In an attempt to dispel what he called the media's unfair portrayal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and discuss the Israeli Defense Forces' code of ethics, Israeli Colonel Bentzi Gruber delivered a lecture titled "Ethics in the Field" to about 20 students and community members at Brown/RISD Hillel Tuesday evening.
The lecture focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza as a means to present the ambiguities involved in urban warfare. Gruber also screened footage from actual operations to punctuate and supplement his narration. Gruber, vice-commander of a reserves armored division of around 20,000 soldiers, has presented this lecture at various universities around the world.
Gruber began the event by emphasizing the typical amount of time for decision-making - eight seconds - available to Israeli Defense Forces soldiers and the factors that affect those decisions. The Israeli Defense Forces' code of ethics plays an integral role in decision-making, Gruber said. The code of ethics is composed of three basic values - necessity, distinction and proportionality. The tenet of necessity states that force should be used only to accomplish the mission and should not be applied to extraneous pursuits. The second tenet, distinction, stresses the importance of distinguishing between combatants and civilians so that innocent people are not harmed. The third tenet, proportionality, seeks to minimize collateral damage in proportion to the immediate threat.
After outlining the code of ethics, Gruber provided narration to accompany a clip depicting an explosive-loaded truck being tracked by an Israeli drone. The combatant in the truck hears the distinctive noise of the drone and diverts the truck toward the nearest building, even as a laser-guided missile hurtles towards the truck. The soldiers guiding the missile direct it sideways into the ground, rather than risk killing innocent people, Gruber said.
The Israeli Defense Forces' efforts to minimize civilian casualties even extend to airdropped paper evacuation announcements, text messages and calls to occupants of the target and surrounding locations, Gruber said. Sometimes occupants of a targeted house call their neighbors over to have a barbecue on the roof in order to prevent the Israeli Defense Forces from blowing it up, he noted. Rather than blow up the building and cause high civilian casualties - an action the Israeli Defense Forces are frequently accused of - they execute a tactic known as roof-knocking, Gruber said. Soldiers guide very accurate laser-guided missiles to the edges of the roof to scare away the people on the roof. The Israeli Defense Forces only detonates the building once all of the civilians have vacated the scene, Gruber said.
Gruber said Palestinians employ terrorist tactics - seeking out coverage by altering their path to hit populated areas and shielding themselves with children - because they know the Israeli Defense Forces will not risk civilian casualties. He punctuated his description with footage of combatants acting out those tactics.
Before launching into his conclusion, Gruber described the Chesed in the Field charity program he organizes each year. The program pairs soldiers with terminally ill or disabled individuals to extend a hand to those typically marginalized in their society, thereby instilling community values and social responsibility in soldiers, Gruber said.
Gruber criticized the media's portrayal of the Israeli Defense Forces several times throughout his presentation, relating anecdotes of his being vilified and denounced as a war criminal at other college lectures. As his talk came to a close, he asked members of the audience to relay the message he presented.
Often terms are used to describe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that are more applicable to traditional wars, said Zachary Ingber '15, vice president of Brown Students for Israel. Gruber has experience on the ground in a unique situation in which combatants are not easily recognized, Ingber added.
Student reactions around campus to the lecture were mixed.
Many news services can be somewhat biased in their portrayal of Israeli actions, said Alon Galor '15. It is helpful to have someone who has been on the battlefield present the difficulties inherent to this type of warfare and to remind students that these soldiers have a limited timespan to make their decisions, he added.
Max Kaplan '15 said Hillel tends to showcase extremely pro-Israel perspectives without presenting the other side of the story. And though he said he usually agrees with the views presented, it is important to hear another side of the debate.
But Kaplan said Gruber's talk was still valuable because Israel's role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often misrepresented in the media.
