Asa Kasher
Asa Kasher (, born June 6, 1940) is an Israeli philosopher and linguist working as a Professor at Tel Aviv University and at Shalem College, Israel. Biography. Asa Kasher is the grandson of talmudist Menachem Mendel Kasher. He is noted for authorship of Israel Defense Forces's Code of Conduct, as well as his co-authorship of an amended version of the controversial Hannibal Directive in the 1990s. Kasher has also written an influential defense of Israel's 'law of return', justifying it as a form of affirmative action, following periods in which Jews were not allowed to immigrate  to many countries. He also wrote about possible meanings to a Jewish and democratic state, the meaning of a Jewish collective and many other essays. His essays on Jewish subjects are collected in a book titled "Ruach Ish" ("Spirit of a Man"), published in Hebrew by Am Oved publication house. He is also the editor-in-chief of the philosophy journal "Philosophia". Kasher has contributed as well to the fields of psychology and ethics. Awards and recognition. In 2000, Kasher was awarded the Israel Prize for philosophy. Criticism. Uri Avnery criticised Kasher for arguing in favour of targeted killing by  the IDF, in those cases in which it knowingly fires on targets where civilians are present or nearby if enemy forces are also known to be present, and that "it is justified to kill a Palestinian child who is in the company of a hundred 'terrorists'" because the terrorists might kill children.