By Rafael L. Bardají

The United Nations considers that there is a moral war and an immoral war. The moral one involves attacking Israel non-stop; what is clearly immoral is Israel’s defensive reaction. That is the interpretation and conclusion of the vote rendered by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), condemning Israel for its intervention in Gaza last year. Previously, the Goldstone Report had denounced the practices of both contenders, Israel and Hamas, against the governing Laws of War although the Council – at times presided by the most egregious dictators on this planet – has preferred to forget all about the Palestinians in order to direct all its attacks against the Israeli army.

It is the kind of empty talk that pleases and inflames the passions of the Left’s crybabies. Because, in reality, the military forces of the West, including Spain’s, could learn a lot about the care that Israel’s Defense Forces (IDF) put when planning and carrying out operations. One can indeed assert that the IDF is the most moral army in history. This assertion is not mine; it is Colonel Richard Kemp, former Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan, who has categorically stated it so during his testimony on October 16 (you can watch it now for free on YouTube.)

Now, anyone with some knowledge of history, either wearing a military uniform or using common sense, knows that war is a complex phenomenon, plagued by uncertainty and mistakes. For example, Spanish soldiers killed an Afghan soldier because he came too close; German soldiers killed several civilians when attempting to destroy some fuel trucks stolen by insurgents; and the Americans have bombed several family homes by mistake. Although these mistakes can be very distressing, they are not war crimes at all. This is particularly the case when these incidents happen in an environment where insurgents, guerrillas or terrorists willingly mingle with civilians – also when they use civilians as shields, or when they launch their attacks from civilian installations, schools, and hospitals in order to feel safe, to provoke a counterattack and to exploit the alleged brutality of their opponents through the manipulation of the media.

Israeli soldiers have been suffering this ordeal for years, but the powerful NATO allies are now undergoing that same plight in Afghanistan. In fact, I would dare to say that if our troops had applied the IDF’s moral code, there would have been fewer errors and civilian casualties in Afghanistan. Of course, this is clearly something to be kept under the rug since the politically correct stance is to ignore our own shortcomings and always blame Israel. The UN’s most deceptive argument indicates that there were more Palestinian than Israeli casualties. I cannot express it better than Shimon Peres who said at his annual conference in Jerusalem, “We suffered fewer casualties because we protect our people while they take advantage of their people.”

©2009 Translated by Miryam Lindberg

This article was first published by the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group