Israel is being harshly criticized for the supposedly disproportionate nature of its actions in Gaza. Fabián Glagovsky deals with this criticism in this post, part of which I translate below.
There is a lot of confusion being put about by those who hate Israel with regard to the question of proportionality. These people make reference to just war theory, of which they have not the slightest understanding. According to some formulations of this theory, military action does indeed have to be proportionate, proportionate to military or political objectives. These objectives can be openly declared or not. Often they are not and are known only to those who command the war, for the good reason that the maintenance of secrecy is a good tactic. Therefore, to say that Israel’s actions are disproportionate, without knowing exactly what it seeks to achieve with each attack is absurd.
In the second place, even if we knew exactly what objective Israel was trying to achieve with each bomb (in order, for example, to decide on the basis of some sort of arbitrary scale whether an ammunition dump in a semi-populated area should be attacked with a 250, 500 or 1000 kilo bomb) proportionality must still be interpreted in terms of the tactical and strategic objectives of the army concerned.
But this is not the sense in which proportionality is used by those who hate Israel. For them, proportionality has to exist between the actions of each army. As if each army would only be permitted to fire the exact quality and quantity of munitions as the other, or even as if each army would only be allowed to begin to fight with exactly the same quantity of materiel as the other, if it didn’t want to be accused of using disproportionate force. This use of the term disproportional is also absurd.
To which I would just add that the likely number of civilian casualties produced by an attack must be proportional to the importance of the target. It’s also worth noting that it is the duty of armies to kill as many of the enemy as possible. As the Duke of Marlborough is reputed to have said, “The pursuit of victory without slaughter is likely to produce slaughter without victory.”
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Update: Norm has his say.
The rhetoric on this blog is becoming a little crude. Raising the point about proportionality is fair; dismissing everyone who raises concerns about proportionality as “those who hate Israel” is not. Israel-bashing and Israel-cheerleading are not the only options available - and this kind of binary thinking is a part of the problem.
all of this aside, why not ask the question: will it work?
this is a political problem and it doesn’t have a military solution, I suspect that it will make things worse in the medium to longer terms
david: you don’t like Fabián’s tone. Fine. Anything to say about his argument?
I’m saying the tone undercuts the argument.
I found Fabian’s tone quite just.
It is a fact that those who hate Israel tend to use legitimate issues to delegitimize the country.
Raising questions about proportionality in warfare is more than fair. It is necessary. However, as Fabian showed many who do tend to define it in ways to disadvantage Israel. It’s used as a tool to delegitimize Israel’s right to self defense.
One other point needs to be made about proportionality: it is meant to disallow collective punishment and not the right to self defense. Hence if, in this case, a Hamas squad is using a school to fire lethal rockets at civilians in Israel, that country has the right to target the school and destroy the rocket launchers. What Israel does not have the right to do is to destroy the whole town because rockets were being launched from a specific site within that town. That would be an example of disproportionate use of force.
Interestingly enough it is Hamas and before it Hezbollah which has engaged in disproportionate use of force be launching rockets at civilians in areas that are not combat zones. Yet there have few criticisms of these groups in the main stream press for the illegal use of such tactics.
Only Israel is culpable in this conflict. This attitude is indeed a sign of hatred of Israel.
Two points:
(1) I agree with David that the tone and the use of the word “hate” to describe those who make the proportionality argument undermines the argument.
(2) The application of just war theory in conflicts against political movements that espouse totalitarian ideologies is a difficult issue and one worth debating. Just war theory and the related Geneva Conventions assume that both parties have legitimate political objectives. But if one party–namely Hamas–aspires to eradicate Israel–then is the application of international law in the form of the Geneva Conventions reasonable? Maybe we are better served by applying the 1948 Genocide Convention to this conflict, since one party–Hamas–arguably intends the genocide of Jews/Israel. The Genocide Convention mandates states to take all necessary measures to prevent genocide. I think it is useful to recognize that the decision to invoke specific instruments of international law is itself a political choice.
Michelle Sieff “Just war theory and the related Geneva Conventions assume that both parties have legitimate political objectives…. Maybe we are better served by applying the 1948 Genocide Convention to this conflict, since one party–Hamas–arguably intends the genocide of Jews/Israel.”
I see no advantage in substituting the Genocide convention for the question of disproportionate force in order to adjudicate questions of moral conduct in this conflict.
Pro Hamas and anti-Israel voices will use the argument by claiming that Israel is planning genocide against Palestinians. Such arguments have already been raised even though they have no proof that such is the case.
In other words, we are back to the same problem. If we want to talk dispassionately and objectively about moral conduct, we will need to acknowledge that there are many voices out there that are consumed by a hatred of Israel.
This is what Fabian made clear and he is right to have done so. We can’t get away from this fact, Michelle.
One can acknowledge that there are voices consumed by hatred of Israel and still be uncomfortable, to say the least, with Israel’s actions in Gaza.
I’m with modernityblog - what’s the plan here?
David you have now changed your own tone. Earlier your veiw was hostile to Fabina and now you acknowledge that he raised a valid point.
Tell us how you would deal with continued attacks by Hamas on civilians?
How do you deal with an orgnanization which quotes from the Elders of Zion in its founding charter?
Being uncomfortable is not a policy perscripion.
Robbins - In my very first comment I acknowledged that “raising the point about proportionality is fair.” The change in tone you detect on my part is nonexistent.
“war theory and the related Geneva Conventions assume that both parties have legitimate political objectives. But if one party–namely Hamas–aspires to eradicate Israel–then is the application of international law in the form of the Geneva Conventions reasonable?”
Hi Michelle. There are two aspects to the rules that someone concerned to apply the theory of Just War needs to take into account, and they are independent (with some special cases that are exceptions which are not relevant here).
One is: Which one of the sides is fighting a just war? (jus ad bello). It relates to what you mentioned, what are the political objectives of Hamas in this war?
The other is jus in bello: Are the sides fighting the war justly? And I wrote about this last aspect in my post.
But they are independent.
Here it is obvious that Hamas is not fighting a just war, since his political objective is the destruction of a country, and because in the pursuit of this goal it has started the aggression with uninterrupted barrages of rockets since the year 2005 at least.
And it is obviously not fighting justly, since each and every military action by Hamas is a war crime (launching rockets towards civilians is all they do).
Best,
Fabian
sorry: “just ad bellum” not “just ad bello”.
Oh, damned preview!
sorry: “jus ad bellum” not “jus ad bello”.
Hello–
for those of you following this strand, read my own blog post today which also addresses the application of international law to this conflict.
Thank you Fabian for your clarification. Jus ad Bellum. Exactly. Hamas does not even make it through the first hurdle in legitimating its actions under international law.
But if Robbins is still reading, I want to respond, since I spent some time thinking about why this issue matters so much. Many of those who invoke international law to criticize Israel are people who do not “hate” Israel. They are not radical islamist, anti-semitic Hamas leaders. They are well-intentioned human rights activists, international lawyers, and people of a liberal persuasion. And the fact is, when groups like Human Rights Watch put out reports–like the ones they issued after the Lebanon war–accusing Israel of “war crimes”, and failing to even consider the application of the Genocide Convention to the conflict, well they help to undermine Israel’s legitimacy. And so, one does need to consider and respond to these arguments. And it’s not all sophistry. There are facts. In my mind, it is impossible to make a reasonable case that Israel is pursuing genocide against Palestinians, when you consider that the legal finding of genocide turns on intent. Intent cannot simply be extrapolated from the number or pattern of killings. One must show–through political speeches, documents, statements–the intent to exterminate a group. Now I am not saying that Hamas should be prosecuted in the ICC for genocide. Just that it is important to raise questions about which international laws are applied to this conflict; to recognize that these are political choices; and to recognize that perhaps we need to shift the debate on international law to defend Israel’s legitimacy.
Proportionality: international law, international practice, Hamas’ behavior, Israeli conduct
http://philosemitism.blogspot.com/2008/12/proportionality-international-law-and.html
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“This is the destiny of democracy, as not all means are acceptable to it and not all practices employed by its enemies are open before it. Although a democracy must often fight with one hand tied behind its back, it nonetheless has the upper hand.”
The air attack by Israel on Gaza is clearly intended to eliminate (or at least reduce) rocket launching sites that fire indiscriminately on CIVILIAN targets. (I was a potental target in Ashkelon of no less than 3 rockets on my recent trip to Israel earlier this month).
Israel openly is sorry for the any civilian deaths and collateral damage. Hamas and its supporters, on the other hand, celebrate civilian deaths and collateral damage. Which is more just? (There are deaths in either case).