The High Level Military Group is of the view that the 2014 Gaza Conflict gives rise to implications for the security of our own nations that are important to consider. An independent study about how our militaries can deal with the realities of combat

“High Level Military Group” report on Gaza conflict, confirms Hamas waged PR war against Israel

by IGAL HECHT



The High Level Military Group, made up of retired generals and defence officials from the U.S., Europe, Australia, Latin America and other countries, has issued a report entitled, “An Assessment of the 2014 Gaza Conflict”.

Foreword

• Lawfare, the abuse of international norms and procedures and the judicialisation of international institutions to attain strategic goals that cannot be achieved by political and military means, has become a common feature in modern conflicts. It has evolved into a new weapon in the hands of our enemies seeking to constrain and limit the ability of Western armies to pursue our national security interests.
• No case demonstrates the possibilities for perversion of our current legal system by an adversary better than military operations involving Israel. No matter how effective and lawful the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) conduct, there is always a barrage of allegations against it. Concepts like “crimes against humanity”, “genocide”, and accusations in bodies like the UN and the International Criminal Court, are widely and readily used for the purposes of gaining political advantage.
• The Friends of Israel Initiative (FoII) was founded to defend Israel against delegitimisation campaigns not because we felt a moral obligation or a historical debt to Israel as the State of the Jewish people. Rather, we seek to defend the existence of the State of Israel because in doing so we are defending ourselves and the security and prosperity of the Western world, of which Israel is an integral part.
• We believe the West faces a number of serious challenges and threats today. And we believe we will need to defend ourselves at some point, as we have done in the past. Furthermore, we ought to be inclined to help others in difficult circumstances. Preserving the freedom of action of our soldiers when conducting their missions has been a paramount feature of battlefield success in the past. But the enemies we are facing today are very different to the ones we fought then, and the realities on the ground tend to differ to the combat we tried to tame and regulate through the laws of war.
• In order to clarify the conditions under which armed forces must operate today, and to expose the vulnerability that the abuse of international law by our adversaries presents to our own armies, FoII resolved to sponsor an independent study about how our militaries can deal with the realities of combat under these conditions. This is the first part of that study: a report on the IDF’s Operation Protective Edge carried out by the IDF against Hamas in Gaza. It will be followed shortly by a study examining other operations, exploring comparative national approaches in a variety of modern conflict scenarios that Western nations have fought in recently. Finally there will be a comparative report about how democratic armed forces perform in times of war faced with new types of enemies and battlefields.
• We relied on well respected professionals chosen for their extensive relevant experience. They drew their own conclusions contained in this report, with FoII’s sole responsibility being to make the necessary means available to the High Level Military Group to conduct its research.

• download here document .pdf - www.high-level-military-group.org

Not only did Israel abide by the laws of armed conflict but far surpassed the requirements.

The report shatters many of the popular narratives carried by the international media and academia, even making the point that the armies of the world would be rendered far less effective if they were forced to operate under the same restrictions as the IDF during last years Gaza war.

The findings were diametrically opposed to the infamous UN report which received much more coverage while this report has so far been largely ignored by the western media.



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