| By TPR NATHANIEL ROSEN, JERUSALEM POST - The man who wrote the IDF code of ethics, Professor Asa Kasher, has indicated that in the current circumstances in southern Lebanon, provided the appropriate precautions are taken, it may be "morally justified" to obliterate areas with high concentrations of terrorists, even if civilian casualties result. "I don't know what the truth is about the circumstances," Kasher stressed. "But assuming that we warned the civilians and gave them enough time to leave, and that the civilians who remained chose, themselves, not to leave, then there is no reason to jeopardize the lives of the troops," he told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. . .
Moshe Keynan, the father of a soldier killed in another conflict, said he was angry with the IDF for jeopardizing soldiers' safety to protect civilians. "We need to worry that our kids return to their parents and we need to worry about our family and sons and wives, not how we look on BBC," said Keynan.
Meir Indor, director-general of the Terror Victims Association, seconded Keynan's concerns. "There is an argument which is dealing with the subject of how much danger soldiers can be exposed to in order to save civilians. I think the world already decided that you don't sacrifice your soldiers in order to save enemy civilians," said Indor, whose organization is lobbying the military and the government against putting soldiers in unnecessarily dangerous situations. . .
Kasher told the Post that the IDF acts according to two sets of moral considerations. The first is the IDF's code of ethics, The Spirit of the IDF, which was written by Kasher and a committee of generals in the early 1990s. The guidelines enumerate such values as sanctity of human life, human dignity, and purity of arms. Additionally, the IDF takes international law into consideration, although Kasher noted that international law is directed more toward two countries fighting each other rather than a country fighting a guerrilla or terrorist group |
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