The dilemma currently facing Israel that's all over the news is Palestinian gunmen using women, and sometimes children, as human shields. This as been an alleged tactic of such militants for years, but this is the first time, to my knowledge, that they have used this tactic so blatantly. According to this story, women formed a ring around a mosque to protect gunmen inside, believing that Israeli troops would not fire on women (unlike Palestinian suicide bombers who indiscriminately kill women and children). For once these women were wrong and the troops did fire and killed two of them and wounded several others.
This brings up an important ethical question. What is the right thing to do in such a situation? We have women serving in our armed forces, although never as active combatants at this point. But they are members of the military and legal combatants under international law, none the less. At what point do these Palestinian women cease to be civilians and start to be part of the opposing force? When do they become combatants? If "civilian" men were actively seeking to aid opposing troops in this way would they be valid targets? Is it right or good to treat women differently? What is the right way to respond to stop things like this from happening in the future? This is clearly a violation of the Geneva convention, but that doesn't really mean much to unnamed Palestinian guerrilla fighters. I don't think there is an easy answer to this question. It seems to me a moral dilemma, so I'm looking for input. If women, of their own free will, participate in activities to put themselves between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen -- not "suspected terrorists" or something like that, but men who are shooting at Israeli troops -- should they be valid targets for the troops? Is there some middle ground, where in this situation shooting the women should be avoided but if some get hit while aiming for the gunmen its okay? Or should they be treated as true civilians and be allowed to create no fire zones for militants to escape through? If so, why? Why should they be allowed to actively participate in paramilitary action without being seen as combatants? Where do we draw the line and what guidelines do we follow in such a situation? What should be the standards for our ethics in this situation?
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3 comments:
The reason Palestinians and jihadist use human shields is because it works. Sadly, its gonna take the slaughter of human shields on a large scale to end the tactic. Better sooner rather than later imo.
If you'll look closely, you'll clearly see that I beat you by nearly half a day, without even factoring in the time differential...
So there are three problems here.
First, you are making all sorts of gender assumptions that just don’t work here. Women combatants in the US military is a particular issue that has a particular history. My sense is that this sharp gender divide (men are warriors, women are nurses) doesn’t exist in many other cultures, Islamic Arabic cultures just being one example. So I just think the gender dynamic is out – the fact that these are women doesn’t matter so much internally to the combatants (although they are aware that it does matter to us and to Israelis).
Second, you are assuming all sorts of stuff based on the idea that the military is a discrete institution that has rules and recognized social authority. That is true in some places (mostly those that trace their origins to Europe, Israel included), but is not true in other places. When you have societies with a lesser degree of rationalization and bureaucracy, these civilian/combatant distinctions just don’t work. They are literally meaningless (that is why this isn’t at all clearly against the Geneva Convention).
Third, the language of “human shield” is misguided. Human shields are civilians held against their will by combatants to dissuade attacks by a superior force. That isn’t what is happening here. The best we could say is that non-combatant women are standing in solidarity with combatant men because they ideological support this fight and know that they have tools to help.
That said, Israel has to decide whether it will fight on its own terms or on the terms of its enemy. To do the former would drag the fight out much longer and compromise their ability to clearly win. To do the latter would mean that they would be taking the side of efficiency over consistency (I seem to remember Israel having a special indebtedness to international law sixty-some years ago…).
If Israel really wants to win, then it will fight on its own terms, suffer the consequences of that, and probably maintain the violent status quo in Palestine for another few generations. Shitty and intractable, but right.
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