An article in the Jerusalem Post talks about B’Tselem’s regular talks to IDF soldiers.
I don’t know of any other army in the world where a human rights watchdog whose main priority is critcizing the army gets asked by the army to address its soldiers. There’s constant tension between the groups, but the tension is out in the open and being discussed. There are some problems with this approach, namely that B’Tselem is often unfairly critical to the point of being inflammatory in order to seek publicity, and that soldiers who have to make split-second life-and-death decisions could jeopardize lives if they hesitate too long. But overall, Israel’s commitment to human rights among its military is unsurpassed by any other example that I can think of in the world, and this point only illustrates that further.
There should be a very large disclaimer about B’tsalem. They are not an ‘Israeli’ human rights ‘watchdog’. Their entire mission is to protect ‘Palestinian’ ‘rights’. They have never even claimed to be a blanket human rights organization protected Jews and Arabs, and continually, and quite openly, only claim to care about the Arabs.
Better than the Canadian military’s commitment to human rights (or at least, the gvt — see the disbanding of the airborne unit.)?