Boy, am I already getting tired of hearing this. The basic claim is that since the thousands of rockets that Hamas has lobbed into southern Israel have caused relatively few death and injuries--just some deaths and injuries, along with massive panic, children living in bomb shelters, thousands of shock victims, etc.--Israel has no right to respond with overwhelming force.
What the Israeli government should do is offer anyone who thinks that having 1/4 million people living under constant fear of deadly rocket fire is acceptable, and should be accepted implicitly by the Israeli government, a plane ticket to Israel and free lodging in Sderot, the border town hardest hit by rockets from Gaza. Hell, I'll personally pay for Glenn Greewald's Sderot vacation.
UPDATE: BTW, I don't have a strong opinion on the wisdom of the Gaza operation. Despite the many strong opinions that one will see in the blogs on this issue, there are so many variables, and so much secret information that only government officials possess (including the real, as opposed to public, views of Egypt, Jordan, and the PA), that it would be rather foolish of me to express a strong viewpoint on whether the operation will achieve its objectives at a reasonable cost or not. But as with the 2006 Lebanon operation, arguing over its wisdom is a very different matter than arguing over whether Israel has the moral right to act to defend its civilian population from rocket attacks launched by terrorist entities.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Still waiting
- No Free Vacation for Greenwald:
- Israel's "Disproportionate" Response:
What proportionality actually means is that the military value of the target you are hitting cannot be outweighed by the damage done to non-military targets in destroying it. The Hamas fighters are lawful targets. The Israelis are free to use whatever weapons they want in killing them and to kill as many of them as they wish in combat. Proportionality only becomes an issue when and if innocent civilians or civilian property is harmed in the process of killing lawful targets. When nitwits like Greenwald talk about Israel's disproportionate response, they are just showing their ignorance.
The results of previous Israeli military strikes into Palestinian territory suggest that (a) is generally not true, at least outside the very short term. Israeli politics suggests that no one has any clue whether anything Israel is doing will achieve or harm (b).
I think Israel should consider why international opinion seems to be swinging against it, and take steps to counter that swing, in addition to or instead of military actions like this.
You may be surprised to learn that I agree with you on this one. No other nation would ever accept the Quassam rockets raining down on its people. This is not a situation of Palestinian militants attacking inside Gaza to say "Out with the occupier." This is an attack on Israel inside the Green Line. This issue of proportionality is naive in the extreme.
The facts remain that Hamas ended the cease fire, upped the ante on the rocket attacks and knew damned well the Israelis would respond strongly. And Israel has.
I also agree with your concern that Israel may find this decision has consequences for which it had better be prepared. My sense is that Israel should be ready for a three front war (in Gaza, south Lebanon and the West Bank), and should mobilize and be prepared to use extensive ground troops. That means a war that is likely to be the most extensive since 1948.
Where we may disagree: I wish Hamas' leader, Haniyeh, would say again what he said almost two months ago, which was that Israel and Hamas enter into a long-term truce and negotiate consistent with Israel's pre-1967 War borders. Too bad Haniyeh's words in November 2008 were immediately contradicted by others in Hamas, and Israel failed to respond favorably to Haniyeh. This time, however, if he said it and some Hamas leaders agreed, Israel's leadership should seize on those statements and say it will start negotiations with Hamas. If the rockets continue from inside Gaza, Israel can respond with targeted attacks from where the rockets are launched. And still keep talking. And Israel says to Hamas, "Either you take steps to control the rocket launches or we do--or both. But let's keep talking if you say you are not in control of what others are doing."
Right. Good thing none of that has happened in Gaza.
To the extend any Palestinians really are innocent, of course.
I have a good feeling about this "killing people near the bad guys too" plan. I expect it to be pretty effective at stopping rocket attacks, somehow.
IOW, the attempt to use civilians as human shields is a crime. The use of prudent methods by the other side to limit collateral damage is required, but eschewing all action in case a civilian may be hurt is not required. And, should civilians be hurt, the fault is that of the people who colocated the facilities or fighting positions with civilians.
Apparently, trying to kill civilians as a first, last, and only tactic is so pure that it isn't even a crime for Hamas or somebody to do it. At least, it isn't condemned by any of the usual suspects.
In general, what makes VC a pleasant waystation on the interwebs is not yet another blogger outraged over this or that -- its the serious, fact-intensive discussions of law, economic policy, and politics which pop up from time to time. It would be nice if this issue got that treatment.
Like so much of the American conventional wisdom about the conflict, this is wrong. The ceasefire broke down after Israel launched an airstrike in violation of the truce, killing six. That was what "upped the ante on the rocket fire."
In general, the ceasefire was doomed as long as Israel refused to open the crossings and end the siege, which they promised in the ceasefire agreement, only to renege.
First, rocket fire from Gaza into Israel continued during the entire "ceasefire" albeit at a lower pace, so Hamas never met the conditions of the ceasefire. Second, as I recall, the "airstrike" you reference was a strike against "militants" who were preparing to launch a missile into Israel. No one sensible thinks that obeying a "truce" means overlooking when the other side is about to violate it. Third, Hamas never stopped smuggling weapons into Gaza, also in violation of the "truce." The truce/ceasefire was a fiction, a chance for each side to give itself breathing room before it decided what to do next. Hamas did, in fact, decide to up the ante, and Israel, in turn, had prepared itself to use that upping as its signal to put the plans it had been preparing for six months into place.
Depends on how many casualties those rounds are causing.
If Israel wants to assassinate Hamas leaders or strike w/ commando raids vs. Hamas strongholds, fine. Hamas is Israel's declared enemy.
But killing scores of civilians to nail 2 or 3 Hamas guys? Shocking to say, but those dead Palestinians are real people, just like you. They have mourning relatives who weren't involved with firing rockets into Israel and who certainly aren't going to blame Hamas for their dead children, parents, brothers and sisters.
Israel's best shot is quitting its stupid blockades and focusing on making the Palestinians' lives better -- so that the guy on the street sees Israel as a net plus for him, and is opposed to any rabble-rousers who want to get rid of Israel. This is not easy, particularly when you've just been killing civilians in order to feel good about yourself, but statesmanship is never easy; that's why we admire statesmen, and despise pandering politicians.
As it is, Israel seems devoted to acting as the Hamas recruiting agency. It's worked so well for them in the past.
That said, I do not think it is utterly senseless to speak of the "proportionality" of Israel's response. Israel's response is "disproportionate" where it is more forceful than necessary to achieve its (justifiable) goal, which here is the defense of its territory. Whether Israel's response here is disproportionate with respect to that goal, I don't know. This sense of "disproportionality," I think, remains in the criticisms of these attacks, even after we reject the argument that the attacks are disproportionate because Hamas has generally been unable to kill many Israelis as without merit. It still needs to be addressed, in other words.
I think critics here are also responding to the sense that Israel's "military necessity" here seems largely the product of a situation Israel is substantially responsible for. Israel has turned Gaza into something resembling a prison camp, so that now even the entry of humanitarian aid into the country is a newsworthy event, to say nothing of regular economic activity or the remittance of money owed to Palestinians living there. This fact may or may not justify Hamas's violent resistance, but it certainly does suggest that Israel is not without non-violent alternatives to resolving this crisis. (In my view, these ought to include the full assimilation of the Palestinians into Israeli politics and society, and not any kind of two-state resolution, which would represent only the next stage in Israel's ejection of the Palestinians from their territory.)
Another factor here that makes the attacks unseemly is that they're probably substantially the product of electoral politics in Israel. Tzipi Livni in particular has an interest in casting herself as a strong leader ready to use military force against the Palestinians, since her main rival for the PM spot is Netanyahu. Given Israeli public frustration with perceived governmental inaction against the rocket attacks, it seems a particularly difficult time for a figure like Livni to urge restraint. So critics, in calling Israel's attacks "disproportionate," might also be responding to a perception that the attacks are in some sense politically motivated, as well.
Like you, I can not accept the argument that your ineffective military campaign against me prevents me from responding in an effective away against you. But I think the argument about "proportionality" here is really about many aspects of the conflict besides that illogical and unacceptable bit of reasoning. The "wisdom" or "long-term effectiveness" of Israel's action is not just an ancillary consideration—it really lies at the center of the criticism.
"I think a few hundred deaths to keep a society of 1.4 million people from living in constant fear is a fair trade."
If that were really plausible, then I'd agree with you. But there's little to support the idea that yet another round of return fire will actually change anything in the situation (not that changing anything larger scale is the only legitimate reason, of course). How many times have these sorts of exchanges happened?
Israel has every right and every bit of sense to try and destroy current rocket fire capability, to try and throw the current round of Hamas terrorists into temporary disarray and hopefully reduce attacks. But the problem is that Hamas is as much an idea as it is a list of people and targets. The question for any given strategy is whether it is really discrediting or empowering that idea. As far as I can tell, these retaliations tend to empower the idea over the long run: which is really sort of what the rocket attacks are all about in the first place. They aren't serious military efforts to achieve anything at all in terms of hurting Israel or its military capabilities. They're essentially PR efforts for an organization that has lots of internal politics to battle out. The more Palestinian civilians get killed, the better for groups like Hamas. It's no accident that they place their assets in residential areas. They don't do it because they think Israel is so respectful of civilian life that they won't bomb or attack when provoked. They do it precisely because of the PR value of funerals and footage that are generated when they entice Israel to return fire.
Simon, that's a thoughtful response, but it's also true that Israel was perfectly willing, on its withdrawal from Gaza, to cooperate with the authorities there, and indeed started to do so. This offer was met only with increasing violence, and the eventual takeover by Hamas resulting in Israel cutting off Gaza, as any nation would do to a neighbor engaged in war against it. Capitalists might sell the Communists the rope to hang themselves with, as Marx suggested, but Israel would be foolish to provide Hamas with the wherewithal to attack it with more efficacy (though it has, in fact, allowed fuel shipments into Gaza, which are then diverted to Hamas use).
In effect, they unilaterally implemented the South African "homelands" solution, trying to create a surrounded, economically dependent, militarily helpless entity for which they could escape the responsibilities of occupation while maintaining the reality of their rule.
Hamas maintained a ceasefire with Israel for six months, and Israel has voiced two basic objections to Hamas' observance of the ceasefire:
1. Learning from Fatah's mistakes, Hamas has refused the role of security subcontractor for Israel, absent a formal agreement. Therefore a trickle of rockets -- 10-15 a month, as opposed to hundreds before the ceasefire -- have been fired by other factions in Gaza.
2. Hamas, like Israel, and as any government would do their situation, has used the lull to arm, train, and entrench their forces against the possibility of future conflicts.
Israel, in contrast, never upheld its primary obligation under the ceasefire; to open the crossings and allow goods to flow in and out. Thus they maintain a chokehold on Gaza's economy and are keeping it days away from a major humanitarian crisis.
Israel has an understandable reluctance to have a hostile state on its borders improving its productivity and upgrading its army. However, this is what they set in motion because they did not want to allow the inhabitants of Gaza, joined to Israel for more than two-thirds of that state's existence, political rights in their homeland.
Partition is presented as the natural and moderate solution to the conflict, but the logic of partition, as the case of Gaza shows, has some serious lacuna. As Lincoln pointed out so long ago:
The planning's secrecy ensured that Hamas security forces were at their stations when the bombs fell. But to help reduce civilian casualties, Israeli forces reportedly sent text messages to thousands of Gaza residents urging them to "leave homes where militants might have stashed weapons," Ha'aretz reports.
Nevertheless, at least 15 civilians have died in the bombing, which on Monday expanded to strike the Islamic University of Gaza.
What to believe? We'll see when the dust settles. I still don't think that the bombing is terribly smart, for the reasons Rob Farley sets forth, but I did want to note the fact issue.
I'd say that it's the Arabs' inability to blame Hamas (or the applicable local thugs) for their misery that gets them into these scrapes in the first place. Hopefully, at some point, the Palestinians will decide that they're not going to allow their friends and neighbors to launch rockets into neighboring countries because it inevitably results in deadly retaliation. If they want to run their own country, they'd better learn how to police themselves. If they won't or can't, they really shouldn't complain when others take a necessarily heavy hand in policing it for them.
Gee, that would be bad if it had any relationship to reality. I don't suppose you have a source saying the number of Hamas members killed is only 2 or 3?
Well, given that Hamas has said over and over that it will NEVER sign a peace agreement with Israel, but only agree to temporary ceasefires, what you are saying is that Hamas will never act like the responsible gov't of Gaza and prevent its territory from being used as a base against Israel. I'm not sure how this helps your case. Is there a government in the world that would put up with a long-term situation of having a "handful" of rockets terrorize a significant portion of its population every month?
Hamas never agreed to be responsible for the actions of non-Hamas actors. Israel is the one who never opened the crossings, meaning they never met the conditions they agreed to.
Your recall is wrong. Israel struck men in a tunnel. Now, how do men in a tunnel launch missiles? As for their being "militants," this justification reflects the poor understanding among Israel and its supporters of a "ceasefire." Ceasefire means ceasing fire, by both sides, not that Hamas ceases fire while Israel continues to shoot at them.
Hamas never agreed to stop importing arms. And how are they "smuggling"? Did Israel stop occuppying Gaza? Is Hamas the authority there? If so, they have as much right as any other government to arm, and are not smuggling.
All truces/ceasefires represent "a chance for each side to give itself breathing room before it decided what to do next" and, it is hoped, to chose peace. I can well believe that neither Israel nor Hamas thought the ceasefire would last for ever, but that doesn't change the reality that it was Israel who violated the ceasefire, perhaps because, as you say, they felt ready to start the next round.
Why is it that there is no blockade against Palestinians living in the West Bank?
The "Occam's Razor" answer is that the Palestinian Authority under Abbas is not letting rockets rain down on Israel's villages or towns from the West Bank. And we don't hear Abbas talking about never recognizing Israel as a sovereign state or calling for its destruction.
If the Gazans wish to stop this, they can: They can march peacefully like Ghandi or MLK, Jr. and force their militants to acknowledge that people want peace. Israel will be far more likely to stop its bombings under those circumstances. Israeli society will act more like England with Ghandi, or the US federal government in the 1960s than like Nazis. Anyone with eyes or knowledge of Israeli public opinion can see that.
Under just war theory, a state can't commence use of military force without a serious prospect of success in reaching the legitimate objective (i.e., force can't be used if the use of force is futile). That is a standard separate from the standard that if force is permissible, it must be used with proportionality.
Accordingly, DB's remark that "arguing over its wisdom [i.e., the wisdom of Israel's military response] is a very different matter than arguing over whether Israel has the moral right to act to defend its civilian population from rocket attacks launched by terrorist entities" is not correct under just war theory. No state has a moral right to use military force if the use of force is not reasonably likely to achieve some legitimate objective.
For the reasons DB points out, I agree that it is hard to evaluate what Israel's specific objective is here and whether Israel's response is reasonably likely to reach that objective, but I don't think it's beyond discussion.
(To state what should be obvious, assuming arguendo that Hamas is a state entitled to use military force where permitted by just war theory, which is a big "if," the same standard would apply, and to my mind obviously has not been met here.)
You're the one who raised Oslo, so are the parties bound by Oslo or not?
As for the rocket attacks, my understanding is that the two sides agreed to a "period of quiet." Hamas later announced that this only meant that its own men wouldn't shoot rockets at Israel, but that it would not stop Islamic Jihad etc. Obviously, Israel interpreted the terms differently, and much more logically. The idea that the governing entity of a territory is not violating a ceasefire when it not only turns a blind eye to non-state entities firing rockets into others' territory, but cooperates with them up to the point of actually firing the rockets, is so ridiculous that I'm quite confident that you are not making this argument seriously, or if so not in good faith.
For the same reason, I find it hard to take government spin about their supposed interest in avoiding collateral damage seriously. If they were really interested in avoiding collateral damage, they could easily drop in commandos for targeted raids on Hamas strongholds. Instead, they chose to use a tactic that will invariably kill a lot of innocent people no matter how careful you are. As a result, I find it far more plausible that the government sees collateral damage as a bonus, because it establishes their power and makes the populace fear them.
Of course, Israel is eminently justified in going after the Hamas terrorists who keep firing rockets into Israel.
Congratulations, you've justified the 9/11 attacks. And those nefarious babies in Tokyo and Dresden -- they sure got what they had coming to 'em, didn't they?
The degradation of morality from 1900 to 2000 is spotlighted by the growing indifference to civilian casualties. People could be shocked that Boer civilians died in British camps. Now, they're just collateral damage, or keeping the British from Having to Live in Fear, or something like that.
Apparently that's what we should do with Bush or Cheney, the next time we run into 'em. Don't let those surrounding guys in dark suits deter you -- you have RIGHTS, by god.
If you don't, and you get blown up by some terrorist punishing the U.S. for its violations of international law, well, you have only yourself to blame.
Precisely because these casualties are what they want footage of. Israel can't exactly sit by while being attacked evey other day, but at some point needs to have a larger strategy whereby they don't just keep playing into this little game.
Or who are dragooned into Hamas' facilities to be used as propaganda?
Fact is, if Israel is going to do anything, fate and Hamas will combine to see that civilians are killed.
As to aerial bombardment being incredibly inaccurate, that has been changing.
The bunker buster (iirc CBU 39) which the IDF got from the US has a reduced explosive charge specifically because, 1, more is unnecessary because the thing is going to hit right on the button, and, 2, it reduces collateral damage.
Hamas can refuse to be Israel's security subcontractor if they want. No other political entity is going to be allowed the same latitude and be considered innocent of whatever is "outgoing". None. Special rules for the enemies of Israel.
We have seen, in the last couple of days, the practical effects of allowing such things to go on.
I agree that the JWD requires some reasonable prospect of success, which is a matter for the politicians. If they stop before the goal is achieved, presuming the goal was reasonably likely, they violate the JWD. If it is presumed that the politicians will, as usual, quit before the goal is achieved, nobody should be involved in it at all. So at the court-martial, the defendant says, "I refused to attack Gaza because I knew the politicians would throw the whole thing away." See how that flies.
However, the fundamental issue is that the law does not require Israel to be impotent and passive because Hamas has colocated their military facilities so as to hide behind civilians.
Bartlet: What's the virtue of the proportional response?
Admiral Fitzwallace: I'm sorry?
Bartlet: What is the virtue of a proportional response?
Why's it good? They hit an airplane, so we hit a transmitter, right? That's a proportional response. They hit a barracks, so we hit two transmitters.
Admiral Fitzwallace: Yes, that's roughly it, sir.
Bartlet: This is what we do. I mean, this is what we do.
Leo: Yes sir, it's what we do. It's what we've always done.
Bartlet: Well, if it's what we do, if it's what we've always done, don't they know we're going to do it? I ask again, what is the virtue of a Proportional Response?
Admiral Fitzwallace: It isn't virtuous, Mr. President. It's all there is, sir.
Bartlet: It is not all there is.
Admiral Fitzwallace: Just what else is there?
Bartlet: The disproportional response. Let the word ring forth, from this time and this place, gentlemen, you kill an American, any American, we don't come back with a proportional response. We come back with total disaster! [He bangs the table]
General: Are you suggesting that we carpet-bomb Damascus?
Bartlet: I am suggesting, General, that you, and Admiral
Fitzwallace, and Secretary Hutchinson, and the rest of the National Security Team take the next sixty minutes and put together an American response scenario that doesn't make me think we're just docking somebody's damn allowance!
They keep munitions, supplies, and troops in the tunnel, then move the launchers to the open end of the tunnel to launch. If they deflect the exhaust from the rocket, they can even manage to push the launch button from inside the tunnel.
Israel should wall up Gaza and leave it to rot on the vine. The West Bank is trickier because of Jerusalem, which makes that solution unfeasible there. But Gaza should just be belligerently ignored and responded to with bulldozers rather than rockets. One rocket=one block flattened. When Gaza is nothing but a used car lot with its citizenry reduced to being parking attendants and squeegee guys, maybe they’ll stop their bullshit. Israel has a right to exist, Gazans have a responsibility to stop firing rockets into its neighbor’s territory, and as much of a clusterf-k the place is, I generally take Israel’s side because as much as they are assholes, they are assholes playing defense most of the time.
The 9/11 attacks were done by non-state actors, who would never be justified anyway. It's irrelevant whether Al Qaeda attacks a civilian or military target for the same reason that it's irrelevant whether a gang member shoots a civilian or a police officer.
Yay, group libel!
1. Is there any path by which Gaza becomes a viable mini-state with a functioning economy?
2. If not, is there a particular reason why Israel does not invade, occupy, and annex the land and deport all those who will not conduct themselves as citizens, ie, surrender some West Bank land for bringing Gaza into Israel proper?
Are you thinking about this? "Deport"? Tens of thousands of men, women, and children? Where? As if Gaza weren't a tragedy waiting to happen already.
Does the word "deportation" have any particular historical resonance for you, btw?
I suppose your variant on this question would be: What the Palestinians should do is offer anyone who thinks that having 1.4 million people living under a blockade the destroys their ability to survive should be accepted implicitly by the Palestinians, a plane ticket and free lodging to Gaza.
Otherwise, aren't you participating in the same herd mentality that arbitrarily identifies with one side of a conflict rather than neither, or both sides?
Of coure you are thinking about it rationally, as a person who values life rather than someone for whom death is considered an improvement of your condition. But few of us here can really know what it is like to actually believe what individuals in Hamas believe - to believe that a martyr's death is superior to anything that can be achieved in life.
I don't know what it will take for things to change but I'm not sure the Israelis have a better option here: "We're no longer going to occupy you - we're simply going to protect our border and our people. You want a state? Go form one. Show progress and we'll even help and make further concessions. But if you keep trying to kill us, we will strike back with far greater force."
Maybe that will not teach the Palestinains of the futility of their approach but I wonder, what will? In the meantime, Israel's best option is to cripple Hamas - a group which, by definition, can never be a partner for peace.
The European enlightenment with its values of liberty and toleration did not emerge in a vacuum. It emerged after centuries of violence on a horrific scale - European Christians slaughtering other Christians over belief in God (and more). Gandhi's movement in India on emerged only after he witnessed horrible bloodshed and came to understand the futility of violence. Where is the Palestinian Gandhi? And for critics of Israel who actually think it's fair to to compare Israel to Apartheid South Africa.....where then is the Palestinian Mandela?
Maybe these figures will emerge eventually. But sadly, I fear that the only thing that teaches people the futility of violence is violence.
Now you tell us. Cheney said Saddam and AQ had an "established relationship." Feith called it "an operational relationship." Bush said that Saddam and AQ worked "in concert."
Well, the Israelis are awfully slow learners then, aren't they? So much for the stereotype of the smart Jew.
Cf. Hilzoy at ObWi:
Apart from the 1) Hamas having been duly and democratically elected and 2) the ideological sustenance of Hamas, the cold reality is that war and battle in Gaza is big business.
These snakeheads operate the hundreds of Gaza tunnels, especially near Rafah, and cash in big time on the weapons being smuggled and coming into Gaza via Eygpt. The snakeheads "rent" the tunnels which they own and operate to Islamic Jihad, Hamas militants, and independent militias all selling weapons arriving from (where else) Syria, Yemen, Eygpt, Sudan-and, yes, even from Israel proper.
I'll end by quoting some profit data from the report:
“The profits are huge. A Kalashnikov sells for $200 on the Egyptian side, but fetches $2,000 on the Gaza black market. A good night's delivery is 1,200 Kalashnikovs — a profit of more than $2 million. Bullets — 50 cents in Egypt,
$8 wholesale in Gaza — are even more profitable. A standard one-night deliveryreturns a profit of $750,000.”
This makes no sense at all. Gaza is an Arab land that was under the control of another Arab land, Egypt, before the 1967 war. The Arabs of Gaza should be returned to Egyptian control, and they should exercise their political rights in Egypt.
Just for starters, Israel left behind millions of dollars of agricultural and manufacturing facilities in Gaza. Instead of building an economy, the Gazans chose to contine their war on an "occupier" that was not occupuying them. (Leave aside that under international law, Israel's presence there was not legally an occupation.)
When Israel took Gaza from Egypt after being attacked by Egypt in 1967, Gaza was one of the poorest spots on earth. Under Israeli "occupation", medical care, life expectancy, literacy, educational levels and per capita GDP increased exponentially and illiteracy and infant mortality decreased. These continued to improve until the first and second intifadas, when Arabs decided that murdering Jews was more important than economic well being, Israel responded with border closings, and the world blamed Israel for reducing its subsidies to those who were trying to murder Israels and eliminate Israel as a state.
Israel closed the border crossings in response to Hamas' attacks on Israel. Hamas manages to smuggle in plenty of weapons (including missiles and motorized vehicles) and can just as easuily bring in food, fuel and medical when they care to. Israel allows wounded and injured Gazans into Israel, where they are treated free of charge in Israeli hospitals. Some have responded by trying to blow up the very doctors and nurses who saved their lives.
If the Arabs wanted peace and independence tomorrow (or even today), they could have it. What they want is the right to exterminate Israel and every last Jew in the middle east (read the Hamas charter some time) and cry foul whenever Israel refuses to treat them as anything but Girl Scouts intent on selling cookies.
Dear Portland:
Although I appreciate your defending Hamas on the grounds that it should not be faulted for not doing things it did not promise to do, you don't apply the same standard to Israel. Israel never promised to open the crossings or "end the seige" (as you phrase it). The repeated statements made by Hamas, that Israel said it would open the border crossings and permit people from Gaza to come to Israel and work, are untrue.
And, while it is true that Hamas never promised to stop attacks from Gaza by non-Hamas organizations, Hamas is the government in Gaza -- first by election and then by use of force to seize the instruments of government and disarm or kill its opponents within Gaza. As the sovereign government, Hamas has failed to stop attacks from terroritory over which it has sovereignity. Your failure to address this makes your responses unconvincing. Since Hamas is running the government in Gaza it is responsible for failing to stop attacks from Gaza. This does not make Hamas "Israel's security subcontractor". Rather, it is an obligation that comes with Hamas taking over the government in Gaza.
And as a historical matter, there was largely free movement between Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel, until the first Intifada.
Most important, Israel wouldn't attack or blockade Gaza if the Gazans weren't attacking Israel, which is why the analogy makes no sense. Hamas has the unilateral power to stop the blockade, etc., by announcing that it accepts Israel's right to exist, is willing to join the PA in negotiating a deal with Israel, and will no longer make preparations for terrorism or other attacks on Israel.
But sure, if you want to overlook all of Greenwald's false implicit assumptions, the post makes sense.
Although Israel has a right to defend against the firing of rockets into its civilian communities, Israel's defense of its own people should account for the humanity of those many, many Palestinians who are caught up in this struggle with no means of escape. Yet, even given its knowledge of the extreme privation in Gaza, Israel is dropping bombs in densely populated areas with resulting indiscriminate killing. Those who are not killed will suffer mightily because Gaza does not have the resources to treat them.
In this setting, Israel's claim that it does not mean to make war on the Palestinian people lacks credibility.
Commentators on this blog appear to believe that Israel has been driven to this extreme because the Palestinians are intractable. One asked: Where is the Palestinian Ghandi? Perhaps the commentators should delve more deeply into this history. As I understand it, a few would-be Palestinian Ghandi's now live in exile. Others have been killed.
Violence, and the threat of violence, is what keeps you safe from criminals.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/
3194846/
groundhog-day-for-the-fifth-column-of-malice.thtml
The above makes for informative reading.
There are a number of factors that Bernstein overlooks, however. The goal of Hamas's attacks are to sucker Israel into a war similar to that which Olmert fought in Lebanon. The idea is to use weapons which cause widespread terror but relatively little loss of life in order to make Israel look bad in their response. It is a matter of strategy rather than what Israel has the legal or even moral right to do.
The goal is simply to make Israel look bad enough to cause Europeans to stop importing Israeli products (as they did during Operation Defensive Shield) and thus put the Israeli economy on hold. Thus far they have not been successful but if they keep it up and we have a reply of past events, they might be.
However, let's not forget what needs to happen for stability in the area: Likud needs to win the next election and start clandestine negotiations with Hamas. Likud, and even Netanyahu, have great track records in this sort of thing. After all Netanyahu put his leadership of the party on the line to approach Assad of Syria with the idea of resolving Golan (by giving it back to Syria), though this is why he lost leadership of the party to Sharon (who lost leadership of his party due to supporting a Palestinian state in violation of his party's platform, thus paving the way for Kadima). I had great hopes for Kadima prior to Sharon's stroke. Now I think Likud is the only party left that can really push for peace.
This conflict may shape the political landscape of any later negotiations, but it is relatively minor stuff. Certainly shellign Sderot is not right, though I would have absolutely NO problem with shelling settlements in the WB or East Jerusalem as I see these as legitimate targets under international law. But the law is not going to settle this the way international political opinion will.
Hamas has been launching missile attacks against Israel. We call this "acts of war".
Hamas has been deliberately targetting civilians. We call this "war crimes".
Hamas has been deliberately launching attacks from civilian areas. We call this "war crimes".
Israel has been pussy-footing around, and failing to call a spade a spade. Hamas has been making war against Israel. Making war against Hamas is a reasonable and appropriate response.
That is just bunk. Those settlements be they legal or illegal are full of non-combatants and cannot be legitmate targets under international law unless you think international law means it is okay to kill civilians as long as they are Jews. Certainly, there are many people in the world who feel that way. But not enough to make it acceptable practice or in any way legal. Hamas commits a war crime everytime it indescriminately shells civilians and every time it hides its military within innocent Palistinian civilians.
I believe international humanitarian law more or less requires access to medical care be allowed. You might find researching the Laconia Incident during WWII to be of interest as well, where German subs were attacked during the course of operations to rescue survivors from sinking ships they had attacked. The subs escaped but only after that were subs ordered NOT to rescue survivors.
If Egypt is denying such people access to health care, then they are guilty of crimes of the highest order.
The fact that there is fighting in the Middle East again, and Israel is involved, ranks right up there, too!
Not quite. Non-combattants lose their protections if they take illegal parts in conflicts. The settlements are illegal under the Geneva Conventions as is even recognized by Israel (and is a big part of political opposition to the International Criminal Court in the Israeli press), and therefore its residents are no more subject to such protections than would a medic with a sidearm.
You lose your status if you take part in a conflict, as in shooting at someone. Living in a disputed area is not "taking part in the conflict" as you are discribing it. If what you are saying is true, Hamas could shoot every settler, man woman and child, on sight without commiting a war crime. That is just not true and frankly a disgusting position.
Again, completely untrue. Medics are allowed to carry sidearms, not crew serve weapons, for personal defense. They only become lawful targets if they use the side arms. Merely carrying one, does not make them a lawful target.
Israel has sometimes engaged in war crimes too. For example, Sharon's administration captured ICRC personnel and used them as human shields, and there were numerous reports of specific attacks aimed at PCRC facilities in violation of international humanitarian law.
Oh, good lord. How are "Palestinians from Gaza" now generically "enemies" of Israel?
Show me anywhere in international law supporting that proposition. Even if the populations are there illegally, a debatable proposition, that does not mean the people there are combatants. Think about what you are saying here. If the people there gave up their non-combatant status, that means a four year old living in a settlement can be shot just like a soldier can be shot. That means he can be killed on sight by any legal means. That is simply nonsense.
And ask them to bring their families for the festivities.
Closet Libetarian writes: "once Hamas uses human shields they are responsible for any harm to the civilians"
The point in each is the same: if Hamas deserves to suffer retribution then there is nothing wrong with Israel bombing them regardless of how many civilians it kills in the process. But here's an analogous proposition, which is absurd: if Randy deserves to suffer retribution then there is nothing wrong with Federal Agents sniping him even if they kill his son and wife in the process (even if he's using them as human shields). There are clearly circumstances in which both he / they who deserve to suffer retribution, and he / they who deliver retribution, are at fault if civilian casualties are incurred in the process.
Obviously, there are also circumstances in which it is excusable for someone to kill civilians incidental to killing those who deserve to be killed. But the mere fact that those who deserve to be killed <i>deserve to be killed</i>, or are using human shields, is not enough to trigger that excusability.
My tentative thought is that excusability is triggered if it is reasonable to think that more damage would be done by leaving those who deserve to be killed alive than by killing them and, incidentally, some civilians. Whether, under this standard, Israel is excused for killing civilians depends on a number of facts I don't know: how many civilians its killed, how many Israelis Hamas has killed, how much damage is done by the pall of fear cast over Sderot, etc.
From what I've read thusfar I'm inclined to think that Israel does have a moral right to act under this standard, but much depends on how <i>wise</i> Israel's strike was. <i>Pace</i> Burnstein, I don't see how one can be agnostic on the wisdom of a military strike, while utterly confident on its moral acceptability.
The problem with your position is that it encourages the use of human shields. If I am a combatant, I can be killed on sight by the enemy. Under your logic, if I grab a human shield, I avoid that crude logic and make my enemy consider whether killing me is really worth the deaths of innocents. You are creating a tremendous incentive for people like Hamas to use human shields. It is much better in the long run to say that you are still a lawful target and any deaths of civlians you hide behind are on your head.
The Settlements are built on land confiscated by force from Palestinians. Palestinians have every right to take back that property by force. Those who refuse to leave given reasonable notice should be subject to siezure if practical or, if they violently resist (or nonviolently resist and siezure is not an option), deadly force. I think we can see the Green Line though as an area within such reasonable time limits on this have elapsed. I think financial compensation for the descendants of Zionist (pre-Israeli-state) war-crimes should take the place of a right to return. I think that a publically stated policy of attacking settlements would be sufficient notice given the realities on the ground. I would see this as no different than bombing a weapons factory full of non-combattant workers. After all, the settlements have generally been a part of a policy of terror and annexation by Israel in contravention of international law. Thus they are properly seen as the equivalent of WMD factories rather than residential neighborhoods.
Israel has a right to exist within defined borders, within which citizenship benefits are awarded on a nondiscriminatory basis (to Arabs and Jews alike). This is largely true inside the Green Line (even though Arabs suffer from widespread discrimination, they ARE eligible for Israeli citizenship including the right to vote in these cases). The settlements are a separate case which has to be addressed separately.
You may think that, but that is not international law. Further, you are advocating mass murder. Just because you think the land belongs to the Palistinians, does not give the Palistinians the right to target civilians. There is no way around that.
GC IV article 47 addresses annexation of territories, of which the settlements clearly qualify.
Article 19 of the same provision includes the text: "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."
Settlement building is a war crime. Civilians participating in the settlement plans by living there are thus guilty of participating in such illegal activities in the same way a medic firing a sidearm is.
I am advocating evacuating the settlements. In the absence of that, I think that other measures are OK.
"Israel's best shot is quitting its stupid blockades and focusing on making the Palestinians' lives better."
Let me remind you that Egypt also borders Gaza and it too has sealed off the border. How come that doesn't bother you? After all Egyptians are Arabs just like the Palestinians. They share a common language and religion, and of course hatred of Jews and Israel. Compare and contrast to how Germany welcomed the displaced 16 million ethnic Germans that the Allies forcibly (with great loss of life-- 2 million) expelled from East Prussia, the Sudetenland and many other parts of Europe. Could it be that Palestinians are fundamentally a pain in the ass? Such a pain that even other Arabs want no part of them? Remember Jordan and Black September?
I am not argueing that. Just because the settlements are illegal does not mean that the civilians in them are combatants. That is just not the law. It means the settlements are illegal, it does not mean that you can murder anyone who is a settler.
I don't have so much of a problem with a closed (and defined border), though I have a problem with military curfews and perpetual military activities, particularly when those have been known to target Red Cross personnel and affiliated organizations. Fortunately these have not happened YET in this case, but if they do, I will be the first to advocate ICC indictments....
First, given that Gaza was never part of an independent state and was forcibly and unlawfully invaded by Egypt in 1948 until Israel took the land in a war of defense in 1967. Because Gaza is not the land of another sovereign nation, Israel is not an "occupying power" within the meaning of the convention.
Second, Israel has never deported or transferred its own civilian popluation. It has permitted its civilian poplulation to live there, but has committed no transfers, which refers to the type of en masse forcible transfers of the type that Germany carried out in the 1930s.
The gift that keeps on giving.
Ostensibly, of course, WE want it solved. Still, one has to wonder. In Iraq, when we want to counter "insurgents", we use the carrot and the stick. Vis-a-vis the Palestinian/Israeli situation, we support Israel's intermittent use of the stick we paid for and ship a boatload of carrots to Egypt. Odd.
Would that be the same Red Cross/Red Crescent ambulances that were caught transporing fighters, munitions and explosives? Did you advocate ICC indictments against the Red Cross/Red Crescent officials involved?
In a similarly "shocking" vein, two illuminations of news agencies, Agence France-Presse and Reuters, and how they systematically bias their reports when it comes to Israel. First some data - keeping in mind Israel pulled out of Gaza in late 2005, also keeping in mind 2008 was the year of a cease fire - numbers of rockets fired into Israeli civilian populations by year (does not include mortars fired, which reflect similar levels):
2001 - 4
2002 - 35
2003 - 155
2004 - 281
2005 - 179
2006 - 946
2007 - 896
2008 - 1,212
Virtually all those were fired into civilian populations and virtually none of it receives the MSM media space it deserves. In that vein, reveals of AFP and Reuters:
The Middle East According to AFP, a snippet, emphasis added:
"The next event that the AFP finds noteworthy is Israel's five-day "offensive" of February and March 2008, which "kills over 120 Palestinians." No mention of the 257 rockets and 228 mortars that were fired into Israel from Gaza during the month of February alone, no mention of Hamas' resumption of suicide bombing in February, and no acknowledgement that many of those killed were Hamas terrorists."
And a similar reveal of Reuters, Higher education, Hamas-style, extended excerpt, emphasis added:
"In today's newspapers one can read via Reuters, for example, that "Israeli warplanes bombed the Islamic University in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, a significant Hamas cultural symbol[.]" The targeting of the university sounds like an error, or an example of Israel's allegedly disproportionate response to the rocket attacks against which it is seeking to defend itself. Why bomb a university?
"Turning to the Jerusalem Post, one discovers:"
Seizing ICRC personnel and making THEM knock on doors while standing in front of the IDF forces (as happened during Operation Defensive Shield) is a war crime however by ANY stretch of the imagination.
Also the discussion of settlements in Gaza is a moot point at the moment as those settlements were all disbanded under Sharon. THat is why I mentioned specifically East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Prior to 1948, things were relatively different. Hence my drawing of the line around the 48/49 borders. We might otherwise well ask why Gush Etzion should be fundamentally different in our treatment than Dir Yassin..... In reality victims in both cases need to be compensated.
The more recent settler movement however has NOT been regarding land purchased from willing sellers.
However, the sovereign state argument is largely superceded by the convention of 1999 which has held that the Geneva Conventions do indeed apply. Secondly UNSC resolution 446 clearly suggests that the general consensus is that the settlements do involve transfer of population to these areas in contravention of article 49. I would note that 49(6) does NOT include the word "forcible" with regard to transfers of the civilian population of the occupying power. The word forcible in article 49 only applies to the occupied people.
Some Zionist organizations (in particular LEHI, a terrorist group of which former PM Shamir was a high-ranking member, and which sought military alliance with the Nazis) did argue for a manifest destiny stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates. This was a bit bigger than the territorial boundaries argued for by Irgun, but this is still MUCH larger than Israel is today.
One of the things people have to understand in this issue is the goal of the settlement policy which was to displace those who live in the area with the goal of eventually annexing the land without threatening the Jewish/Arab demographic balance. As it is, this balance is threatened anyway, just counting Israeli citizens (not Palestinians), and so the current situation is unmaintainable. Within a century, it is highly unlikely in my estimation that, absent horrifying atrocities, Jews will be an ethnic majority of Israeli citizenry.
A too-forceful response may not accomplish anything. However, it appears to me that a too-weak response has been shown to simply exacerbate the situation and promote more violence.
Gaza borders Egypt and in fact was part of Egypt until the '67 war. Why would it be so difficult to get suppies into Gaza via Egypt? Are Israelis Soldiers manning posts there on the Egyptian border and preventing anything getting in? What is preventing people in Gaza from migrating to Egypt?
If the goal is to get Gazans to leave, that is a crime against humanity.
However, if Egypt is refusing to allow medical supplies through the border that is one too.
So other than the facts and your legal analysis, you're correct.
The general consnesus of the US, EU, and Israeli governments has been that the GC does apply. The general consensus has also been that the settlements are probably illegal under GC IV article 49.
This came up in the question of whether the Knesset would ratify the Rome Statute. The ratification vote failed because of widespread concern that all settlers were war criminals under GC IV.
This is pretty much the language and philosophy of a terrorist. It reflects exactly the thinking of those Al Qaeda members who consider the people in the World Trade Center Towers fair game because, by their brutal and twisted ideology, there is no such thing as an "innocent" civilian or non-combatant. The fact it is casually dropped into the conversation as a justification for the Israeli actions - hey, if you kill a few Palestinian kids, no worries, they weren't "innocent" anyway! - is absolutely revolting. And although no one should be responsible for another person's words, the fact that it has gone unremarked and unrepudiated is shocking and deeply sad.
Largely, but the AQ argument has been a little more sophisticated than that. The argument is that these policies are made by our elected officials, and are therefore products of democracy. In a democracy, Zawahiri has argued, every voter bears command responsibility and therefore is a legitimate target.
The argument is therefore one which appeals to some semblance of logic. It is still wrong, of course, just not as obviously wrong as what you are replying to. This doesn't mean that there isn't some level of collective responsibility, but that it doesn't go so far as to remove non-combatant status.
Sarcastro, do you have to work at being a total fucking idiot, or do were you just born lucky?
Except it's not that, you're saying that otherwise-innocent Palestinians should be found guilty of thought crimes and punished with death.
Except it's not that, you're saying that otherwise-innocent Palestinians should be punished with death because they happen to live in the same region where other people have committed thought crimes, without regard to whether they personally committed any thought crimes.
I have no idea how one goes about refuting such lunacy.
I'm sorry, but if I lived in Nazi Germany, and I thought that terrorist attacks would stop or have a strong negative impact on their war effort and the Holocaust, I wouldn't cry too much.
The 20th century was much bloodier than any before. I'd be interested to see what people the reason for this was -- technology, or something(s) else. If the major world power practiced warfare ruthlessly, I wonder if there would be drastically fewer wars. Perhaps not.
You may now begin your anti-Israeli and anti-me tirade against me.
Not the same.
Morally right? Maybe not. But WWII was a pretty horrible conflict. Firebombings of Tokyo and Dresden were notably worse than anything that Milosevic was prosecuted for. Like it or not, we have changed what we find acceptable in wartime activity.
A substantial part of this surely had to do with the fact there were just more people in 1945 than in, say, 245. I'm sure the technology helps as well, but at the same time, it's hard to think of ancient or medievals armies that were anything close to a model of restraint (read up on the Crusades some time).
Well, kind of. The winners have always treated the losers differently than themselves. We've certainly treated our less capable adversaries better than we treated the Japanese or Germans, but I don't know if that is much of a change from the status quo. The questions remains what we would do if we were really pushed to the limit. Maybe the advent of WMDs make it a question we won't have to answer. I hope not.
Ronnie: This is why Sarcastro should be our Philosopher King. Whatever your political point of view, he's bound to be an improvement. And, if not, then Hoosier can be our Cromwell.
Well, you see wrong. Gaza was under Egyptian military administration between 1948-49 and the Six Day War, but it was never part of Egypt. The Egyptians steadfastly maintained that Gaza was part of Palestine, and that they were only there temporarily until a Palestinian state could be set up. (Jordan, on the other hand, annexed the West Bank, since King Abdullah really didn't give a rat's ass about Palestinian nationalism, but the annexation was not recognized by any state other than Pakistan and the UK.)
You will note that the occupation of the West Bank by Jordan raised no hackles. Either the Jordanians were more efficient and benign than the Israelis, or they were as corrupt and brutal and incompetent as any other Arab governance and so nobody noticed.
So when Jordan provided a handy little lesson in why Israel needed strategic depth, all of a sudden, occupation turned out to be a Very Bad Thing.
Boy, I can't figure out why. Can you?
Most of that blood was caused by Stalin, Mao, Pot-pol, Che and the rest of the socialists killing their fellow countrymen, not from war.
Well, it hasn't been setup has it? Gaza is Egypt problem and they should fix it.
Deborah A. Gordon is Associate Professor of Women's Studies. She received her Ph.D. in the History of Consciousness with an emphasis in Feminist Theory from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She has published widely on issues in feminism and the anthropological practices of ethnography and fieldwork.
Her research now concerns feminism and nationalism among Palestinians struggling for independentstatehood in the occupied territories of Israel. Debbie teaches Gender, Race and Knowledge, Women in Society: Cultural Images,and Theories of Feminism.
As a former combat soldier and now an attorney, I've always found the term "innocent civilian" to be irksome. Indeed, are they "innocent"? What does "innocent" mean in a war?
I think the proper term, and one I hope to see here more frequently, is "non-combatant". That is the term used by the Geneva Conventions.
You fail to distinguish "occupation" from "annexation." If Jordan had simply occupied the West Bank, what they did would be indistinguishable from what Egypt did with respect to Gaza (which raised no hackles because it was recognized as merely a provisional measure). But they went on and took the illegal step of annexing the West Bank. I don't know what you might mean by saying that the annexation "raised no hackles." Sure, people didn't riot in the streets (either in the annexed territories or in Western capitals), but they didn't applaud it, either. Next to no one recognized the annexation; I suspect that the annexation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania by the Soviet Union was recognized by more states (and no one rioted in the streets over those annexations, either).
Of course both Israel and the US have the right to throw international law out the window. So does every country.
Really? The US has the right "to throw international law out the window" even when that law is in the form of a treaty that's been executed and ratified, giving it the force of domestic law? If that's true, is there anything any country doesn't have the right to do?
Of course it has that right. If the welfare and existence of any population is in jeopardy, it has the right and obligation to jettison a treaty.
We're not stuck with the law. We create it. We change it. We dump it. History shows this very clearly.
If that's true, is there anything any country doesn't have the right to do?
I would say no country has the right allow its population to be exterminated so it can adhere to a treaty that has the force of domestic law.
Withdrawing from a treaty or repealing a law isn't throwing it out the window. It's lawfully changing the law.
Sometimes breaking the law is less harmful then following it. Then it's up to the relevant prosecutor, court or jury to decide whether the circumstances mitigate or excuse the violation. But again, that's not throwing the law out the window.
There's a word for when countries (or individuals) don't have to answer for ignoring the laws they think there's a good reason to break: anarchy.
They do that after the fact. It doesn't matter what they do then. Those who have to act to preserve the welfare of the population don't have the luxury of spending months or years parsing details. They just throw it out the window.
History demonstrates anarchy is a very good description of the international stage.
A lot of people get away with abusing their spouse, damaging each other and the marriage in the process. That doesn't mean they throw marriage out the window.
No, Elliot, even scofflaw countries powerful enough to stifle or withstand enforcement when it suits them count on international law to continue operating in a myriad of largely invisible ways*, absent which there would in fact be anarchy and chaos.
(*Think communication, trade, travel and diplomacy, for example.)
Agree.
"No, Elliot, even scofflaw countries powerful enough to stifle or withstand enforcement when it suits them count on international law to continue operating in a myriad of largely invisible ways*, absent which there would in fact be anarchy and chaos."
That depends on what is at stake. Those that have stifled or withstood enforcement have indeed thrown it out the window. I agree that few throw away a specific treaty that would benefit them. They get rid of those that don't.
I am using the term international law to mean any particular example of international law, like a particular treaty. I suspect you may be using the term as a broad category of all international laws. I agree there is no incentive for any nation to throw out all international law. They cherry pick. Keep what benefits them. Jettison what doesn't.
True, but I don't think it matters. As long as a country recognizes the legitimacy of international law, broadly defined, it can't throw any particular international law out the window. It may decide to abrogate it, but that's done as a matter of choice or power, not right. Remember, this began with your statement:
If a country throws out a treaty, one can say it recognizes the legitimacy of international law, or one can say it doesn't. Take your pick. What matters is that it threw out the treaty.
A country can easily violate a treaty and throw it out while still complying with international passport regulations and fishing quotas.
It may decide to abrogate it, but that's done as a matter of choice or power, not right. Remember, this began with your statement:
Choice? Right? The distinction matters little. Where do a nation's rights come from? History shows they come from the power of the country itself. It sets its own rights, so I have no problem with my initial statement. A nation protects its population. Call those actions rights or choices. It doesn't matter.
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