UK Colonel Richard Kemp Again Lauds Israel’s Humanity in Warfare

Colonel Richard Kemp, former Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan, who gained international recognition when he testified at the United Nations that “the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare,” spoke this week to a group of young professionals and soldiers in Israel.

During his June 12, 2011, appearance in Tel Aviv, Colonel Kemp expressed his deep appreciation to the Israel Defense Forces saying,

You might think that you’re simply defending your country, but in fact you are defending mine, too. You are fighting for the whole Western world, and you are at the front lines of the battle.

He emphasized once again the basic decency and humanity which characterizes the IDF, adding that,

In fact, my judgments about the steps taken in that conflict by the Israeli Defense Forces to avoid civilian deaths are inadvertently borne out by a study published by the United Nations itself, a study that shows that the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in Gaza was by far the lowest in any asymmetric conflict in the history of warfare.

Colonel Kemp also highlighted the particular difficulties threatening Israel at this time in the face of the current attempt to delegitimize the Jewish State:

Today, Israel faces a conspiracy of delegitimization, which aims to give validity and justification to attacks on Israel by groups such as Iran’s proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, allowing them to strike at Israel with impunity, and encouraging the view that any retaliatory or defensive measures by Israel are by definition disproportionate and should be criminalized.

Citing the tools of this campaign against Israel, he adds,

The most powerful weapons in this conspiracy are legal, diplomatic and media. Fundamentally, we are talking about a war of words, words that are given unprecedented potency by the internet, by the globalization of the 21st Century.

Colonel Kemp concluded his remarks by sharing two incidents that left lasting impressions on him. The first involved a Brigadier General in the IDF who immediately responded to Kemp’s request for help, and, as Kemp describes it, “it was from that meeting that the entire counter-suicide-bombing strategy used by the British army was devised.”
Colonel Kemp goes on,

The second incident happened a couple of years later, after the terrorist attacks in London on July the 7th, 2005. We in the UK were left deeply shaken by the attacks, and I remember that the first ones to call to offer help – for some time, in fact, they were the only ones to call – was the IDF. It was then that we knew who our real friends are.

You can read Colonel Kemp’s remarks here.