Between Humanitarian Logic and Operational Effectiveness: How the Israeli Army Faced the Second Intifada

Abstract

This chapter is devoted to the manner in which Tzahal (acronym for the Israeli Defense Forces [IDF]) has conducted its policing missions in the Occupied Territories and handled the fight against Palestinian terrorism since 2000, start of the second Intifada, also known as the al-Aqsa Intifada. The intention here is not to criticize or defend it. Neither is it to analyze the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as such, or even Palestinian terrorism, which others have amply dissected. The aim is to try to understand how a democracy defends itself when it is hit by terrorism and what importance it gives to the issue of human rights. How has the IDF dealt with the “dilemma facing a democracy’s fight against terrorism”?2 Has it managed to use discernment and maintain a balance between human rights and military effectiveness? Has it perpetrated “massacres” or war crimes? Has it used torture? Does the theory expounded by authors such as Stanley Hoffmann regarding the “inevitability” of war crimes “on a more or less massive scale” in the case of counterinsurrectional war, hold true in this case?3