Israeli’s Lavender Program Under Attack by the Usual Suspects

By Walter E. Block

IDF forces operate in the Gaza Strip, Swords of Iron, 20 October 2024 (Photo by IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Yet another unwarranted charge against Israel comes with the unlikely moniker “Lavender.” But it is a very serious calumny. According to this particular slanderous misrepresentation, the IDF purposefully targets not so much Hamas terrorists, but rather in enthusiastic addition delights in the demise of their innocent families. Killing these murderers guilty of the atrocity of October 7, 2023 is just a sick excuse for this hunting down of innocent civilians, according to these new charges..

Let me allow these critics to speak for themselves.

According to the Guardian, in article with this heading: “‘The machine did it coldly’: Israel used AI to identify 37,000 Hamas targets: Israeli intelligence sources reveal use of ‘Lavender’ system in Gaza war and claim permission given to kill civilians in pursuit of low-ranking militants.”

Here is Foreign Policy Magazine piling on in an essay entitled “When AI Decides Who Lives and Dies; the Israeli military’s algorithmic targeting has created dangerous new precedents: … the Israeli military has established a mass assassination program of unprecedented size, blending algorithmic targeting with a high tolerance for bystander deaths and injuries.”

Nor is The Landline, +972’s weekly newsletter, far behind in its condemnation. According to this source: “… the [Israeli] army gave sweeping approval for officers to adopt Lavender’s kill lists, with no requirement to thoroughly check why the machine made those choices or to examine the raw intelligence data on which they were based.” They continue: “… the preference was to attack when they were believed to be at home. ‘We were not interested in killing [Hamas] operatives only when they were in a military building or engaged in a military activity,’ one (commentator) said. ‘It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home.’”

This report continues: “Moreover, the Israeli army systematically attacked the targeted individuals while they were in their homes — usually at night while their whole families were present — rather than during the course of military activity. According to the sources, this was because, from what they regarded as an intelligence standpoint, it was easier to locate the individuals in their private houses.”

According to Human Rights Watch “… four digital tools that the Israeli military is using in Gaza use faulty data and inexact approximations to inform military actions. The Israeli military’s use of these digital tools risk Israeli forces violating international humanitarian law, in particular the laws of war concerning distinction between military targets and civilians, and the need to take all feasible precautions before an attack to minimize civilian harm.”

There is more wrong in these unwarranted charges than you can shake a stick at.

First of all, let’s get real here. Israel is a high tech country. What is wrong, per se, with using artificial intelligence in a defensive war? At one time, conflagrations were fought with sticks and stones. This was later replaced with bows and arrow and shields. They gave way, in turn to horseback and then armed vehicles and tanks and then airplanes. We now live in an era of pagers that blow up, atom bombs, rockets, AI, computers, drones, etc. If economically underdeveloped groups like Hamas do not like being confronted with military equipment they themselves are lacking, perhaps they should rethink their propensity to attack those who are more commercially advanced than they.

Secondly, what is this business with “low-ranking” terrorists? Is the IDF supposed to be limited to visiting their just deserts only on leaders of enemy barbarians such as Yahya Sinwar, Adolf Eichmann, Ismail Haniyeh, Mohammed Deif and Fuad Shukr? Are the rank and file of these evil doers supposed to be off limits? The number 37,000 does indeed sound horrid. It is a shame that so much human life should perish. But these are murderers and rapists. If that is the number of fighters attacking you, the primordial right of self-defense entitles you to send them off to their graves. How else is Israel supposed to defend itself? By making supplications to the UN or to the likes of fair weather friends such as Joe Biden? Maybe, Israel should instead appeal to the good nature of Iran instead of killing those who have engaged in brutalization?

Third, killing civilians. Unlike Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthies and their paymaster, Iran, the IDF never purposefully aims at the deaths of non-combatants. Indeed, it is one of the rare armies that drops leaflets on targets, initially, and only later, bombs. Yes, there indeed has been collateral damage, and to a serious degree. But that is due to the fact that Hamas uses its own Gazans as shields, planting launchers and military hardware in civilian institutions such as hospitals, schools, residential areas.

For proof of this claim, consider the fact that the military of the Jewish state has a sterling record of negatively impacting civilians compared to enemy soldiers. Its record is an all-time record of 1 to 1. That is, for every fighter it dispatches, only one civilians killed. According to the records, “one civilian was killed for every (Hamas) fighter.”

In very sharp contrast, the average army does away with no fewer than nine (this is not a typographical error) civilians for every soldier destroyed; that is, a kill ratio of 1 to 9! [1] This is hardly compatible with such claims about the IDF as “coldly,” “mass assassination”, “dangerous new precedents,” “no requirement to thoroughly check,” “faulty data and inexact approximations.”

The critics take particular umbrage at the fact that many terrorists have been wiped out while they were at home. But how in bloody blue blazes do they justify this choice of sleeping quarters. Do they not realize that in the aftermath of their massacre of the innocents on October 7, 2023, they are in a war? That they will be hunted down like the mad dogs that they are by the Israeli military?

When the Mafia engages in internecine war, they “go to the mattresses.” They have the decency, yes, the decency, to strictly proscribe endangering their own wives and children. They would not even think of residing at home while hostilities are still occurring. Rather, they rent real estate, place almost wall to wall mattresses together for sleeping quarters and then have at their enemies who are similarly situated.

Whose fault is it then that the families of Hamas fanatics are brought down? The IDF? Of course not. They themselves are solely responsible for these unfortunate and unhappy events. If they had half the decency of the Mafia, they would stay far away from their families, who would then be utterly and totally safe from IDF attack, apart from human imperfections.

The critics speak of Hamas fighters “when they were in a military building.” That would have been a far richer target. While at home, the Israel army could kill only one or at most a few terrorists, as in the case of father and son or brothers living in the same domicile. In a “military building” they could take out dozens if not hundreds in one fell swoop. There is only one problem with that way of looking at the matter: there was no such things as a Hamas “military building” akin to the Pentagon, or Fort Knox. That is not how these terrorists fight, out in the open. Hiding behind their own women’s skirts is more their style.

[1] see also: Block, Walter E. 2024. “Israel has the lowest proportion of civilians killed in war compared to soldiers; is it time for a change?” December 21; https://www.israpundit.org/israel-has-the-lowest-proportion-of-civilians-killed-in-war-compared-to-soldiers-is-it-time-for-a-change/