Exploring Diversity SEMINAR SERIES

PROF. Eyal Ben-Ari, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

“Human Rights” and “Precision Warfare”: Casualties, the Israeli Military and Global Discourses in the Al-Aqsa Intifada

The organizational structures and practices through which the Israel military is pursuing the Al-Aqsa Intifada are different from the ones used in the previous Intifada. The major part of the previous Intifada saw the use of mass beatings, arrests of large numbers of people, and the rather limited use of elite forces. In this conflict, we find first a host of new structures and practices related to what may be called “precision warfare.” These include the frequent use of snipers, assassination squads, air strikes or a stress on the systematic, methodical use of conventional forces so as to minimize casualties. Second, are a plethora of innovative measures that include a new code of ethics, legal experts and representatives of the IDF spokesperson placed at the level of field-units, and seminars and briefings to ground-level commanders about human rights and human dignity. How are we to understand this combination of organizational frameworks and actions (some of which are rather novel in the context of the Israeli context) that have been instituted over the past few years?

In this paper I argue that in understanding the kinds of actions it undertakes, it is not enough to take into account how the IDF handles Palestinian violence with its own violence. The IDF’s units operate within an environment marked by a new combination of international discourses that both constrain and enable them to operate: that of “human rights” and that of the “rationality” of precision warfare. I show how the actions of the IDF are predicated on the development of a set of concrete policies, structures and practices that address these discourses and the various groups (within Israel and outside of it) that propagate them.

Eyal Ben-Ari is professor of anthropology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He obtained his first two degrees at the Hebrew University and his PhD from the University of Cambridge. He has carried out research in Israel, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong. In Israel he has studied various aspects of the Israel Defence Forces and has now completed a book on the ways in the ground forces of the Israeli military have waged combat in the Al-Aqsa Intifada. In Japan he has carried out research on white-collar communities, early childhood education, and the Japanese community in Singapore. He is currently doing research on the place of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces in Japanese society. More information