During Israel’s campaign against Hamas, the State Department repeatedly blasted Israel’s actions. John Kerry was caught on the microphone mocking Israel.
Seemingly oblivious to the Fox News camera in front of him and Fox News mic pinned on his lapel, America’s top diplomat harshly criticized the on-going Israeli operation in Gaza following news of Israeli army casualties and Palestinian civilian deaths.
“It’s a helluva pinpoint operation,” he told a top aide sarcastically over his cellphone. “It’s a helluva pinpoint operation.”
But the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, despite not being a war hero like Kerry, appears to have a different point of view.
Yesterday, Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave a lecture at the Carnegie Council for Ethics. He was asked by an audience member to comment on IDF’s ethics during Operation protective Edge, and here was his answer:
“I actually do think that Israel went to extraordinary lengths to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties. In fact, about 3 months ago we sent, we asked [IDF Chief of Staff] Benny [Gantz] if we could send a lessons learned team – one of the things we do better than anybody I think is learn – and we sent a team of senior officers and non-commissioned officers over to work with the IDF to get the lessons from that particular operation in Gaza.”
“To include the measures they took to prevent civilian casualties and what they did with tunneling, because Hamas had become very nearly a subterranean society. And so, that caused the IDF some significant challenges. But they did some extraordinary things to try to limit civilian casualties to include calling out, making it known that they were going to destroy a particular structure. Even developed some techniques, they call it roof knocking, to have something knock on the roof, they would display leaflets to warn citizens and population to move away from where these tunnels.”
“But look 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. So I think if Benny were sitting here right now he would say to you we did everything we could and now we’ve learned from that mission and we think there are some other things we could do in the future and we will do those.”
“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 in to Israel, and its an incredibly difficult environment, and I can say to you with confidence that I think that … they acted responsible.”
Unlike administration officials, generals aren’t expect to praise Israel. They’re often critical of Israel. And Dempsey isn’t just praising Israel, he’s offering a professional opinion while mentioning that the US is trying to learn how to similarly limit civilian casualties.
Not the sort of thing you try to do if Israel is a bad example.
In reality, Israel is considered a canary in a coal mine when it comes to fighting terrorism, developing tactics and technology that the US then goes on to use. That’s something radical leftists frequently harp on, while more liberal critics conveniently ignore.
Dempsey sounds a lot like the UK’s Col. Kemp. I suspect that similar opinions would come from sober generals in different countries, including those that don’t like Israel. His comments however are politically inconvenient for an administration whose only tune is “Blame Israel”.





















