When the State Department promptly condemned Israel’s early August air strike on a UN school in Gaza, it did so, as The New York Times’s Mark Lawler put it, in “blunt, unsparing language – among the toughest diplomats recall ever being aimed at Israel…”
Mr. Lawler also noted that the language “gave full vent to what has been weeks of mounting American anger toward the Israeli government” and that it “lays bare a frustrating reality for the Obama administration: the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has largely dismissed diplomatic efforts by the United States to end the violence in Gaza, leaving American officials to seethe on the sidelines about what they regard as disrespectful treatment.”
What undoubtedly added to the frustration was the following state of affairs described by Mr. Lawler:
With public opinion in both Israel and the United States solidly behind the Israeli military’s campaign against Hamas, no outcry from Israel’s Arab neighbors, and unstinting support for Israel on Capitol Hill, President Obama has had few obvious levers to force Mr. Netanyahu to stop pounding targets in Gaza until he was ready to do it.
That the Obama administration, in order to make a political point, was apparently willing to play into the hands of those claiming Israel had committed war crimes during Operation Protective Edge is shocking enough. A statement last week by Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – the nation’s highest ranking military officer – that Israel in fact went to extraordinary lengths to limit civilian casualties in Gaza makes it all the more disturbing.
But there is more to this story.
On August 3, the State Department issued a statement proclaiming itself “appalled” by the “disgraceful” Israeli shelling of a UN school that reportedly killed 10 Palestinians. White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki, following the same script, said,
The United States is appalled by today’s disgraceful shelling outside an UNWRA school in Rafah sheltering some 3,000 displaced persons, in which 10 more Palestinian civilians were tragically killed. We once again stress that Israel do more to meet its own standards and avoid civilian casualties.
Valerie Jarrett, one of President Obama’s closest advisers, also weighed in:
President Obama is frustrated and worried about the continuing violence despite the US Secretary of State’s mediation efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement between the two sides. It’s a devastating situation. Israel absolutely has the right to defend itself, and we are Israel’s staunchest ally, but you also can’t condone the killing of all of these innocent children.
Keep those remarks about Israel’s alleged carelessness with regard to Palestinian civilians in mind as you read the following statements from Gen. Dempsey, made during an appearance in New York at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs”
I actually do think that Israel went to extraordinary lengths to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties…. In this kind of conflict, where you are held to a standard that your enemy is not held to, you’re going to be criticized for civilian casualties…. [Hamas had turned Gaza into] very nearly a subterranean society…[t]hat caused the IDF some significant challenges. But they did some extraordinary things to try and limit civilian casualties, to include…making it known that they were going to destroy a particular structure…. [The deaths of civilians were] tragic, but I think the IDF did what they could [to avoid them]. The IDF is not interested in creating civilian casualties. They’re interested in stopping the shooting of rockets and missiles out of the Gaza Strip and into Israel.
Gen. Dempsey also revealed that three months ago the Pentagon sent a “lessons- learned team” consisting of senior officers to work with the IDF to draw lessons from Operation Protective Edge including “the measures they [the IDF] took to prevent civilian casualties and what they did with tunneling.”