Does Israel's "punitive" military doctrine suggest Spokesperson Mark Regev is gaslighting us?

Is the IDF doing "everything humanly possible to try to safeguard innocent civilians" or following the Dahiya doctrine?

The Washington Post has a Nov 10 article that supports my suspicion that Israel has been using a “punishing” military doctrine called the “Dahiya” doctrine and that Mark Regev is gaslighting CNN’s Jake Tapper.

CNN interview:

"the IDF really has done everything that is humanly possible to try to safeguard innocent civilians,"

Israel’s  The Dahiya doctrine, on the other hand, calls for causing "unbearable" civilian suffering as an explicit goal. (see my December 2 article)

Washington Post Quotes:

1. "Rather, the goal should be to inflict lasting damage, no matter the civilian consequences, as a future deterrent."

2. A 2014 UN report found that "Israel's campaign was "a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability."

3. "Let us be frank: this is actually less of a strategic doctrine than it is an explicit outline of collective punishment and probable war crimes." (Palestinian American scholar Rashid Khalidi)

» Read WP article

Denial: All “military” targets

The article allows an opportunity for denial: "No Israeli politician or security official has explicitly invoked the "Dahiya doctrine" as a template for the destruction unleashed in Gaza. "I don't think this doctrine applies today," Siboni, now of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, told French newspaper Le Monde last month, arguing that everything Israel is targeting are explicitly military targets."

Given the coverage coming out of Gaza, Israel’s definition of “explicitly military targets” is extraordinary broad.

Israel hasn’t announced its use of the military doctrine in the past, but here are 4 times it was previously thought to have been used:

• 2006 Lebanon War: The heavy destruction in southern Lebanon, particularly Dahiya (the suburb of Beruit, where the Doctrine gets its name), and the high civilian death toll fueled accusations of the doctrine being employed.

• 2008-09 Gaza War: Similar patterns of civilian casualties and infrastructure damage led to renewed concerns about the doctrine's influence.

• 2014 Operation Protective Edge: The extensive Gaza bombardment and civilian deaths again raised questions about the doctrine's role in shaping Israeli strategy.

• 2021 Hamas-Israel conflict: While the intensity was shorter, the use of airstrikes and the civilian death toll reignited the debate about the doctrine's potential influence.

How does Gaza 2023 compare to past uses of the military?

Genocide for purpose of Ethnic Cleansing

At this point, my suspicion is the Dayiha doctrine may be incorporated¹ into a punitive plan (collective punishment) through the use of genocide² for the purpose of thinning out”³ the Gazan population“ (ethnic cleaning).

Previously (my article)

Elsewhere:

Israel’s use of disproportionate force is a long-established tactic – with a clear aim (The Guardian)

How to make sense of the sheer intensity of Israel’s war in Gaza? One understanding is that it is the result of the enduring shock of the 7 October massacre combined with a far-right government that includes extreme elements. Yet this ignores another element: a specific Israeli approach to war known as the Dahiya doctrine. It’s also one reason why the “pause” was never going to last for very long. (Read more)

The Dahiya Doctrine: State Terrorism and a Philosophy of War Crime (Truthout.org) (2014)

.. While there is a qualitative difference between Israeli and Palestinian violence, namely the overwhelming suffering the Dahiya Doctrine is meant to create, there is also a severe quantitative difference in that IDF war making machines are far superior to what is being used by Hamas. More importantly, when state actors cease adherence to international norms of war, and openly state that the target is no longer the militants, but the civilian populace, their actions have clearly become war crimes.

After the 2008 war, the Goldstone Report addressed IDF strategy in 2009, determining that the “Disproportionate destruction and violence against civilians were part of a deliberate policy.” In fact, Additional Protocol 1, Article 51(4)(c) specifically prohibits striking “military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction,” but this is exactly what is happening in Gaza.

The Dahiya Doctrine is designed to develop deterrence, which is a political objective. Indiscriminate violence used to gain political objectives is no different than non-state actor terrorism, and should be categorized and treated as such. This policy of war crimes is flawed because if you target the civilian population and its infrastructure, you inevitably create a climate where the idea of self-defense is no longer considered radical, but a necessity. In essence, you are hastening the radicalization of an entire generation and population, and their international allies. The doctrine is doomed to fail unless a state follows through with the complete destruction of the targeted people. This is synonymous with genocide. (Read more)

How Israel Uses an AI Genocide Program to Obliterate Gaza (Globalresearch.ca)

According to whistleblowers, Israel’s AI system is generating targets so fast, based on inputs so broad, that everyone in Gaza is in the crosshairs (Read more)

1. In Gaza 2023, the goal may be changing from pressuring civilians to get Hamas to surrender, and Dahiya’s “unbearable civilian suffering” may be employed as an end it it self, (vengeance) and pushing the remaining Gazans out (ethnic cleansing).

2. There is a colloquial understanding of genocide and a formal definition. It is important to use the formal term and look at what the scholarship on genocide can teach us.

3. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed one of his closest aides to explore ways to "thin out" Gaza's population, the Israel Hayom newspaper reported on Friday.

According to the Israeli daily, Netanyhu instructed Ron Dermer, his minister of strategic planning and a close aide, to have a plan for the "day after" in Gaza and, if necessary, one that "enables a mass escape [of Palestinians] to European and African countries" by opening sea routes out of the strip. (Mideast Eye)