It was reported in the Jerusalem Post of March 28, 2016, that an Israeli soldier shot an incapacitated “Palestinian,” really a Muslim, terrorist in Hebron.

What we know so far

According to Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, the soldier violated “basic rules of military engagement.” Eisenkot reported said that “the soldier’s behavior reflected neither the IDF’s nor Jewish values.”

Since an investigation into this incident is being made, it would be premature to draw fast and narrow conclusions about the incident. However, it would not be inappropriate to ponder the issue in an abstract way, in the light of political philosophy, having in mind the possible inadequacy of the IDF’s “basic rules of engagement” when dealing with Muslim terrorists.

Nevertheless, allow me to quote a comment from a rabbinical source on the incident in question:

At the time of the shooting either [the terrorist] was already dead or he was still alive. If he was dead then the additional bullet did not kill him. If he was alive [two alternatives are possible]: (1) either he was so badly wounded that he could not have done any more harm, or (2) he was not so badly wounded and was still dangerous, in which case it was a mitzvah to neutralize him, since he had just demonstrated that he is trying to kill Jews.

So this was a case of safek sakanat nefashot [a doubt involving danger to life] in which you have to take action to protect yourself and others to make sure that the sakana [danger] is removed. There was no time to think it out, every second was dangerous. Furthermore it was the attacker himself who created an atmosphere of emergency and panic, so if the soldier acted in a state of panic, it is the attacker who set up that state and is responsible for the consequences of that state.

What makes a Muslim terrorist inherently dangerous

That said, I shall approach the problem as a political scientist who received his PhD from the University of Chicago. I mention this because more than one Israeli university is reputedly left-wing-oriented, therefore philosophically narrow. Here is how I look at the Hebron incident.

1. A murder committed by a Muslim terrorist is qualitatively different from an ordinary murder in that the latter, unlike the former, does not a manifest a political ideology with global scope and a history of politicide and genocide.
2. In the context of Israel, the murder of a Jew by a Muslim terrorist is not typically animated by some individual grievance against the victim, who might not even be known by the murderer, but by what the victim represents, namely, the Jewish state of Israel.
3. Essentially and existentially understood, the murder of a Jew by a Muslim member of the Palestinian Authority is ipso facto a manifestation of politicide and genocide. This is made explicit in the Charter of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which, apropos of the 1993 Oslo Agreement, succeeded the Palestine Liberation Organization. The PLO is a consortium of terrorist groups established in 1964, three years before the Six Day War when Israel regained much of it ancient homeland, for which the PLO-PA lusts and kills.
4. The PLO-PA has murdered more than 1,000 Jews. It has wounded and traumatized many thousands more, including children who have been deliberately targeted by Muslim terrorists to demoralize the Jewish people and diminish their birth rate.
5. These horrific considerations, judging from the reaction to the Hebron incident by Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, are not evaluated in an ideologically sophisticated manner by these military men and by the IDF rules of engagement (and I have only touched the surface of Muslim savagery). It seems that the IDF would treat a captured Muslim terrorist as if he were a conventional soldier of a foreign army, to be treated as he may have been treated in the 19th century or prior to the Geneva Conventions of the 20th century.

This suggests that Ya’alon and Eizenkot and the IDF rules of engagement do not take fully into account the ideological motivation of Muslim terrorists, who make no distinction between soldier and civilian, between adults and children, and who are animated by the global ambition of Islam. All of which suggests that the IDF rules of engagement are flawed and should be drastically revised, and that Ya’alon and Eizenkot have not been properly educated at Israel’s Command and Staff College, a former head of which was the self-professed moral relativist Professor Y, Harkabi, the mentor of Shimon Peres and the architect of the disastrous Oslo Accords!

Maybe those rules of engagement should change

Two Tzahal (Israel Defense Force) soldiers walk casually on the Golan Heights. Photo: CNAV.

Returning to the Hebron incident, the issue boils down to this: should all the rights of a human being be extended to a Muslim even though he is a terrorist acting on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, an organization whose charter calls for the annihilation of the Jewish state of Israel?

In the case of an ordinary murderer, the significance of his murdering an individual does not extend politically beyond the life of his victim. In sharp contrast, in the case of a Muslim terrorist murdering a Jew, his is a meta-political act and it’s intended to arouse daily dread in all Jews living in Israel. This fact, which puts said Muslim beyond the human pale, signifies that the IDF rules of engagement should not regard a captured terrorist as merely a conventional prisoner of war, or even, unqualifiedly, as a human being whose free will is sacrosanct. This is why some degree of cruelty, such as water-boarding, is necessary and proper to obtain information about terrorist plots and save innocent lives.

Indeed, were it not for the utility of this interrogation technique, and inasmuch as Israel is at war with a genocidal foe, the terrorist should be summarily executed. He is not a soldier and is not entitled to any rights of the outmoded Geneva Convention. As a terrorist he’s beyond the human pale.

Truth to tell, it would be a travesty of civilization to treat a Muslim terrorist merely as an enemy combatant. Notwithstanding any rulings of Israel’s Supreme Court, which, not unlike PM Netanyahu, is tainted by the lethargy of moral equivalence, to refrain from getting information from a captured terrorist about other terrorists, say by means of water-boarding, is foolhardy and irresponsible.

Netanyahu says he does not need a lesson in morality. But when it comes to the use force against Muslim terrorists, he should back up our soldiers and draw a lesson from World War II, when civilized America and England incinerated Dresden, causing more deaths in that city than the A-bomb dropped on Hiroshima!

It’s hard for sheltered academics and jurists in Israel, as well as media-mesmerized politicians, to stand upright. This is not the posture of authentic Jews. Such Jews have ever stood alone, devoted to the reason for Israel’s existence, to relate God’s praise.☼