Hannibal Directive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

/Hannibal_Directive

  • Ronen Bergman Confirms IDF Soldier Deliberately Killed by His Own
    http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2014/07/27/ronen-bergman-confirms-idf-soldier-deliberately-killed-by-his-ow

    Ronen Bergman was interviewed on Tel Aviv radio yesterday and confirmed my report that Sgt. Guy Levy was killed by the IDF in order to prevent his capture by Hamas fighters during a battle in Gaza. The report reads:

    …Levy was killed in Gaza in the course of a kidnap [sic] attempt. IDF soldiers succeeded in preventing the kidnapping and killed one terrorist [sic] but Levy too was killed in the midst of the attempt to prevent it.

    While I’m grateful to Bergman for affirming the accuracy of my prior report. I’m disturbed by the interview (audio) between Bergman and radio show host, Guy Zohar. At no point, do either of them doubt or question the moral basis for the Hannibal Directive. There seems a Spartan sense of sacrifice among Israelis that part of the cost of serving in the army is that your own brothers may be forced to kill you for the greater good of the nation.

    There is something deeply troubling, even demented about such a regulation. I could perhaps understand it in ancient Sparta; or even among the diehard Japanese kamikaze fighters during World War II. But in a country that prides itself as being the equal of any western democratic nation? No.

    Another bizarre aspect of this report is that the text that appeared on the radio station website above was censored (removed), presumably by the IDF censor. But the audio of the interview itself remains, uncensored. The “logic” of censorship. Go figure.

    • Hannibal Directive
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal_Directive

      The background to the formulation of the directive was the capture of two Israeli soldiers during a Hizbullah ambush in south Lebanon in June 1986. Both soldiers presumably died during the attack and their bodies were returned to Israel in an exchange with Hizbullah in 1996. The authors of the order were the three top officers of the IDF Northern Command, Major General Yossi Peled, the command’s operations officer, Colonel Gabi Ashkenazi, and its intelligence officer, Colonel Yaakov Amidror.[3]

      In a rare interview by one of the authors of the directive, Yossi Peled (later a cabinet minister) denied that it implied a blanket order to kill Israeli soldiers rather than let them be captured by enemy forces. The order only allowed the army to risk the life of a captured soldier, not to take it. "I wouldn’t drop a one-ton bomb on the vehicle, but I would hit it with a tank shell”, Peled was quoted saying. He added that he personally “would rather be shot than fall into Hizbullah captivity.”[3]

    • After Shalit, some IDF officers see a dead soldier as better than abducted
      http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/after-shalit-some-idf-officers-see-a-dead-soldier-as-better-than-abducted-1

      Article de 2011

      The Hannibal Protocol has been highly controversial since its introduction in the late 1980s, after a few incidents in Israel’s security zone in south Lebanon. It allows commanders to take whatever action is necessary, even at the risk of endangering the life of an abducted soldier, to foil the abduction. The policy was suspended in the last decade due to opposition from the public and reservist soldiers.