On IDF Refusals To Follow Orders

The Interlocking Perspectives Of National Law, International Law And Jewish Law (Part One of Three)

Louis Rene Beres, (Professor of International Law at Purdue University and the author of many books and articles dealing with international law.) The Jewish Press

Here we go again. The more things change, the more they remain the same. Now it is Hebron, where a number of soldiers have correctly refused intrinsically wrongful orders to evict fellow Jews from their homes. Now it is Homesh, where authentic Jews labor industriously and heroically to remedy earlier IDF evictions.

Ted Belman
I argued the same thing in Insubordination is appropriate when government is illegitimate.

Still committed to an incomprehensible policy of national auto-destruction, the present government in Jerusalem – following the humiliating surrender script that has painfully evolved from Rabin’s original codification of “Oslo” – drags out the same tired mantras of IDF military “discipline,” “command” and “loyalty.” To be sure, Israel’s soldiers must normally carry out orders and respect proper lines of command authority, but not when matters are incontestably abnormal. It should certainly appear abnormal to any thinking Jew that Israel’s leaders are still requiring the citizenry to plunge headlong toward collective dismemberment. As was expressed recently by Gary Cooperberg in his always lucid Voice From Hebron (August 16, 2007),

“…a sharp distinction must be made between orders given in an operation of battle with our enemies, and a political order which has nothing to do with defending the nation and which may conflict with moral and ethical standards.”

Significantly, Gary’s point here is far more “moderate” than my own, which is that IDF Jewish eviction orders are genuinely injurious to Israel’s national survival and (as we shall soon see here) to global security as a whole.

A few years back, when then Prime Minister Sharon first began to implement his flawed ideas for “disengagement,” a good friend of mine in Israel, a hard-fighting veteran of all-too-many wars, summarized his views of the newest Jewish capitulation as “irrational, fatally dangerous, unjust, immoral, illegal and disgustingly inhumane.” Forced upon Israel by “blatantly undemocratic means,” he continued analytically, its underlying cause is “auto-anti-Semitism.” Ironically, of course, because the association of surrender with Sharon was so out-of-character, the Sharon government’s edict to evict fellow Jews was nonetheless a de facto expression of “auto-anti-Semitism.” It was, therefore, not only the corollary right of each individual Israeli soldier to reject disengagement, but his absolutely sacred duty.

Sadly, to be sure, nothing fundamental has changed. Nothing at all. On the contrary, to the extent that Prime Minister Olmert has very consciously coupled his plans for additional territorial surrender on behalf of the “Road Map” with a recent mass freeing of terrorists – and also with the extensive arming of one murderous terrorist faction (Fatah) against another (Hamas) – the Jewish soldier’s obligation to resist Israeli self-destruction is now more compelling than ever. This legal and Halachic argument is all the more true presently, because Fatah and Hamas have both the clear intention and the documented capability to escalate to mass-destruction forms of terrorism.

Let us not forget that the essence of any government rests upon a credible assurance of protection. By definition, there is always a solemn “pact” that exists between citizens and governments concerning this existential assurance, and right now the Olmert government is manifestly determined to violate its part of the bargain. Understood with particular respect to the Jewish State in 2007, it must be fully understood that any IDF military orders that would plausibly undermine Israel’s statehood are inherently lacking in moral and legal authority, and must be strenuously opposed.

In short, Israel’s soldiers have no right or obligation to follow orders that are prima facie contrary to Jewish survival. Naturally we can’t expect that each soldier will have the right to determine for himself in each case whether a particular order is valid or invalid, but in the matter before us presently, the degree of danger that would accompany further Jewish evictions are manifest beyond a reasonable doubt. If we should also factor into this matter the enormously pertinent Nuremberg Judgment and associated Nuremberg Principles, it will become altogether clear that the obligation to disobey military orders contrary to any state’s survival is generic and universal. Indeed, this precise obligation has already become synonymous with the very meaning of “Nuremberg.” Hence, Israel’s obligations here are binding by both direct obligation and by extrapolation from general jurisprudence.

When Ariel Sharon first began to implement disengagement, Israelis immediately started to inquire: Will military refusals to participate in the expulsion of Jews cause the IDF to weaken or even to disintegrate?

“On the contrary,” wrote Moshe Feiglin, “it will strengthen it (IDF) morally and establish its right of existence. Real conscientious refusal will not lead to a situation in which everyone does as he likes. The soldiers who are refusing are the outstanding ones, who wish to serve and make sacrifices for the nation and the country.”