Hi, how are you ?
I have a tough question. How are we to answer when being confronted with the wrong behavior of some IDF soldiers that are crazy or stupid enough to leave a trail of evidences of their actions.
Take care
Shalom! :)
It’s fine and necessary to acknowledge that there are bad people in every organization. But we can have faith in the integrity of the IDF and know that they will (and do) hold our soldiers to high standards and do not tolerate misconduct and they punish and prosecute when it is appropriate.
Here’s the issue. People criticizing the IDF is merely a microcosm of them criticizing Israel as a whole. They’re picking out issues that any other country has and using them to deem us evil people and an evil country. Does that mean that soldiers being inappropriate isn’t disgusting and unacceptable and shouldn’t be dealt with? Absolutely not. But the issue we have is that, as usual, Israel is held to a standard no other country is. We are asked to do more and be better than any other country in existence. It is demanded that we prove ourselves worthy of basic human respect in a way no other country is. Our people are constantly equated with our government in a way no other country is. Nothing we do will appease the antisemite and the people criticizing the IDF, even when their claims are accurate, are not doing so because they care about human rights and international law; they’re doing it because they hate Jews and this is just another way for them to demonize us.