Israel in a defensive posture on Gaza

Shermeister serves as the Israeli army's ethics watchdog at a time when the military is under international scrutiny for its behavior during its Gaza invasion. That puts him in the front line of a war of words that extend into the white-hot realm of "war crimes," "anti-Semitism," "atrocities" and "blood libel."

But his job is made easier by the fact that most Israelis support his contention that they have nothing to be ashamed of. "I didn't see in the Gaza operation anything that can teach us or show us that something in the moral attitude of the [Israel Defense Forces] was . . . changed or spoiled," Shermeister said in an interview at an officers' school in Netanya, north of Tel Aviv.

The three-week Gaza war has widened the gap between Israel's self-image and how it is perceived abroad. The wave of international criticism, and an imminent UN investigation, have deepened a sense here that Israel is being treated unfairly and held to impossible standards.

However, the war that took more than 1,000 lives by both sides' count and left entire neighborhoods in rubble has a few Israeli critics, too. They say their countrymen are too quick to brush aside tough questions arising from the military's overwhelming use of force in Gaza, including mounting hundreds of bombing raids and firing imprecise artillery shells in one of the most crowded places on earth.

They say Israeli leaders haven't posed the right question to the public - how much force and loss of civilian life is it willing to sanction to stop the rockets that Gaza militants had been firing at Israeli communities for eight years.

The offensive, launched Dec. 27, had been intended as a punishing blow to Hamas, similar to what Israel unleashed in the 2006 war in Lebanon. The campaigns sent a message, both to Gaza's Hamas rulers and Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas, that rocket attacks would draw a harsh response.

Deterrence, say Israeli military experts, is the key weapon in Israel's arsenal; the military is developing a shield against short-range rockets and missiles, but it would only be deployed next year at the earliest, and will likely be expensive and only partially effective.

One army officer, Major General Gadi Eizenkot, has spoken of the "Dahiya doctrine," named after the Beirut suburbs considered a Hezbollah stronghold where Israel destroyed dozens of buildings in 2006.

"We will wield disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction. From our perspective, these are military bases," Eizenkot told the daily Yedioth Ahronoth in October.

The army would not confirm that such a doctrine exists, but acknowledged many similarities between the Lebanon and Gaza wars.

Even as the full scope of destruction emerged, the military's conduct was not questioned in Israel. Most Israelis felt the war was a justified response to the missile campaign that has disrupted life in southern Israel and killed more than 20 people.

The consensus has become that Hamas provoked the war by firing rockets and then hid behind civilians when the counterattack came.

Two commanders, Shermeister and Colonel Bentzi Gruber, said in recent interviews that every effort was made to spare civilians, including dropping leaflets and sending telephoned warnings to thousands of Gazans of impending attacks. They say Hamas used schools, mosques and homes as weapons depots, rocket-launching grounds and hiding places for fighters, turning them into legitimate targets.

Shermeister, 48, whose role as ethics chief comes under his title of chief education officer, said teams of investigators are still debriefing Gaza veterans and a final report should be ready in July. He said the reports he has received so far did not cause concern.

Last week, the UN Human Rights Council appointed Richard Goldstone, a respected South African judge and war crimes investigator, to head a war crimes investigation of Israel and Hamas. The Islamic militants say they have no objection to the team touring Gaza. Israel hasn't decided whether it will cooperate.

Meanwhile, an alliance of Israeli human rights groups says Israel should conduct its own independent probe.

The B'Tselem group said it should look not only at individual soldiers' conduct, but also at certain army practices, such as the artillery fire and the use of white phosphorous shells that caused horrific burns.