Comments on: Who will Bennett be?

By: Aaron Sichel

Aaron Sichel — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 22:59:19 +0000

It's a little surprising to see a director of the Simon Wiesenthal center argue that soldiers must follow orders regardless of morality.

By: Levi Kofman

Levi Kofman — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 06:47:38 +0000

To be fair this is an opinion piece not a news article. Therefore the author does not have to be impartial in anyway…quite the contrary. But the fact that this opinion was expressed by nazi hunter ephriam zuroff is a little strange if not a tad bit ironic. Otherwise jubal, what you put forward a very eloquent argument and are right on the money. It's a shame that even someone whose career was devoted to bringing those who were merely following orders against Jewish civilians…could be so morally bankrupt.

By: Levi Kofman

Levi Kofman — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 06:37:11 +0000

And how ironic that this piece was written by a nazi hunter who spent a significant amount of his life going after people who were mereley following orders…

By: Nehemia Stern

Nehemia Stern — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 23:14:11 +0000

So you don't think echoes of totalitarianism can hide themselves within the most banal of places (i.e. a soldier fulfilling an order)?
The fact remains the Nazi's willingness to to use the excuse of "just following orders" over and over again, changed the way society relates to immoral orders. The failure of that legal argument changed international law – for the better. Most importantly the argument clearly rests in the shadows of the IDF's own Code of Ethics. Feiglin's comparison is not only well placed, but accurate in the historiographical sense.

By: Nehemia Stern

Nehemia Stern — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 23:14:11 +0000

By: David Bedein

David Bedein — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 22:11:02 +0000

After the April 18 version of the disengagement plan was rejected by the Likud referendum on May 2 2004, former prime minister Ariel Sharon's government added another clause and the plan was subsequently ratified on June 6, 2004. The final version mandated that all properties from evacuated Israeli communities would be transferred to "a third, international party which will put them to use for the benefit of the Palestinian population that is not involved in terror." However, the document that was submitted to the World Bank did not include this clause. In the end, the Sharon government ignored the most sensitive security aspect of its own law, and handed over IDF army bases and the assets of the Katif Jewish communities to terror organizations.

In clearly illegal cases such as the above, not only does a soldier reserve the right to refuse an order, it is morally incumbent upon him to do so.

By: David Bedein

David Bedein — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 22:02:51 +0000

http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Opinion/Article.aspx?id=297384&prmusr=vT3bMqUoEBW1ADDe231BrXb4WTOQj%2fpcj8JXWD%2boZddw5JMnWeYki4ZdzQ6R4XBa

The Moral Oblogation to Disobey an Illegal or Immoral Order in the Israeli Army.

By: David Bedein

David Bedein — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 21:39:51 +0000

Do you not feel that the IDF retreat from Gaza , the handover or IDF bases to terrorists, and the demolition of Gush Katif was wrong?

By: Efraim Zuroff

Efraim Zuroff — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 16:45:19 +0000

Perhaps it's because I totally disagree with the basic premise of Arendt's book.

By: Alex Kohan

Alex Kohan — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 16:04:31 +0000

Go Bennet!!!

By: Alex Kohan

Alex Kohan — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 16:04:31 +0000

Go Bennet!!!

By: Nehemia Stern

Nehemia Stern — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 15:06:37 +0000

I'm surprised that Efraim Zuroff (of all people) doesn't see to understand the point behind 'The Banality of Evil'.

By: Nehemia Stern

Nehemia Stern — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 15:06:37 +0000

I'm surprised that Efraim Zuroff (of all people) doesn't see to understand the point behind 'The Banality of Evil'.

By: Jubal Biggs

Jubal Biggs — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 14:57:28 +0000

Once again I have to comment on this because of the one-sided journalism. ANY soldier of ANY democratic state has a MORAL OBLIGATION to refuse orders when those orders are immoral. Let's pretend that an American officer in South Vietnam orders his men to simply kill the entire population of a local village suspected of housing Viet-kong. If soldiers later claim they were "only following orders" they will be charged and held accountable because they did not refuse those orders. When I was under fire in Ramallah, leftist "refuseniks", including some air force pilots, were refusing to fly missions over me and my friends, and thereby leaving us more vulnerable, and probably increasing our casualties. Somehow this is NEVER mentioned in the journalism on this issue. How is it not even conceivable to some Israelis that someone like me who came to Israel to protect a Jewish homeland would not be able to carry out an order to brutally smash open the door of a Jewish Home? Let me clue you in; an army is built to protect citizens, not to be used against those citizens. If you took US Marines and told them to beat up American families and evict them from their suburb, you would quickly have a mass-revolt in the most disciplined and effective infantry force in the world. Journalism on this statement by Bennet is completely out of control and out of touch with reality.

By: Ilan Toren

Ilan Toren — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 14:14:46 +0000

I don't see why the only time there is an outrage when discussing the morality of orders it is when the people who will be hurt are Jews. The Holocaust comparisons that fly when African migrant workers or Arabs will suffer the consequences of the enforcement of the law are even said with such self-righteousness, but God forbid if someone objects to rousing children from their beds in the middle of the night and leaving them in the rain while their home is destroyed. Just so long as they are Jewish children. The mass eviction of law abiding citizens from their homes as part of disengagement was a moral failure. It wasn't an eviction followed by a summary execution as in WWII but that doesn't make the soldiers who took part in it tzadikim either. Being better than the Nazis is a pretty low bar and hardly a badge of honor.