Talk:Purity of arms

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Contents 1 Objection to wording (?) 2 POV 3 Jewish religious establishment and the IDF 4 Use of ground forces vs. air strikes 5 WikiProject class rating

[edit] Objection to wording (?)

The article currently has an "objection to wording" section asking whether the IDF's code of ethics allows harming POWs, and some editors below raised even stranger questions and accusations. This is all absolutely ridiculous, because all this discussion is based on a wrong translation. Here is the official translation of the Spirit of the IDF document from their site:

"Purity of Arms" (Morality in Warfare) - The soldier shall make use of his weaponry and power only for the fulfillment of the mission and solely to the extent required; he will maintain his humanity even in combat. The soldier shall not employ his weaponry and power in order to harm non-combatants or prisoners of war, and shall do all he can to avoid harming their lives, body, honor and property.

This is, I think, quite clear: "The soldier shall not ... harm non-combatans or prisoners of war". He should not harm neither civilians nor POWs. How much clearer can this get? Were did the silly notion that the text says that a soldier shall not harm civilians, but POWs are fair game?

Therefore, I think the entire "objection to wording" paragraph needs to be stricken out. This is not an NPOV issue, but rather a reading comprehension issue... And while we're at it, how about fixing the English quote in the article to match the official English translation (which I quoted here above)?

Thanks, Nadav Har'El.

84.108.166.58 21:53, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I got curious about where the lousy translation, that caused all the comotion on this article, came from. I found that until about a year ago, it was indeed the official translation on the IDF site - see [1] (this is the link on the article). However, since then it appears that the IDF realized that this was a lousy translation and published a new translation, found on the same page - see [2]. This translation is written in better English, is more faithful to the original Hebrew, and it - not the old translation - should be used in the article. The quote I gave above was from the new translation.

84.108.166.58 22:02, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV

An anonymous edit added the following sentence:

Note that this policy explicitly accepts the usage of arms against Prisoners of War, a violation of article 3 of the Third Geneva Convention.

While the doctrine does not prohibit the use of weapons against POWs, it does not explicitly condone it. The strongest statement that could be made here would be that it implicitly condones it, but even that may have POV problems (implication being a subjective issue). As such, I've added the POV template pending further discussion. --Safalra 16:37, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Not even nessicary to the article and sure as hell POV. Deleted. --Lakhim 16:57, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I removed the point of view tag. Since the section on the third geneva convention has been deleted, the article seems pretty neutral to me. I also removed the "sic". The only justification that I could find for that would be if someone had the POV that the IDF was used only to attack and not defend. I note that the same anonymous coward who added them also changed IDF to Israeli Military. Might as well go ahead and call it "Zionist Entity War Machine" NPOV says we use the name that the IDF commonly goes by and calls itself without endorsing the truth of its claims. I changed Israeli Military to Israel Defence Force.David s graff 02:06, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

It would be interesting perhaps to see in what cases IDF forces have disobeyed this requirement and if they have been officially punished for that. It would also be interesting to see in what cases IDF forces have run risks to their own lives in order to minimize damage to civilians. David s graff 02:06, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jewish religious establishment and the IDF

The page in its present form cites rabbis advocating various points — e.g. its possible suspension in wartime, combatting hostile forces embedded within civilian populations, etc. — in applying the IDF's Purity of Arms doctrine per Jewish law. I fail to find any explanation of the relationship between the Jewish religious establishment (or individuals within it, regardless of position or authority in the military), and the policies and practices of the IDF. This could do with some substantiated clarification. -- Deborahjay 13:52, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Further: Meanwhile, I did my best by particularly citing the portions of the "Spirit of the IDF" doctrine relating to Jewish tradition and Israel as a Jewish state. -- Deborahjay 17:37, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Use of ground forces vs. air strikes

In an earlier comment, David s graff posed the question: It would also be interesting to see in what cases IDF forces have run risks to their own lives in order to minimize damage to civilians. I believe a case in point is the decision to use ground forces in southern Lebanon in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. While the Israel Air Force certainly had the capability of carpet bombing from a safe height, that would have caused extensive casualties among the indigenous south Lebanese civilian population who in effect served the Hezbollah as a human shield. Despite the backup provided by artillery coverage, IDF ground troops suffered many casualties, including tank crews who found themselves facing unprecedented armor-piercing weaponry. Only a present lack of sources prevents me from adding this content to the article; I'm hoping another User will do so. -- Deborahjay 14:46, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as stub, and the rating on other projects was brought up to Stub class. BetacommandBot 04:23, 10 November 2007 (UTC)