"We Are Fighting a Just War With Just Means"
"Of course, militaries have soldiers that do things that are wrong [but Israel holds them accountable and launches investigations]. If Israel was trying to conduct civilian harm there [in Gaza], nothing shows that. Not my on-hand research or the numbers.""[If Israel wasn't following the rules of war, Gaza] would look a lot worse than it does now.""I believe in not just looking at the data everybody else has, but I have a research methodology of walking the ground, observing, asking the hard questions.""You really don't understand the complexity of what the IDF had to face, until you see the dense urban terrain. You're walking on top of hundreds of miles of tunnel. You have a war of this scale, in a context that no military has faced in modern history."John Spencer, urban warfare expert, chair of urban warfare studies, Modern War Institute, West Point
One
of the world's preeminent experts on urban warfare has taken himself
inside the Gaza Strip on three occasions since December. Embedded with
the Israel Defence Forces, John Spencer analyzed the war against Hamas
at multiple angles and perspectives. He meticulously conducted
interviews with figures such as the prime minister, IDF chief of staff,
division commanders, brigade commanders, battalion commanders "all the way down to soldiers in the field".
Since
he is well aware of critics accusing Israel of conducting its conflict
with Hamas with disproportionate casualties, excessive force,
indiscriminate bombing in an alleged campaign to starve ordinary Gazans
to accomplish genocide on Palestinians as it is frequently charged with,
he was intensely interested in what his close proximity to the war
situation would actually reveal. What he saw was the IDF performing "harm mitigation at a level that nobody's ever tried".
He
personally and at close range observed clear and consistent following
of legal warfare requirements; what is militarily referred to as "civilian harm mitigation steps".
That would include evacuating civilians from specific areas by handing
out maps of safe areas, real-time population tracking methodology and
warning shots on roofs before target bombing to clear the buildings of
civilians. His was not the only critical investigation by any means:
British Col. Richard Kemp and British Maj. Andrew Fox came to identical
conclusions through their own investigations.
Photo by Handout/Israeli Army/AFP via Getty Images |
Spencer
served two tours in Iraq, as an infantry platoon leader and company
commander and has over 25 years of experience active in the British
military. He currently serves as a colonel in the California State
Guard, as director of urban warfare training. While there, he co-created
and instructs a unique course designed to improve the capacity of
commanders and staff in coordinating large-scale urban operations. As
the author of several books, he has advised four-star generals and
Pentagon officials.
His
research, over a decade, focused on military operations in situations
such as dense urban areas and subterranean warfare; Nagorno-Karabakh (Azerbaijan),
Ukraine and Israel included. The popular charge of Israel's response to
the Palestinian terrorists' atrocities of October 7 has been
disproportionate or indiscriminate, he opposes them as "baseless". As
for the accusation Israel is attempting to starve Gazans, that
represents "a big lie; the data does not support the claim. [Israel] has done everything feasible and reasonable to flood Gaza with food."
He contends that Israel is "horrible at communicating operations to the public". Were he to be asked to advise on the issue, he would "assign more resources to winning the battle of narratives on a day-to-day, hour-to-hour basis". According to Spencer, a win for Israel would reflect this hoped-for eventuality:
- Hamas virtually eliminated
- Gaza demilitarized
- hostages freed
- reconstruction
- deradicalization.
Throughout
eleven long and arduous months of conflict with the terrorist group
Hamas, with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen, and more
latterly, Jordanian Palestinians, all directed by the Islamic Republic
of Iran in its covenant for the destruction of the Jewish state, Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly advised his home
public and the critical world at large: "We are fighting a just war, with just means".
"There has been no actual evidence -- unless you believe TikTok videos -- of Israel targeting civilians, or any prohibited target.""[There is, however], a lot of evidence [that Hamas intercepted aid, sometimes shooting people to get it, then selling [it] at a high price in the Palestinian marketplace].""Under the social media algorithm-driven confirmation bias, if you had negative ideas about Israel, it's going to feed you that. Then you're going to infer what you want.""The enemy [Hamas] had 15 years to prepare to defend the area, meaning it's going to require a lot of force to overtake the enemy."John Spencer, Modern War Institute
Labels: A Just War, Hamas Invasion of Israel, Israel Defense Forces in Gaza, Palestinian Terrorism
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