NETANYAHU'S CHOICE

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed such a forceful retaliation against Hamas in Gaza that “what we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations.”

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the enclave would be cut off from vital services, vowing there would be “no electricity, no food, no fuel” for its estimated 2.3 million residents.

Those words remind me of the Balangiga Massacre during the Philippine Insurrection and the role of General Jacob H. Smith in the aftermath of that event.

The Samar Campaign of 1902 was an offensive aimed at punishing and crushing the insurgency there, which was part of the Philippine Insurrection that began following the American defeat of Spain - the previous colonial power there - in the Spanish-American War, when Filipinos who had been struggling for independence realized that the nation that had written The Declaration of Indepdence was not going to apply those principles to them.

An American garrison in the town of Balangiga on the island of Samar in the central Philippines was attacked in September 1901 by the local population, with the support of the local police chief and members of the insurgency. The people revolted in reaction to their abuse at the hands of the Americans, whose commander sent troops out to destroy crops and grain reserves, to keep food from the insurgents. 54 of the 78 Americans were killed; their bodies were mutilated and burned; only four of the 24 survivors escaped uninjured.

Brigadier General Jacob HJ. Smith, a decorated Civil War veteran and veteran of the Indian Wars, was ordered to crush the resistance on Samar and exact revenge.

The Manila News reported on November 4, 1902, that Smith ordered all inhabitants of Samar’s interior to relocate to coastal towns, saying that “those who were found outside would be shot and no questions asked.” All suspects, including “Spaniards and half-breeds,” were to be “rounded up and kept under guard.”

At the same time, Smith cut off all food shipments and trade from the towns into the backcountry, carrying out a policy designed to starve the resistance into submission. Detachments of American troops then moved into the interior, burning villages and destroying crops and livestock.

It was not these policies that ended up getting Smith in trouble; rather it was the specific orders he gave to Marine Major Littleton W. T. Waller. At the outset of the campaign, Smith told Waller, “I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn; the more you kill and burn the better it will please me. I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms in actual hostilities against the United States.” When Waller asked Smith to set an age limit for the kill orders, Smith said, “Kill everyone over ten.” Smith later sent Waller a written order that “the interior of Samar must be made a howling wilderness.”

During the four and half month-long campaign, an estimated 15,000 Filipinos died on Samar in revenge for 54 American deaths.

Smith’s orders were first revealed during the court martial of Major Waller, who was charged with ordering the summary execution of eleven Filipino civilians accused of hoarding food and threatening mutiny while helping the US troops. Waller’s defense would become known after World War II as the Nuremburg Defense: “I was only following my orders.”

Waller was acquitted on the charge of murder; testimony during the trial led to the court-martial of Smith, who was charged with having committed “conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline.” The court-martial found Smith guilty and recommended an “admonishment” by his superiors.

The Samar Controversy hit the American press just as the US Senate was investigating the abuse of Filipino prisoners of war by the American military. Soldiers testified to having observed and participated in the torture of prisoners. They described the common practice of the “water cure,” known now as “waterboarding.”

Members of Congress and newspaper editorials called for Smith’s severe punishment. “In the records of all the great wars since the Middle Ages,” declared Senator Henry M. Teller of Colorado, “you cannot find such a disgraceful and wicked order as that issued by Gen. Smith.” Senator Henry Cabot Lodge - one of the most ardent supporters of the war - stated: “Gen. Smith’s order is one which every American should regret. On the surface those orders seem to me to be revolting.” In the House of Representatives, Republican Joseph C. Sibley of Pennsylvania called on President Theodore Roosevelt “to discharge Smith dishonorably from the service that he has disgraced. He is a disgrace to every man who ever wore the uniform of the United States, and he is a blot and a disgrace to our present civilization.” The New York Times editorialized, “These orders are bloody and cruel to a degree which the American people will not believe to be justified even against the most treacherous savages. They will not regard as fit to remain in the service an officer capable of issuing them.”

The politics of the moment led Theodore Roosevelt to decide against a simple admonishment. Instead, he forcibly retired Smith two years before his scheduled departure from the service. Smith learned of his punishment on his return to the United States, when he arrived in San Francisco.

Unrepentant, Smith traveled by train to Portsmouth, Ohio, where he was given a hero’s homecoming welcome. After dinning with his closest friends and relatives, Smith welcomed newspaper reporters into the home and fielded questions.

He attempted to justify his brutal orders. He stated that “The inhabitants of the interior of Samar are savages of the most degraded kind. They were nomads and had no fixed habitation. The childhood of the natives is a dream by the time they are thirteen years of age. They are ready to take up the burden of life before that time. The natives of Samar are treacherous and barbarous. They mutilate the bodies of the dead in the most horrible manner.”

Smith won over the local press.

His mother was quoted: “What matters what he said? Look upon what he has done. Look upon a record without a blot or blemish. Then shall we consider a few words spoken when the atrocities to American soldiers were confronting him on every hand.”

Following his recovery from a nervous breakdown the next day, Smith attended a formal dinner, as was reported in the Akron News-Democrat:

“A monster public reception followed by a complimentary banquet was last night tendered to Gen. Jacob H. Smith, by local Grand Army men and citizens. The reception was from 8 to 9 o’clock, held in the Washington hotel. The factories closed early and thousands of workmen mingled with the business and professional men of the city, in the great throngs that shook the hand of the old warrior. Although the banquet was distinctly a stag affair, hundreds of ladies crowded about in the throng to meet Gen. Smith."

During the after dinner toasts, Smith addressed the gathering. Reviewing his 40 years of army service, he declared: “We have fought to make this a united country; to wrest the great West from the hordes of Indian savages and to protect the frontiersman and his wife and children in their homes; to bring the blessings of liberty and good government to our neighboring and distant isles of the sea; to avenge the massacres in the harbor of Havana; to compel obedience to our authority in the Philippine Islands and to pacify and subdue the most savage tribes of the earth.”

The Island of Samar, he explained, was “peopled by savage tribes who do not recognize any rules of civilized warfare, but are treacherous and brutal to the lowest degree. Still, they must be brought into subjugation, and kept so until they learn that the purpose is to give them freedom and the blessings of that good government which we enjoy.”

Spontaneous applause interrupted the speech numerous times; on its conclusion, Smith received a standing ovation and another round of three cheers for “Portsmouth’s General.”

In 1906, Smith authorized his nephew, newly-elected Congressman Henry T. Bannon, to vindicate his honor on the floor of the House of Representatives. Bannon, revealed the orders of Smith’s commander, Major General Adna R. Chaffee, who wrote Smith on the eve of the Samar campaign: “I do not propose to hamper you at all, but on the contrary, give you all the assistance you need to crush the insurrection in Samar. The interior must be made a wilderness if that is the only remedy.” There is no doubt responsibility for war crimes went higher than a one-star general and they were more widespread than thought at the time.

When “Hell Roaring” Jake Smith died in 1918, he was buried with honors in Arlington National Cemetery.

The Samar Campaign has been called America’s “first My Lai.” Anyone familiar with the real history of America’s “Indian Wars” knows that isn’t true. General Smith had a lot of experience with creating “howling wildernesses” long before he arrived in Manila.

I doubt any reader here knew this story before today. People in the Philippines have never forgotten it.

Reported yesterday in Ha'Aretz: In March 2019, Benjamin Netanyahu spoke in a closed meeting of his Likud members in the Knesset, saying: “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian State has to support bolstering Hamas and giving money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy.” Speaking of both Hamas and Hezbollah, Netanyahu said that he “send[s] them messages all the time” with the belief that his interactions can “mislead them [and] destabilize them” and in this way “control the height of the flames [of violence].” This was in addition to saying his “strategy” has long been to “bolster” Hamas and so ensure the impossibility of a “two-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian Crisis.

If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is thinking in historical terms at all, he must be contemplating how to achieve what George W. Bush pulled off after 9/11. But he might want to re-think that goal. 9/11 was a godsend for Bush’s then-feckless presidency, as it became a curse for the United States. His presidency became consequential; even world historical.

Overnight, Bush became an heroic leader; he was handed a blank check from Congress to run roughshod over civil liberties with the Patriot Act, to pioneer new forms of incarceration and torture at Guantánamo Bay, to launch invasions of two countries and make the United States the spearhead of a Global War on Terror. Twenty-two years later, we still live in the shadows of his decisions - the decisions that led to mass torture, a global refugee crisis, the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians and the complete upending of the Middle East.

I am not Jewish, but I respect the hell out of Judaism. To me, it is the one major religion that doesn’t spend time on the hereafter. It is deeply and thoroughly about the Here And Now, about how one lives an ethical life of honesty and integrity day-to-day. To me, every one of my Jewish friends - a list that now includes quite a few I have met here - exemplifies that in those parts of their lives I observe.

That’s why I keep remembering that story told me by Jacob Bar Ilan, the Israeli Sabra I knew in grad school, who commanded a platoon in the infantry company that liberated the Wailing Wall in 1967. The point of his story, hearing his commanding officer pray “Help us, God - we won,” is to me a very Jewish story. The commanding officer saw in the moment of victory the potential for moral destruction, and feared it would happen. Unfortunately, the last 56 years clearly demonstrate that God was not listening that day.

Immediately after the war, which Israel won as decisively as the United States won the Spanish-American War, Israel was confronted with the opportunity totake the first steps toward becoming a “regional empire” in the same way the United States was offered the opportunity to join the European Empires in 1899. At first, the Israeli government resisted the siren call of reclaiming ancient Judea - the West Bank. In the early 70s, when the first American fundamentalists - led by Rabbi Meir Kahane - tried to settle there, they were uprooted and ejected. But as events moved on and Israel needed international political support that was largely not forthcoming, Darth Vader’s invitation - “Join the Dark Side, it’s easier” - became irresistible. “Limited settlement” was allowed, which provided political cover for Prime Minister Menachem Begin - whose reputation before participating in the Camp David Accord was that of hardline unbending Zionist nationalist - by allowing the settlers into the forbidden zone. Conservative Jews around the world became far more supportive of Israel, and Begin had the political room to maneuver.

And thus the round of tit-for-tat violence that had existed between Israel and the Palestinians - and the larger Arab world - since the Zionist pioneers first arrived in Palestine, had a greater reason - on both sides - to erupt. Massacres and war crimes have been credited to both sides in the years since.

But “what we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations,” “no electricity, no food, no fuel” is an enormous escalation. Those are the policies of the Nazis when they dealt with the Warsaw Ghetto Revolt in 1943.

I really hope the people of Israel will hear that infantry captain’s words: “Help us, God - we won,” before a crime that will lead to future crimes that are inconceivable in their awfulness now - committed by both sides in a future no one wants to live in - becomes a fact that will never be forgotten.

Act in haste; repent at leisure.

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