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Recent
Stories
May
23, 2003
Standard
Schaefer
Lifting the Sanctions: Who Benefits?
Ron
Jacobs
Long Live People's Park!
Michael
Greger, MD
Return of Mad Cow: US Beef Supply
at Risk
Elaine
Cassel
Tigar to Ashcroft: "Secrecy is the Enemy of Democratic Govt."
Sam
Hamod
The Shi'a of Iraq
Christopher
Greeder
After the Layoffs
Alexander
Cockburn
Derrida's Double Life (poem)
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog 5/23
May
22, 2003
Mark
Gaffney
Christian in Name Only
Carl
Estabrook
Republic of Fear
Carl
Camacho, Jr.
Reason for Hope
Ben
Granby
What Rates a Headline from the Middle
East?
Vanessa
Jones
Terror Alerts in Australia
Mickey
Z.
Instant Understanding
Don
Monkerud
Snowballs in a Soggy Economy
Barry Lando
The Nether-Nether World of G.W. Bush
Steve
Perry
Total Information
Awareness: Secret Shadow Program?
May
21, 2003
Dave
Lindorff
Ari Fleischer Quits the Scene: The
Liar's Gone, the Enablers Remain
Chris
Floyd
How Blood Money Becomes Business Opportunity
Dr. Gerry
Lower
Graham's God and Bush's Pathology
Patrick
Cockburn
In Post War Iraq, the Signs of Breakdown
are Everywhere
Brian Cloughley
The Fatuous Braintrust: Newt, Rummy and Wolfowitz
Saul
Landau
Shopping, the End of the World and the Politics of Bush
Larry Kearney
Two Morning Poems, May 2003
Steve
Perry
Chaos in Iraq: Just What the US Wanted?
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Justice Comes to Iraq
May
20, 2003
Tariq
Ali
The Empire Advances
Ahmad
Faruqui
Whither American Nationalism?
Ben Tripp
Dialysis with Osama
Linda
Heard
The Cage of Occupation
Cynthia
McKinney
Toward a Just and Peaceful World
Edward
Said
The Arab Condition
Mokhiber
and Weissman
Why Ari Should Have Resigned in Protest Long Ago
Stew
Albert
Yale Men
Steve Perry
The New Face of Al-Qaeda
May
19, 2003
Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
A Letter to Kofi Annan on Powell's Missing
Evidence
CounterPunch
Wire
"Terror" Slut Steve Emerson
Eats Crow
John
Chuckman
Blair's Awkward Lies
Matt
Vidal
Corporate Media and the Myth of the Free Market
Michael
S. Ladah
The Fine Print to Bush's Road Map
Robert
Fisk
Bush's Eternal War Backfires
Elaine
Cassel
Clarence Thomas, Still Whining After All These Years
Jonathan
Freedland
Ann Coulter's Appalling Magic
Steve Perry
Play It Again, O-Sam-a
May
17 / 18, 2003
Uri
Avnery
The Children's Teeth
Peter
Linebaugh
An American Tribute to Christopher
Hill
Gary
Leupp
Nepal Today
Rock and
Rap Confidential
The Republican Plot Against the Dixie Chicks
Walter
Sommerfeld
Plundering Baghdad's Museums
Ron Jacobs
Condy Rice's Yipping Tirades
Thomas
P. Healy
Dubya Does Indy
Tarif Abboushi
Bush, Sharon and the Roadmap
Francis
Boyle
Debating US War Crimes in Iraq
Mark Davis
An Interview with Richard Butler
Richard
Lichtman
American Mourning
Michael
Ortiz Hill
Overcoming Terrorism
Adam
Engel
Uncle Sam is YOU!
Alan Maas
The Best News Show on TV
Poets'
Basement
Reiss, Guthrie, Albert
Elaine
Cassel
Good Enough for an Alien
Website
of the Weekend
The 37 Americans Who Run Iraq
Song of
the Weekend
Talkin' Sounds Just Like Joe McCarthy Blues
May
16, 2003
Leah
Wells
In Iraq Water and Oil Do Mix
Ben Tripp
Fear Itself
Sharon
Smith
The Resegregation of US Schools
Ramzy Baroud
Does Defeat Have to be So Humiliating?
Sam
Hamod
A Nation of Fear
Phil Reeves
Baghdad Pays the Price
Robert
McChesney
The FCC's Big Grab
Mark Engler
Those Who Don't Count
Steve
Perry
We're All
Extras in Bush's Movie
Website
of the Day
Iraq and Our
Energy Future
May
15, 2003
Ayesha
Iman and Sindi Medar-Gould
How
Not to Help Amina Lawal: The Hidden Dangers of Letter
Writing Campaigns
Julie
Hilden
Moussaoui and the Camp X-Ray Detainees:
Can He Get a Fair Trial?
Tanya
Reinhart
Bush's Roadmap: a Ticket to Failure
Laura Carlsen
Here We Go Again: NAFTA Plus or Minus?
Kenneth
Rapoza
The New Fakers: State Dept. Undercuts
New Yorker's Goldberg
Stew Albert
A Story I Will Tell
Steve
Perry
Bush's Little
Nukes
Website
of the Day
Strip-o-Rama
May
14, 2003
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Jason
Leopold
The Pentagon and Hallburton: a Secret
November Deal for Iraq's Oil
David
Lindorff
Fighting the Patriot Act: Now It's
Alaska
John
Chuckman
Giggling into Chaos
Jack
McCarthy
Twin Towers of Journalism: Racism
and Double Standards
Wayne
Madsen
Assassinating JFK Again
M.
Junaid Alam
The Longer View
Paul
de Rooij
The New Hydra's Head:
Propagandists and the Selling of the US/Iraq War
James
Reiss
What? Me Worry?
Steve Perry
More on Saudi Arabia Bombings
Website
of the Day
A Tribute to Ted Joans
May
13, 2003
Saul
Landau
Clear Channel Fogs the Airwaves
Michael
Neumann
Has Islam Failed? Not by Western
Standards
Uri
Avnery
My Meeting with Arafat
Steve Perry
The Saudi Arabia Bombing
Jacob
Levich
Democracy Comes to Iraq: Kick Their Ass and Grab Their Gas
William
Lind
The Hippo and the Mongoose: a Question of Military Theory
The
Black Commentator
Fraud at the Times: Blaming Blacks for White Folks' Mistakes
Stew Albert
Asylum
Hammond
Guthrie
An Illogical Reign
Website
of the Day
Sy Hersh: War and Intelligence
May
12, 2003
Chris
Floyd
Bush, Bin Laden, Bechtel, and Baghdad
Dave
Lindorff
America's Dirty Bombs
Sam
Hamod and Elaine Cassel
Resisting the Bush Administration's War on Liberty
Uzi
Benziman
Sharon and Sons, Inc.
Jason
Leopold
The Decline and Fall of Thomas White
Rich Procter
George Jumps the Shark
Federico
Moscogiuri
Going to Israel? Sign or Else
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 5/12
Book
of the Day
Fooling
Marty Peretz
Website
of the Day
T-Shirts to Protest In
Hot Stories
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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May
24, 2003
Kill and Die Trying
The Hannibal
Procedure
By URI AVNERY
Hannibal crossed the Alps with his division of
combat elephants and terrorized mighty Rome for years. He commanded
the army of Carthage, originally a Canaanite Phoenician colony,
spoke a kind of Hebrew and bore a Hebrew name ("God has
been gracious"). In my youth, when we were searching for
Hebrew and Semite heroes as role models, he figured high on our
list.
It appears that the Israeli army, too,
considers him a model. This week the legendary general was at
the center of a controversial public disclosure.
The subject of the sensation was the
"Hannibal Procedure"--an Israeli army practice instituted
in the mid 80s, first in oral instructions and later as an official
order bearing this name. Some time ago this order was officially
amended, but many soldiers attest that the original version it
is still in force. It has now been published by Haaretz.
It can be summed up in eight words: Better
a dead than a captured Israeli soldier.
When an Israeli soldier is taken prisoner,
a huge public demand arises to bring him home, even at the cost
of releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. In May 1985,
Israel released 1150 Palestinians in return for three Israeli
prisoners-of-war, in an exchange known as the "Jibril deal"
(named after Ahmed  Jibril, the chief of a Palestinian organization
serving Syria and fighting Arafat.)
The Israeli army chiefs wanted to avoid
such exchanges in the future at all costs, quite literally. They
ordered soldiers to shoot at the car of the captors (guerillas
generally use cars for such exploits), even if this would endanger
the life of the captive soldier. Meaning: liberate the soldier
by killing him.
The logic behind the order is not new.
It has been part of Israeli thinking for decades. It says simply:
Never give in to terrorists. Giving in will just encourage them
to capture more of our people. Better to have your people killed
together with their captors, so as to deter others.
This logic had terrible consequences
in Munich, when the German police (with the encouragement of
the Israeli government) opened fire on the captors of the Israeli
athletes resulting in the deaths of both. Most of the hostages
were presumably killed by the police, since the post mortem results
were never published.
A similar tragedy occurred in Ma'aloth,
in northern Israel, when Palestinians took a large group of schoolchildren
hostage. Many children were killed when Moshe Dayan ordered the
use of force to liberate them, in the middle of negotiations
with their captors.
One of the most celebrated exploits of
the Israeli army was in Entebbe (Uganda), when all but one of
the passengers of a hijacked plane were freed. But the slightest
hitch would have sufficed to turn the operation into a terrible
massacre.
The "Hannibal Procedure" was
unique in that it required soldiers to shoot their captured comrade.
Tens of thousands of soldiers heard this order in the course
of time, and it appears that most of them found nothing objectionable
in it. There were some who opposed it, but their voice was not
heard, until a courageous doctor, a reserve officer, recently
voiced his protest publicly.
It is a revolting order, because it elevates
an abstract being, "the army" or "the state",
above human life. The utterances of some of the officers quoted
by journalist Sarah Leibovitch-Dar, are no less revolting.
The commander of a battalion whose soldiers
had been taken prisoner said with satisfaction: "The pilots
acted and did not ask questions." He meant the airmen who
were ordered to bomb all cars moving in the immediate area, in
the hope that the captives were in one of them.
One of the officers who formulated the
order, a religious man, a colonel, said: "In every decision
some of the soldiers come back in coffins. In our eyes, this was
just one of millions of decisions that are made every day in
the (area) commandThe decision is logical and conforms to the
spirit of the army. It does not seem more cruel or less logical
then other orders that were given every day by the command and
endangered the lives of many more soldiers."
Former Chief-of-Staff Dan Shomron defends
the order this way: "It's risk against risk. There (on the
other side) somebody stands holding the Geneva Convention?"
And former Chief-of-Staff Amnon Shahak: "It is right to
prevent the capture of soldiers at any cost." In army parlance,
"at any cost" means: at any cost.
Another senior officer explained that
"the state carries the captive soldiers like a wound that
does not heal. Therefore, the order is very logical."
How did the thousands of soldiers, who
heard this order just minutes before entering occupied South
Lebanon, react? One of them recounts: "All of them knew
the order like robots. If they asked questions, the commanders
told them that this is the order and that's it, and that in the
Israeli army you don't ask questions, and now move, get into
the trucks."
The Israeli army has changed a lot since
its first days--and not for the better. Forgotten are the days
when it was led by commanders like Yig'al Alon and Shimon Avidan,
who valued the life of the individual soldier. They did not need
to consult the Army Advocate General in order to know what is
forbidden and where the black flag is flying.
Decades of service in support of the
occupation have changed the Israeli army beyond recognition.
This is another army, an army that produces robot soldiers and
whose officers are no different from the generals of the Russian
Czar or the King of Prussia. Not one of them would dream of eulogizing
the fallen soldiers of the enemy, as did Chief-of-Staff Yitzhaq
Rabin after the June 1967 war. The disdain for the lives of Palestinians
has gradually led to disdain for the lives of Israelis.
When generals plan a military operation,
they take into account that it will cost the lives of so-and-so
many of their soldiers. That is an inherent part of military
planning. Afterwards they can shed crocodile tears at solemn
ceremonies, but for the general it is part of the job. The end
justifies the casualties.
This outlook remained unchanged for a
general out of uniform. A man like Ariel Sharon, who sees it
as his historic mission to eliminate the Palestinian national
entity and enlarge the Jewish State up to the Jordan river, knows
that this task must cost so-and-so many casualties. There is
nothing upsetting in this for a general hundreds of whose soldiers
were killed in his battles. Just cold calculation.
Five generals are now governing the affairs
of Israel: The Prime Minister, the Chief-of-Staff, the Defense
Minister, the chief of Army Intelligence and the Political Advisor
to the Defense Ministry. Behind them stand the hundreds of generals,
in uniform and out, who constitute the most influential political
lobby in Israel. This group, which controls Israel's political
and economic life, is united by the military outlook and way
of thinking.
The "Hannibal Procedure" is
the ultimate expression of this world view.
Uri Avnery
is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He
is one of the writers featured in The
Other Israel: Voices of Dissent and Refusal. He can be
reached at: avnery@counterpunch.org.
Today's
Features
Standard
Schaefer
Lifting the Sanctions: Who Benefits?
Ron
Jacobs
Long Live People's Park!
Michael
Greger, MD
Return of Mad Cow: US Beef Supply
at Risk
Elaine
Cassel
Tigar to Ashcroft: "Secrecy is the Enemy of Democratic Govt."
Sam
Hamod
The Shi'a of Iraq
Christopher
Greeder
After the Layoffs
Alexander
Cockburn
Derrida's Double Life (poem)
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog 5/23
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