Counter Terrorism Conference

Attending the conference on Israel's conflict with the Gaza Strip was not only a great experience, but it also raised many questions and challenged me to create an opinion of where to draw the line when it comes to human rights issues.  My first impressions of the panel was that it was not as diverse as I expected it to be. There was only one person representing a human rights organization while the other panelists consisted of officers of the IDF, a spokesperson for the IDF, a journalist that mostly supports the actions of the IDF, and other Israelis mostly in support of the IDF.  Because of this apparent disadvantage on the human rights side of the debate, I especially tried to have an open mind when the human rights activist spoke.

     Despite having an open mind and giving the human rights activist a fair chance at persuading me, I ultimately decided that her requests that the IDF perform an investigation on every civilian death is unreasonable, and that in order for Israel to effectively protect its own citizens against the Hamas terrorists, regulations cannot be so strict (they already have very strict regulations in comparison to other countries).  I thought that Professor Schmidt from the United States Naval Academy made an intriguing response to the human rights activist by bringing to everyone's attention that despite that Israel is so often terrorized by the Hamas, their military force still continues to be more cautious than any other country when it comes to the possibility of civilian death and he stated that because of this the IDF deserves an award.  Furthermore, I believe that the human rights organizations would be much more successful and useful if they focused their efforts on a case by case basis instead of making the unreasonable request that the IDF investigate every case.  The IDF is dealing with a complex type of warfare, a war on terrorism, which requires that certain measures be taken in order to protect its citizens  This needs to be put into perspective when deciding where to draw the line on human rights and how tediously these civilian casualties need to be investigated.