Published: 26 November 2020
Last updated: 4 March 2024
AS AN AUSTRALIAN, the revelations of the Brereton inquiry that Australian soldiers were responsible for war crimes in Afghanistan makes me feel deeply distressed – and also somewhat tainted by association.
As an Australian Jew with an attachment to Israel, these feelings in response to the misuse of violence by members of our military force are not entirely unfamiliar.
it is appropriate to feel a degree of moral discomfort when the actions of those who represent us conflict with our own values: they are products of our society and acting under our auspices. So, every Australian is to some degree implicated in the murders of 39 prisoners and civilians, and the cruel treatment of two others carried out by Australian Special Forces soldiers.
Many Australian Jews have felt this before – perhaps as the children and grandchildren of migrants reflecting on the Frontier Wars and the treatment of Indigenous Australians, perhaps as Jews concerned about cases of Israeli soldiers mistreating Palestinian prisoners, or using unnecessary measures against civilians in the course of necessary military action.
If these travesties can be perpetrated by Australians, who have not been raised in a militarised culture, we are kidding ourselves if we think it doesn’t also happen in Israel.
War crimes are a risk whenever there is war and the higher the stakes, the greater the risks. If these travesties can be perpetrated by Australians who are not fighting an existential battle, who have not been raised in a militarised culture, who are free to resign and go to peaceful homes, we are kidding ourselves if we think it doesn’t also happen in Israel.
As military forces go, you could hardly find two less similar than the Australian Defence Force (ADF) and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
A startling measure of the difference is the way the ADF recruits military personnel. Glossy commercials, which might be selling energy drinks or sports-oriented private schools, seduce recruits with the promise of personal achievement, career satisfaction, and a heightened but comfortable level of adrenalin. Their slogans offer self-actualisation and a sense of purpose: Challenge Yourself; Do What You Love; What Will You Bring?
The IDF doesn’t need to recruit, of course. It is an army of conscripts who grow up with military service as a necessity and with an intimate knowledge that death or disability is a risk they are required to take.
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On the one hand, military service by obligation rather than adventure or some misplaced desire for heroics is probably less likely to fall into naked abuse. Israelis don’t come into the army tempted by glamour or self-selected by a propensity for risk-taking.
Conscription brings into the ranks a balance of predispositions - although the kind of soldiers sent to the frontlines are a physically and psychologically tougher subset.
On the other hand, members of a military force that genuinely feels it is fighting for its life can be much more easily inclined to justify dehumanising the enemy. On that road, lies horror.
The third generation of Israelis since the establishment of the State is now of an age to join the IDF. They have grown up with a strong and pervasive IDF. They don’t have the memory of the way Diaspora Jewish culture morphed into the toughness of the Sabra. They were not even born when the Oslo accords – the last serious chance of peace – were signed.
They may have been told that Israel has the world’s most ethical armed forces and been taught that the Jewish values of “human life above all else” must remain at the centre of everything they do.
We need to find and destroy the shoots of xenophobia, dehumanising the other, machismo, power through violence, and self-glorification through power wherever they grow – because this is what they can grow into.
But they may, at the same time, have been raised with a deep sense of Palestinians as an implacable enemy who will stop at nothing, who will use children as human shields, who will never make peace.
Between these contradictions lies the capacity not so much for an army that makes bad decisions as for individuals who lose their moral compass and abuse their power.
The Brereton Report last week found clear evidence that war crimes were perpetrated by a group of Australian special forces soldiers who had developed their own devastating culture of abuse.
These crimes came to light because of two essential social goods: bystander ethics and journalism. The Brereton Inquiry was a response to the Gold Walkley award-wining Four Corners Report by Mark Willacy, which in turn could not have occurred without the ADF members who courageously came forward to expose the lawlessness within their own ranks. Some of these veterans died by suicide in the wake of giving evidence to the inquiry. They are the true heroes of this story.
The justice system will now swing into action and hopefully bring to trial those responsible for this behaviour. But to stop it happening again – in the ADF, the IDF or any other military force, we need to confront the psychology that made it possible.
War is hell, but the Brereton Report has made clear that the ADF abuses did not occur in the fog of war. Mistakes can be made in battle, but these are not mistakes. Some soldiers turn into hateful, violent bullies completely losing sight of the humanity of those they do not recognise as their own.
The seeds for this capacity are not sown in the defence forces – though the defence forces have a responsibility to ensure they cannot flourish there. They are sown in the cultures that raise the young men and women who will one day become soldiers.
We need to find and destroy the shoots of xenophobia, dehumanising the other, machismo, power through violence, and self-glorification through power wherever they grow – because this is what they can grow into.
And we need to acknowledge it can happen anywhere, because that is the only way to stop it happening.
Photo: Infantry from 3 RAR patrol Tarin Kowt in Afghanistan August 2008
