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<h2><b>Challenging the Dahiya Doctrine</b></h2><font size=2>By
<a href="http://palestinethinktank.com/author/guest-post/">Guest Post</a>
• Oct 22nd, 2009 at 20:24 <br>
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<a href="http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/10/22/brenda-heard-challenging-the-dahiya-doctrine/" eudora="autourl">
http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/10/22/brenda-heard-challenging-the-dahiya-doctrine/<br>
<br>
</a></font><font size=3>WRITTEN BY BRENDA HEARD <br><br>
<i>“Part of the functions of reports such as this is to attempt, albeit
in a very small way, to restore the dignity of those whose rights have
been violated in the most fundamental way of all –the arbitrary
deprivation of life. It is important that the international community
asserts formally and unequivocally that such violence to the most basic
fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals should not be overlooked
and should be condemned.” <br><br>
<a href="http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/9/docs/UNFFMGC_Report.pdf">
–The Goldstone Report, p 524 ¶ 1682</a></i> <br><br>
The tragic
<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1116912.html">tale</a> of
the Samouni family of Gaza has become well known. “We feel [we are] in an
exile, even though we are in our homeland, on our land,” says Salah
Samouni in a
<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1121720.html">recent Haaretz
article</a>. “We sit and envy the dead. They are the ones who are at
rest.” The interesting part, though, is not the renewed images of
the dead. The interesting part is the backdrop of suggestion: the
Samouni family felt that their longstanding, amicable relationship with
the Israeli powers would protect them; they were naively mistaken.
They were to be victims to the Dahiya Doctrine. <br><br>
The Haaretz report states that Salah’s father, Talal, ‘had been employed
by Jews’ for nearly 40 years and that whenever he was sick, ‘the employer
would call, ask after his health, and forbid him to come to work before
he had recovered.’” They had managed to get along. <br><br>
Haaretz notes that the “Samounis were always confident that, in the event
of any military invasions into Gaza, they could always manage to get
along with the Israeli army. Until 2005, before Israel's disengagement
from the Strip, the Jewish settlement of Netzarim was located right next
door, and several family members worked there from time to time. When the
joint Israeli-Palestinian patrols were active, Israeli soldiers and
Palestinian security officials sometimes asked the Samounis to ‘lend’
them a tractor to flatten a patch of land or repair the Salah al-Din Road
(for example, when a diplomatic convoy needed to pass through). <br><br>
While Samouni family members worked on their tractors, gathering sand,
the soldiers would watch them. ‘When the soldiers wanted us to leave,
they would fire above our heads. That's what experience taught me,’
recalls Salah Samouni. . . . The older men of the family. . . worked in
Israel until the 1990s in different localities, including Bat Yam, Moshav
Asseret (near Gedera) and the ‘Glicksman Plant.’ They all believed that
the Hebrew they had learned would assist and if necessary save them
during encounters with soldiers.” <br><br>
Even up until the mass killing, the Samouni family still clung naively to
the notion that their working relationship with the IDF would protect
them. Haaretz reports that “on January 4, under orders from the
army, Salah Samouni and the rest of the family left their home, which had
been turned into a military position, and moved to the other, the home of
Wael [Samouni], located on the southern side of the street. The fact that
it was the soldiers who had relocated them, had seen the faces of the
children and the older women, and the fact that the soldiers were
positioned in locations surrounding the house just tens of meters away,
instilled in the family a certain amount of confidence – despite the IDF
fire from the air, from the sea and from the land, despite the hunger and
the thirst.” <br><br>
And then the IDF shelled that home, killing 21 of the Samouni
family. Their usefulness had expired. <br><br>
The Samouni’s had not thrown stones at Israeli tanks and had not waved
angry fists at Israeli soldiers. Instead, they had worked dutifully
for the Jewish population and had learned its language. But they
were not spared. They were not spared because they had not
themselves been Jewish. They were not spared because “peaceful
co-existence” is merely a phrase bandied about by politicians seeking
camouflage. <br><br>
On 18 January 2009,
<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1121720.html">reports
Haaretz</a>, “after the IDF left the Gaza Strip, the rescue teams
returned to the neighborhood. Wael's house was found in ruins: IDF
bulldozers had demolished it entirely – with the corpses inside.”
Evidence destroyed. When Haaretz questioned Israeli military about
the behaviour of the military forces in the Samouni family's
neighbourhood, an IDF spokesman said that all of the claims had been
examined, and that ‘Upon completion of the examination, the findings will
be taken to the military advocate general, who will decide about the need
to take additional steps.’” Whether the Haaretz article intended
genuine concern or a subtle sneer, it works both ways. <br><br>
The Goldstone Mission, however, was not convinced of the usefulness of
Israeli self-investigation. Paragraph 1629 of the
<a href="http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/9/docs/UNFFMGC_Report.pdf">
Goldstone Report</a> notes that the “Mission concludes that there are
serious doubts about the willingness of Israel to carry out genuine
investigations in an impartial, independent, prompt and effective way as
required by international law.” This long-term unwillingness to
abide by international law is so thoroughly documented in the Report that
<a href="http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/12/docs/DraftReport12thSpecialSession.pdf">
the UN Human Rights Council on 16 October 2009</a> not only expressed
“serious concern at the lack of implementation by the occupying Power,
Israel, of previously adopted resolutions and recommendations of the
Council relating to the human rights situation in the Occupied
Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem,” but also condemned the
“non-cooperation by the occupying power, Israel, with the independent
international fact-finding [Goldstone] mission.” <br><br>
The common denominator of the
<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1121720.html">Haaretz
article</a> and the
<a href="http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/9/docs/UNFFMGC_Report.pdf">
Goldstone Report</a> and the
<a href="http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/12/docs/DraftReport12thSpecialSession.pdf">
UN Human Rights Council Report</a> is the challenge to the Israeli
military concept known as the “Dahiya doctrine.” The Goldstone
Report states that “The Israeli military conception of what was necessary
in a future war with Hamas seems to have been developed from at least the
time of the 2006 conflict in southern Lebanon. It finds its origin in a
military doctrine that views disproportionate destruction and creating
maximum disruption in the lives of many people as a legitimate means to
achieve military and political goals.” (¶1209) <br>
<a href="http://palestinethinktank.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/ruins-of-gaza.jpg">
<br>
</a>In supporting the Goldstone Report, the UN Human Rights Council has
acknowledged the premise that the responsibility for the most recent
Lebanon and Gaza wars lies squarely with one unique factor: Israeli
political goals. The UN-welcomed Report notes historical context by
underscoring that the “specific means Israel has adopted to meet its
military objectives in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and in Lebanon
have repeatedly been censured by the United Nations Security Council,
especially its attacks on houses. The military operations from 27
December to 18 January did not occur in a vacuum, either in terms of
proximate causes in relation to the Hamas/Israeli dynamics or in relation
to the development of Israeli military thinking about how best to
describe the nature of its military objectives.” (¶1189) <br><br>
The Goldstone Report, while situated within the Gaza conflict of 2008,
found itself striking at the root of that conflict, a root that stretches
back at least two years prior: <br><br>
“In its operations in southern Lebanon in 2006, there emerged from
Israeli military thinking a concept known as the Dahiya doctrine, as a
result of the approach taken to the Beirut neighbourhood of that
name. Major General Gadi Eisenkot, the Israeli Northern Command
chief, expressed the premise of the doctrine: ‘What happened in the
Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which
Israel is fired on. […] We will apply disproportionate force on it and
cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are
not civilian villages, they are military bases. […] This is not a
recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved.’ <br><br>
After the war in southern Lebanon in 2006, a number of senior former
military figures appeared to develop the thinking that underlay the
strategy set out by Gen. Eiskenot. In particular Major General (Ret.)
Giora Eiland has argued that, in the event of another war with Hizbullah,
the target must not be the defeat of Hizbullah but ‘the elimination of
the Lebanese military, the destruction of the national infrastructure and
intense suffering among the population… Serious damage to the Republic of
Lebanon, the destruction of homes and infrastructure, and the suffering
of hundreds of thousands of people are consequences that can influence
Hizbollah’s behaviour more than anything else’.” (¶11911192) <br><br>
The Report again points to the similarity of goals and strategies of
Israeli policies in both Lebanon and Gaza and quotes at length the
October 2008 reflections of Col. (Ret.) Gabriel Siboni:<br><br>
“With an outbreak of hostilities, the IDF will need to act immediately,
decisively, and with force that is disproportionate to the enemy's
actions and the threat it poses. Such a response aims at inflicting
damage and meting out punishment to an extent that will demand long and
expensive reconstruction processes. The strike must be carried out as
quickly as possible, and must prioritize damaging assets over seeking out
each and every launcher. Punishment must be aimed at decision makers and
the power elite… In Lebanon, attacks should both aim at Hizbollah’s
military capabilities and should target economic interests and the
centres of civilian power that support the organization. Moreover, the
closer the relationship between Hezbollah and the Lebanese Government,
the more the elements of the Lebanese State infrastructure should be
targeted. Such a response will create a lasting memory among … Lebanese
decision makers, thereby increasing Israeli deterrence and reducing the
likelihood of hostilities against Israel for an extended period. At the
same time, it will force Syria, Hizbollah, and Lebanon to commit to
lengthy and resource-intensive reconstruction programmes… This approach
is applicable to the Gaza Strip as well. There, the IDF will be required
to strike hard at Hamas and to refrain from the cat and mouse games of
searching for Qassam rocket launchers. The IDF should not be expected to
stop the rocket and missile fire against the Israeli home front through
attacks on the launchers themselves, but by means of imposing a ceasefire
on the enemy.” (¶1193) <br><br>
The Report emphasises that the Dahiya Doctrine of debilitating punishment
was far from bluster. The Mission, states the Report has been “able
to conclude from a review of the facts on the ground that it witnessed
for itself that what is prescribed as the best strategy appears to have
been precisely what was put into practice.” (¶1195) In fact, the
Report continues, the “operations were carefully planned in all their
phases. Legal opinions and advice were given throughout the planning
stages and at certain operational levels during the campaign. There were
almost no mistakes made according to the Government of Israel. It is in
these circumstances that the Mission concludes that what occurred in just
over three weeks at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 was a
deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and
terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic
capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an
ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability.” (¶1690)
What was born in Lebanon in 2006 as a bombardment of the Dahiya district
of Beirut had evolved into the blitzkrieg of Gaza. <br><br>
In challenging the Dahiya Doctrine, the UN Human Rights Council confirms
the ultimate finding of the Goldstone Report: aggressive annihilation in
the quest for political gain violates the rule of law which safeguards
the balance of civilised societies. It is not merely the vicious
act which must be condemned, but the concept itself. It is agreed
that the responsibility for these atrocities lies “in the first place
with those who designed, planned, ordered and oversaw the operations.”
(¶1692) In carrying forward the recommendations of the Report, the
UN Human Rights Council supports the principles of international law and
that Israel’s “longstanding impunity has been a key factor in the
perpetuation of violence in the region and in the reoccurrence of
violations.” (¶1761) These are facts that, unlike the Samouni
family home, can not be demolished and reduced to
rubble. <br><br>
By Brenda Heard<br>
Friends of Lebanon<br>
<a href="http://www.friendsoflebanon.org/">www.friendsoflebanon.org</a>
<br><br>
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