Op-Ed: Moral Dilemmas Faced by IDF Soldiers
Baruch Gordon
The writer, founder and former manager of the Arutz Sheva website, authors the blog Baruch's Breeze on the site. An IDF veteran who made aliya from Memphis, Tenn., he is Dir. of Development and PR for the IDF Preparatory Academy in Beit El and the Beit El Yeshiva Center as well as director of BetElTours.com which offers countrywide tours of Israel. He and his family live in Beit El.This is a chilling video.
Should an IDF soldier risk - and possibly lose - his life so as to spare enemy civilians?
Since the world condemns Israel no matter what she does, the reason is not an attempt to gain international approval or appreciation.
It could only be that the IDF itself aspires to attain a high moral standard.
But is risking your own soldiers' lives really a moral standard - is an army not compelled to put its soldiers' lives before those of enemy civilians?
Especially when the enemy knows that and uses civilians as shields? And we don't hear Gazans protesting that immoral act?
And perhaps many of them are not such innocent civilians?
Perhaps it is quite the opposite? Perhaps it is intrinsically immoral?
If your son was the IDF soldier in the video, what orders would you want him to receive?