The Efficacy of Israel’s Targeting Process

It seems to involve shooting at anything that moves

Does he grow up to continue the cycle of violence?

On April 4, White House spokesman John Kirby, in a televised conversation with Fox News journalist Neil Cavuto, speaking of the Israeli Defense Forces, said “We’re going to watch and see, they’re expected to make some announcements in coming hours and days of ways they’re going to improve the efficacy of their targeting process, ways that they’re going to improve humanitarian assistance, ways they’re going to protect aid workers.”

Indeed. As to the efficacy of their targeting process, it appears there does need to be some improvement. Among the dead in Gaza since last October 7 have been 203 humanitarian workers, 340 health care workers including doctors and nurses, 103 journalists, 13 poets, 12,300 children, 9,000 women, at least three of their own hostages mowed down while carrying a white flag, and seven workers from the charity World Central Kitchen. There have also been either 6,000 (according to Hamas) or 12,000 (according to the IDF) dead Hamas combatants as well.

The 1991 Gulf War to uproot Saddam Hussain from Kuwait, fought on television 33 years ago, taught that it was possible to guide bombs from fighter jets into the windows of buildings. Presumably, Israel has those bombs if not considerably better ones three decades later. Nonetheless, the IDF appear to have not considered improving the efficacy of their targeting process until they killed those seven charity workers from World Central Kitchen.

That could be construed as admission that the men and women in the tanks and airplanes doing the target acquisitions did not believe the targets they were acquiring were human, unlike, it was belatedly discovered, the seven dead from the World Central Kitchen. Those seven deaths forced apologies from some of Israel’s highest authorities who fired two top officers and reprimanded three others for their roles. There have been no apologies from Israel’s highest authorities for the 203 humanitarian workers, 340 health care workers including doctors and nurses, 103 journalists, 13 poets, 12,300 children, and 9,000 women who are also dead.

Israel appears to be operating in Gaza not under Article 37 of the Geneva Conventions, which states that “persons taking no active part in the hostilities…shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, color, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria,” but rather on the age-old principle of revenge. Indeed, the call by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, immediately after the Hamas raid, for “vengeance” against Hamas appears to include everyone who has the misfortune to live in Gaza. Revenge, in fact, seems to have taken priority over getting back the 100-odd hostages still in Hamas’s hands. So far that includes 33,137 Palestinians killed, 75,815 injured and 7,000 missing and presumed buried under the rubble, A roll call of the dead, from doctors to journalists to poets, makes it look like anyone who raises his or her head from the rubble will be shot, including the hostages who managed to escape from Hamas.

For decades, the ratio of killings of Israeli citizens to Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza has run about 10:1. Considering the 1,200 who died on October 7, and the 256 IDF service members who have died in the Gaza invasion against the 33,137 plus the 7,000 missing and presumed dead, the ratio is now up to roughly 27:1. There is every indication Israel intends to drive the ratio considerably higher.

But there is an age-old principle to revenge, and that is that it is likely to come back in spades. After the dead, who could number as many as 85,000 when the counting is done according to United Nations estimates, there are 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank and 2 million in Gaza. Does Netanyahu believe he can kill enough – with the logistical connivance of the United States, which inevitably will face concomitant violence – to stop retribution? Israel is full of Biblical scholars. Exodus 21:23-25 has been quoted for centuries: “But if any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”

The question is whether the United States, which also subscribes to Article 37 of the Geneva Convention, wants to help. “Too many civilians have been killed,” John Kirby told Fox News. “If we don’t see those changes, well, then, we’re going to have to see some changes and decisions of our own.” The changes and decisions apparently do not include the recent authorization to send another 1,000 MK82 500-pound bombs and more than 1,000 small-diameter bombs to Israel, according to an April 4 CNN broadcast. Despite what appears to be very real anguish on the part of US President Joe Biden, the shipments of war materiel seem to be continuing. The US is currently weighing a US$18 billion sale that includes fighter jets and other equipment.

There is a very real cost here for the administration in Washington, with a growing number of Americans – and perhaps Israelis as well, if demonstrations this weekend in Tel Aviv are any indication – believing what is going on in Gaza is genocide and that those 1,000 MK82 500-pound bombs and more than 1,000 small-diameter bombs should instead be on their way to Ukraine, where there is an increasingly desperate attempt to hold off the Russian invasion. Some 55 percent of Americans now disapprove of Israel’s actions against 36 percent who approve. Netanyahu’s unbridled approach to killings in Gaza as well as his utter refusal to listen to voices counseling caution have played havoc with Biden’s domestic standing in a tense political year, with Donald Trump waiting in the wings to take over, and with both Israel’s and the US’s international reputation in the balance.

“Hamas opened the floodgates of hell onto Gazans, and Hamas must be held to account,” said Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, a nonresident senior fellow, writing for the Washington, DC-based Atlantic Council. “That can’t begin where it needs to happen—among Palestinians, affirmatively rejecting Hamas’s leadership—until the war stops. And then the accounting for the rest of us also begins, when we actually see what happened in the Gaza Strip, what the Israelis were willing to do. As long as Israel’s leadership continues along this path, the downward spiral will only continue, with no bottom in sight.”