Colonel Richard Kemp ispractically alone as he explains why the IDF is the “world’s most moral army.” But his military expertise makes him hard to silence and too authoritative to ignore
Richard Kemp first emerged as a staunch Israel defender in 2009, when he addressed the UN Human Rights Council after the Goldstone Report on that year’s Gaza war. The central conclusion of the UN fact-finding mission led by South African judge Richard Goldstone — that the IDF had committed war crimes by deliberately targeting civilians — was enormously damaging to Israel.
In the political and media storm surrounding the report at the UN, Kemp spoke up in Israel’s defense.
“I am the former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan,” he told discomfited members of the Human Rights Council as a guest of UN Watch, an NGO. “I served with NATO and the United Nations; commanded troops in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, and Macedonia; and participated in the Gulf War. I spent considerable time in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, and worked on international terrorism for the UK Government’s Joint Intelligence Committee.
“Mr. President,” he continued, “based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defense Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.”
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