The Gatekeepers Ethical

The Conundrum of Large Bombs: An Ethical Footnote from Gaza

Dror Moreh’s documentary The Gatekeepers relates the history of the Israeli internal security service, colloquially known as Shin Bet, from the perspective of its six former directors. The film centers upon Shin Bet’s role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, focusing on several controversial anti-terror operations. One notable episode involves Shin Bet’s tactic of targeted assassinations, which intend to disrupt jihadist organization by eliminating movements’ commanders and ideological authorities. In the incident in question, intelligence revealed that Hamas leadership planned to meet in a two-story building in a densely populated neighborhood on September 6, 2003. Shin Bet wanted

My reservations about Israel’s conduct and continued prosecution of the war aside, I recall the opening lines of The Gatekeepers: “…[P]oliticians prefer binary options. They don't like having three or four options. They want you to tell them, ‘Zero or one. Do it. Don't do it.’” I am convinced that had more time been spent studying the tactical situation, a different effect or combination of effects could have achieved the military objective without incurring as many civilian casualties or as much damage to surrounding infrastructure, as opposed to the false dichotomy between the one-ton and quarter-ton munitions implied in the documentary. But like all armchair strategists, my hindsight is 20/20. Perhaps there were factors of time that prevented the necessary analysis from being conducted, or risk of asset exposure that prevented additional intelligence from being gathered. At the end of the day, when military professionals are face with ethical dilemmas, we must fall back on the Kantian appeal to motive to justify our actions, though it offers scant comfort when faced with the enormity and gravity of the tasks we undertake in the performance of our