, and dictate US policies, then it would be sensible to move from Israel to America. Decadence is sweet, and assimilated American Jews draw their Israeli brethren. So far, America has not used its major weapon against Israel—immigration policy. The day the United States opens its borders to Israelis, our demography will change radically.

This will happen unless Israel decries foreign assimilation in the strongest terms, abandons ties with Jewish organization that tolerate interfaith families, and tells her youth that they can be Jews in Israel, or good people in America, but never both.

People are not only a stomach, but also a brain. Not only brain, but also heart. Not only I, but We. I wouldn’t like a person who insults me continually, much less someone who insults us. The Bible says, “Love your neighbor,” but a neighbor is one who deviates from accepted ways along with you, not one who abandons you to join the accepted ways. Had I been born just a few years earlier, I would have had two chances out of three to end up in a gas chamber—and I’m very sensitive to Jews who finish the Nazis’ job. Such people remain Jewish, but they are Jewish criminals. Had they murdered an old lady, I would have helped them evade prosecution, but they murder the Jews in themselves, in their children and grandchildren. And there is no room for tolerance.

Developed economies can afford a softer version of totalitarianism. They buy compliance rather than force populations into it. Only those who don’t wish to be bought are forced. The purchased choice could be called free because the people freely chose money over principles or freedom, except that their consent is manufactured. When Americans adopted Obama’s healthcare bill some provisions of it were delayed by four years. Prominent Democrats then discussed a looming problem: in the next election Republicans would trumpet the bill’s expenses while the public wouldn’t have yet tasted its benefits. The idea was to push the bill’s implementation closer. Though not explicitly deceitful, this approach definitely shapes public opinion in a manner acceptable to the government. This might be a legitimate policy for a theocratic, aristocratic, or meritocratic state in which the rulers presume to know the truth better than commoners, who must thus be educated—either for their own good in a meritocracy, or for the greater good in a theocracy. But in democracy government is only allowed to represent its citizens’ wishes, rather than shaping them. That is analogous to attorney’s duty to represent his client rather than mislead him, even if misleading the client would eventually benefit him. The truth is, the ruling establishment views itself as a meritocracy entitled to lead the masses, and to that end entitled to educate or even mislead them.

Implicit taxes are an important way the elites lie to their subjects. Universal healthcare quickly becomes a major tax, second only to the minimum wage. People who exercise due care for their health subsidize McDonald’s customers because insurance companies are barred from refusing bad risks. Everyone subsidizes terminally ill patients, each of whom becomes a multimillion-dollar burden on his insurance company before passing away. The uninsured—reportedly 10% to 20% of the population—have become a direct public burden, taxpayers again subsidizing those who refuse to take available jobs, though the influx of illegal immigrants is the best testimony to the eternal availability of jobs.

The United States bans trans-fats because citizens allegedly cannot make informed choices about their use, even though it affects their health and others’ Medicaid resources. Some cities require fast-food restaurants to print calorie values on their menus because citizens are too lazy to gather information independently. That country applies “sin taxes” to cigarettes and alcohol because citizens, though they allegedly know the harmful effects of these vices, lack the will to drop them. In such an environment, it is unrealistic to expect citizens to gather information and form opinions on foreign policy matters, which are removed from them infinitely farther than their health, or to gather the will to oppose government policies which are less harmful than smoking.

Democracy creates pressure for redistribution, and democracies evolve into welfare states. To boost welfare, such states embrace paternalism. But paternalism is the opposite of democracy. If citizens are childishly incapable or irresponsible even in basic matters, then surely they cannot choose political candidates based on arcane differences in their platforms.

Most people do not want or need democratic rights. They do not understand political, economic, or ecological issues, or any other matters of state. Drop the sham of democracy in favor of a meritocratic arrangement. In such a state, people would be still able to vote out an oppressive government, but would be spared routine elections. A similar system in Egypt allows citizens to vote periodically whether they want presidential elections. As long as there is no supermajority in favor of the change—which would indicate the regime’s oppressiveness—the authoritarian ruler retains his power. Any other voting arrangement will fulfill Marx’s prediction that the historical norm is for capitalist societies to slide into redistributive socialism.

The shift in the proportion of the religious population will be mitigated to a yet-unpredictable degree by the secularization of religious communities. In the age of the Internet, they cannot remain as closed as they were before, and the opening of their communities drives their values to the lowest common denominator with the surrounding milieu, thus secularization. Israeli religious communities are treading the path followed by Jewish religious communities of Eastern Europe 150 years ago.

Religious communities will become more radical. One reason for this is the prevalence of male births caused by the low frequency of intercourse. Biologically, significant delays in sexual relations slightly increase the probability of conceiving a boy. An excess of unmarried males greatly radicalizes communities.

Another factor is ideological: when the leaders of a community which opens itself to the outside world moderate their values to preserve their connection to the flock, radical teachers gain prominence. The Catholic Church today has a more extreme stance on moral virtues—notably its opposition to abortion—than two hundred years ago. Wahhabism, an unusually fundamentalist teaching, is the fastest-spreading movement in Islam today, challenged by the even more radical Salafist version. When ancient Israeli society fell apart, rabbis radicalized Judaism by erecting “a fence around the law” with many additional prohibitions. Jewish religious radicalism can take two forms: legalistic halachic and nationalist, the last being more probable. Halachic regulation became so expansive that it regulates every smallest action of a haredi Jew, making it impossible for any single man to learn all of his halachic obligations. Just at the time when the number of ordained rabbis has skyrocketed and the pressure for them to invent more halachic norms is at its peak, there is no room for expansion. We might expect, therefore, a tide of rabbis who concentrate on political issues rather than halacha.

The rabbinical establishment will efficiently oppose them with its money power. By keeping its flock from holding jobs, haredi rabbis control them through social welfare distribution. This is how the Soviets controlled their subjects. Radical rabbis will lack funding and thus remain on the fringes. The absolute number of their adherents, however, will increase tremendously. They will destabilize the moderate Israeli society for its own good.

At the same time, the religious population will be further pauperized. Religiosity exhibits a positive correlation with poverty. Paupers are religious, while affluent people, immersed in consumerism, rarely ask themselves existential questions. In the modern world, income is increasingly related to secular education, which despite Rabbi Soloveitchik’s efforts, remains largely off-limits to religious Jews. Secular education provides answers to existential questions which are contrary to religious postulates; therefore affluent and educated people generally leave religion. Paupers, on one had, tend to be radical, but on the other they depend on the government for welfare handouts. As the religious population grows and society’s mainstream increasingly opposes subsidizing it, the religious community might find itself financially ostracized and turn radical.

A demilitarized Palestine would be outright dangerous because it would be a tempting target for takeover. Both Syria and Jordan have designs on the Palestinian territory, and Syria has designs on Jordan as well. Israel might find herself in the uncomfortable position of sending Jewish soldiers to defend Palestine, as she did for Jordan.
Israel, counterintuitively, needs a well-armed Palestine if such a state is to be formed at all. A militant state would serve as a buffer between Israel and Syria. It would also shift the center of gravity away from Syria, a development which might make Lebanon more stable and moderate. Strong Palestine and Syria would bleed each other with wars of attrition. Palestine lacks sources of income and technology, and would rely on Israel for weapons. Such reliance would assure Israeli-Palestinian cooperation more than any treaty. Other Arabs hate Palestinians, and a strong Palestine would be no less provocative for them than Israel, thus reducing the hatred directed at her.
But to try such a gambit as making Palestine a strong and militant state would require an Israeli leader of the caliber of Bismarck, rather than Bibi.

In effect, Israel creates a straw man. Once the Palestinians agree to say the supposedly magic phrase, “Jewish state,” the world will see that as a major concession and demand that Israel reciprocate. Since Palestine, like every other Arab-populated country, is already officially called an “Arab state,” Israeli reciprocity would have to be tangible, something on the order of dismantling some settlements.

The very idea that Israel needs recognition from some Arabs in Palestine is insulting. They can call it “Falastyne,” but for us it is Judea and Samaria. Likewise, our state is Jewish regardless of what the Arabs call it. Khomeini called the United States “the Great Satan,” and Americans called Russia “the Evil Empire.” Who cares?

Such recognition on the part of the Palestinians cannot be binding. The United States fought Russia after the communist revolution, fought alongside Russia in WWII, and then engaged in the Cold War against Russia. Nations change their policies. What would Israel do if the Palestinian parliament rescinded its recognition of Israel’s Jewishness a week after proclaiming Palestinian independence?

What is this enigmatic Jewishness, anyway? Arab states officially define themselves as “Arab,” but also follow that declaration in practice. They ban land sales to non-Arabs, restrict new citizenship to Arabs only, and base their law on Sharia. They unite with other Arabs in the Arab League, support the pan-Arab cause of fighting Israel, and scream when other nations fight their fellow Arab regimes, however atrocious.

France is ardently French; the liberal beacon does not recognize any minorities or multiculturalism. France imposes its language on its minorities, enforces a uniform school curriculum (especially in history studies), fights imperial wars against its minorities’ homelands, bans Islamic dress in public places, and denies minorities demographic significance through immigration restrictions.

Spain is a Catalonian country which fights separatists and bans independence-seeking nationalist movements. Britain does not have to impose its language on the minorities who accept it for historical reasons; it lost Ireland to nationalists, however, and is now rapidly losing Scotland.

What is Jewish about Israel? The Arab language is officially on par with Hebrew. Religious Jews are repressed more than in any Western country; they are forbidden to pray at their holiest site. History curricula differ for Arab schools. Arab nationalist and Islamic movements are numerous and vociferous. Manifestations of Arab culture are ubiquitous. Arabs buy sensitive lands, including those developed with private Jewish donations. Arabs maintain strong ties with their Diaspora and openly identify with Israel’s enemies. Arabs are sufficiently numerous to affect the Israeli political process—including the military and foreign police—as when Rabin and Barak became prime ministers on Arab votes. Arabs refuse to assimilate into Israeli society, to the extent of mourning Independence Day.

Israelis accepted a minimalist definition of our state’s Jewishness as the rule of Jews. This is commonly understood as Jewish majority. But ultra-leftists, and even some anti-Zionist religious Jews, side with the Arabs, so the latter do not need to become a majority. In the fragmented Israeli political spectrum, 25-35% representation makes Arabs the largest coheresive bloc, capable of pushing through almost every decision.

This makes Israel unlike every other nation-state with minorities: her Arabs are too many, with too-strong ties to their ethnic kin abroad, and they cannot assimilate or even become loyal.

Whatever we force Abbas to pronounce, Israel cannot be a Jewish state while Arabs remain here.

Settlers will get nowhere unless they learn to clearly divide society into relatively good Jews, and the rodef-malshin bunch and its agents. Both rodef and malshin are of Jewish origin, and both can be killed; no Sanhedrin is necessary. The Military Administration acts as rodef – murderous stalker when it takes guns away from outpost pioneers and leaves them to face the Palestinians unarmed. The army’s crackdowns on settlers send a signal to Palestinians that attacking them is permissible, indeed sanctioned by the government. Rodef is not necessarily a 100 percent evil person—he can be a caring family member, a donor, or have any number of other merits—but he must be killed for a single offense of murderous stalking. Similarly, a case can be made that the police’s murderous actions toward settlers position each of its participating members as rodef. According to halacha, even when a rodef acts on sovereign’s order, he’s still guilty of murder. There is no difference between Jewish sovereign and elected government; in Jewish society, a sovereign enjoys even higher popular consent than any elected government.

By publicly denouncing, repressing and occasionally prosecuting settlers, the Military Administration acts as malshin, Jewish informers. They need not lie: even when they publicize the true facts of Jewish crime, which endanger Jewish community, they are guilty and liable to execution. This is not another theoretical halacha, but the one on which rabbis—when they were real rabbis—sentenced numerous informers to death.

On other hand, army and police also feel affinity for settlers as fellow Jews. Even in hot-spots such as Hebron, Military Administration keeps working relationships with settlers; when they bought the Peace House, the Administration officials were genuinely happy that the Jews got to hold on to the strategic location. The army, accordingly, enforces leftist orders only minimally. When the pressure is huge or a commander is especially nutty, the military administration can make the settlers’ lives miserable; thus, the army choked off the supply of building materials to Judea and Samaria to prevent the increasing Jewish population from building new houses.
The case is still clear for Jewish ultra-left groups. Take B’Tselem which equips Palestinians with video cameras and encourages them to provoke clashes with Jews. This is a clear-cut case of informing on Jews, the capital crime of malshin, which is punished with death on rabbinical orders, without Sanhedrin. Jewish security cannot wait until Sanhedrin convenes. History proves that execution of criminals is effective in stemming crime. Ultra-leftists might be less inclined to incite the Arabs against Jewish pioneers if they knew that the reprisal is death. It was silly and immoral for Hebron settlers to take out their anger on the neighboring Arabs after Peace House eviction; morally and practically, the ultra-leftists who pushed for the eviction are liable.

There is no Jewish-Arab conflict. If not for the ultra-left, normal Jews could do away with Arab enemies in a matter of days. The problem is between Jews and Jews, and until each side positions itself firmly, announces its goals and enemies, the country will stumble around. The indecisiveness benefits the left. They enjoy the state’s infrastructure of force and don’t need preparation. In any conflict over the settlements, leftists will use the power of state, and they will use the army illegally against “fellow” Jews. Conservative Jews won’t have time to prepare their resistance, as resistance requires vast organizational efforts, logistics, training, and above all the readiness to act forcibly against other Jews. Such readiness is a function of protracted propaganda efforts and cannot appear from nowhere in the few months between the announced withdrawal and actual evacuation.

A civil war between Jews is not unthinkable; we celebrate it every year. Hanukkah. Twenty-three centuries ago, liberal Jews colluded with a liberal gentile power to reform the “outdated” Jewish practices. Antiochus didn’t seek to conquer Judea: it was already conquered. The war had no political consequences whatsoever. Nor is it imaginable that Antiochus suddenly felt an urge to liberalize an obscure religion at the fringe of his empire. The culprits were liberal Jews who sided with Antiochus—and invited him to invade. They wanted to do away with kosher laws, embrace the civilized world’s way of worship, and adopt the progressive Hellenistic culture of stadiums and gymnasiums. The Maccabean revolt’s first victim was not a Greco-Syrian warrior, but a Jew who violated a technical commandment; he was publicly executed; no Sanhedrin, no court proceedings.

Hanukkah is not about lights, love, or Santa Claus. Every year, we celebrate the victory in a brutal civil war where Jewish fundamentalists killed out the liberal “elite.” They saved Judaism so that today other liberals could urge us to reform, abandon the outdated laws, and give our land to Arabs. Unless, of course, we kill the enemy within.

Obscenely, the Israeli government finds it easier to expel the Jews than to stand up to the Palestinians and their leftist supporters. It is self-deceiving to hope that the cost of eviction would be prohibitive: with US support, the Israeli government can allocate the necessary $20 to 50 billion; no one would be overly concerned if the uprooted Jewish settlers became homeless like the Gush Katif evictees. Indeed, crushing the community of patriotic Jews is a welcome outcome for the government.

There will be no Gush Katif-type fighting in the West Bank. Sharon, strong, unprincipled, cruel, and popular could have pulled that off. There are no takers today. Weak Netanyahu or demoralized and soft Tzipi cannot push tens, probably hundreds of thousands of Jews out of their homes. Hyperactive Barak changes his mind and mood like gloves; he generates daring—and failing—ideas like a machine gun, but cannot follow them through as a decent manager of the government, let alone with Sharon’s bulldozer consistency. Narcissistic Ami Ayalon revels in his “fatherly” treatment of settlers, and can hardly lead a major eviction. Dichter cannot commandeer a necessary degree of popular support. Someone like Beilin or Sharon could do the eviction, but so far they are unlikely to lead the government.

The government will ask the settlers to leave on their own volition. The army will leave, and in most places settlers cannot stay without its protection. By far, the majority of settlers are nice people of moderate patriotism who love the inexpensive village life, as far as possible from the government; they are not ready to fight either the government or the Palestinian forces. As an additional reminder, Israel will criminalize her citizens’ stay in Palestinian territories, just as she now prohibits us from Zone A. Palestinians, too, will criminalize a visa-less stay of foreign (Israeli) nationals. Border posts will prevent the settlers who drive to Israel on business, for medical service, or any other occasion, from returning to their villages. This way, in a few months all the settlements designated for evacuation will be near-empty. Palestinian mobs will then drive out the remaining few settlers and Israel will intervene to save the misguided hotheads.

There are no peaceful means by which the settlers can prevent this simple scenario from ending their lifestyle. Many will move to the Negev and Galilee, and in a decade or two Bedouins and Palestinian Arabs, respectively, will drive them from those areas, as well. Israel is shrinking to the tourist area of Tel Aviv beaches.

Military prosecution can be ordered by the Military Attorney General, his civilian counterpart, or the Supreme Court. Typically, one of them finds sufficient reason for indictment. Soldiers are thus three times more likely to be indicted than common criminals.

Enemy civilians are allowed to sue IDF soldiers in Israeli courts. In practice, these civilians often act as Hamas and Fatah proxies, allowing the terrorist groups to sue the army for conducting antiterrorist operations. Israel allows NGOs unrestricted access to the courts without substantially requiring them to establish that their rights have been violated—as opposed to the rights of abstract civilians. Since political NGOs are predominantly ultra-left and petition the ultra-left court, the outcome is pre-ordained.

The Israeli Gaza report dispels the government lie that Israel undertook the investigation of incidents in Gaza on her own. The report repeatedly answers charges “discussed in the HRC report.”

Prosecution of soldiers in deference to the Muslim-dominated UNHRC is a major breach of trust. Before entering Gaza, the soldiers were explicitly given carte blanche by their commanders. Their persecution for imagined crimes is still more despicable in light of IDF’s routine clashes with Gazans. The government refuses to treat the situation as war.

The number of criminal cases opened—forty-seven—is huge given the war’s short duration and the small number of troops involved. In per-soldier, per-day terms, the ratio of Israeli criminal investigations vastly exceeds the American ratio in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In one case, two IDF soldiers were indicted for making a human shield out of a Palestinian teenager. Jewish religious law is unequivocal: the soldiers had the right to protect themselves. But there is another question: if the risk was so great that the human shield was expected to be killed, why were the soldiers sent in the first place? A situation so dangerous calls for bombing the place. So, either the risk to the Arab was negligible, or the politically correct commander is guilty of unnecessarily endangering his soldiers. When a society sends its teenagers to protect its grown-up voters, our least duty is to minimize the risk to those we send to protect us.

But the madness is, IDF actually mandates the use of human shields—of Jews to protect Arab detainees! The soldiers must surround the detainees and thus walk them to the camp. One reason for this absurdity is to prevent escape without having to shoot, as any army or police force does. But another objective is to prevent the enemy from killing the prisoners.
IDF officially sanctions the use of human shields. According to the army’s doctrine, military operations are to be aborted when they are likely to inflict disproportional civilian damage. That is an invitation to Hamas to build their strongholds in schools and hospitals. Since the Strip is home to 750 UN facilities, and another 1,200 schools, hospitals, mosques, and other such hands-off structures, Hamas will find no shortage of places to hide in the next war.

Is there anything worse? Sure. Shelling is prohibited even in the vicinity of hospitals, markets, and other sensitive buildings, even if terrorists present a clear target (par.69 of the report). The presence of enemy civilians even on adjacent streets similarly prevents an attack (par.70).

One soldier was indicted for looting. Jewish law permits the looting of enemies. In the few instances where looting has been prohibited, God has told us so explicitly. That might not be nice Jewish behavior, but war is not just. When sending young Jews into urban battles, the country cannot demand that they act like saints.

Two commanders were punished for approving the use of explosive shells in violation of… safety distances in urban areas! “Safety distance for explosive shells”; talk about oxymorons. The war was conducted almost entirely in urban areas. According to the report, explosive shells can only be used where they cannot cause harm. If you thought that shells could be at least be used against empty houses, think again. Changes in army doctrine are meant to minimize damage to civilian property. Never mind the impractically high cost of targeted munitions.

Reacting to the outcry over some damage to the UN’s compound, IDF severely restricted the use of white phosphorus shells in populated areas. There is so far no adequate substitute for the use of phosphorus as a smoke-screen, and the ban greatly endangers our troops.

In an almost Goldstonian manner, the report speaks about Palestinian witnesses who refused to testify in Israeli courts, thus making indictment futile. It is improbable, though, that any Gazans refused to join a witch-hunt against Israeli soldiers. The truth is transparent: they signed off on whatever complaints Hamas had prepared for them, but knew that they would not be able to sustain their lies under interrogation. Israeli investigators could not bring themselves to say clearly that most of the incidents were fabricated. Instead of dispelling the Goldstone allegations, the investigators concentrated on confirming them, even if only partially.

The hundreds of Arabs who gave false testimony won’t be punished, even though they lied to investigators in Israeli territory at the Erez Crossing. Witnesses were provided with immunity; they were not questioned beyond the scope of their complaints. If the prosecution had only upheld Israeli law and questioned the complainants about the entire range of relevant information, including their terrorist affiliations, next to no testimonies would have been recorded.

Israeli investigators exhibited unreasonable zeal in prosecuting our soldiers. In one case, Goldstone accused IDF of ordering a Palestinian teenager to open suspicious packages. The name and whereabouts of this teenager were unknown. What does a normal prosecutor do when there is no victim? Right, he ignores the complaint. Not the Jews. The investigators invested great effort in finding the kid, who was allowed to testify in the presence of his mother, which would allow him to sustain the lie. He will not be cross-examined in the Israeli court where the two soldiers are now on trial.

The Jewish insanity went beyond not endangering enemy civilians. A Lieutenant Colonel was punished for merely allowing an Arab to take a small risk. The Arab, Abd Rabbo, went into a neighboring house to talk the terrorists hiding there into peaceful surrender so that his own house would not be damaged by bombing. The Jewish commander’s only crime was not preventing the Arab from doing so. Abd Rabbo was found to be lying like hell on other allegations. The commander allowed him to save his own house. Even the strictest interpretation of wartime law only prohibits soldiers from involving civilians in armed conflict; it does not call for preventing civilians from involving themselves.

The report proudly mentions that the Israeli government settled its financial issues with the UN over the damage done to some UN properties in Gaza. Our decidedly immoral government did not ask the UN to compensate us for the attacks on our homeland that were launched from UNRWA refugee camps.

Speaking of shelling the Fakhura UN compound, the report mentions approvingly that the commander exposed his unit to Hamas mortar fire for a long time while he attempted to organize a retaliatory strike in such a way as to cause minimal damage to civilian property. Dereliction of duty would not be too strong a name for the actions of a commander who valued enemy property over the lives of his soldiers. Grudgingly asserting that the commander committed no crime in inflicting collateral damage, the report urged further tightening of the rules of engagement. The army complied.

The extent to which the IDF finds it acceptable to endanger its soldiers can be seen from the Sawafeary incident, in which the army razed chicken coops to provide for a mere 20–50 meter security zone. Political correctness prevented them from razing the neighboring orchards to provide for meaningful visibility. This willingness to risk our soldiers is odd, considering the government’s equal willingness to exchange a kidnapped corporal for a thousand terrorists.

In the Maqadma incident, the army fired two missiles into a group of terrorists, who later appeared to have been standing near a mosque. One officer was punished for not telling his superiors that he suspected the building to be a mosque—as if that should make any difference during a pursuit of terrorists. Two other officers were punished for approving the use of more powerful missiles because less powerful ones were not available. Even the investigators say they have found nothing wrong with the officers’ decision—but they recommended sanctioning them anyway.

On the day that the IDF fired two “wrong” missiles at Maqadma, 39 rockets from Gaza his Israeli population areas. Unlike the IDF, Hamas commended its men.

The report suggests avoiding future strikes like an excellent strike at Hamas police stations in the opening minutes of the war. The IDF, investigators say, was not aware of the market nearby where some Arabs were killed during the strike. Presumably, had they known about the market, the army would have aborted the strike and spared dozens of militants.

Fake war requires fake munitions, and the IDF developed them: dud and delay-fuse bombs. Dud bombs warn terrorists to flee their houses before the real bombs are used. Delay fuse bombs similarly allow the targeted militants to escape, though their proper use is in a bunker-buster action, in which the bomb detonates after breaking the roof.

In the Abd al Dayem incident, Jews were accused of murdering Palestinian mourners. Investigators concluded that the tank crews could not see the civilians, and therefore legitimately used flechette munitions against Palestinian rocket crews. That reasoning implies that the soldiers would have been obligated not to use the best available munitions if they had known about civilians. To the report’s authors, a a Grad rocket fired at Jewish population centers is more acceptable than the death of Arab civilians.

In one aspect, the rules of engagement in Gaza were more strict than Israeli peacetime practice. Soldiers were prohibited from destroying property in deterrence and retribution, though Israel destroys the houses of suicide terrorists in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

True, the world urged that investigation on us, and the government lacked the guts to ignore those demands. But the objective is to show a degree of compliance with idealistic “humanitarian law,” never practiced by any army in real combat. Complying with that law is wrong and dangerous. Israeli investigators must target complainants rather than soldiers. They must act as the soldiers’ attorneys rather than prosecutors. They should seek exonerating rather than incriminating evidence. Any other attitude will eventually make fighting impossible.