Proportionality in War: Israel and Gaza

Shmuel Rosner has an interesting article discussing proportionality in war, and Israel's objectives in Gaza.

Rosner contends, "No reasonable, moderately compassionate human being can ignore the suffering of Gazans under Israeli attacks. But such is the tricky nature of modern warfare: How do we measure proportionality without reducing the concept to an impossibly pedantic tit-for-tat?"

The trickiness involved in proportionality comes from the original 1907 Hague Convention language: "a state is legally allowed to unilaterally defend itself and right a wrong provided the response is proportional to the injury suffered. The response must also be immediate and necessary, refrain from targeting civilians, and require only enough force to reinstate the status quo ante."


An Aside
When thinking about proportionality, I am always reminded of the Vietnam War. Defense Secretary McNamara and General Westmoreland's strategy against the North Vietnamese Army led to escalating violence, instead of ending the conflict. Nixon's Operations Linebacker I and II hit the North Vietnamese with overwhelming force, which allowed for the US to pull out.

The conflict ended with US failure, and left the Vietnamese to fight regional wars against Cambodia and China.

Parallels to Israel and Gaza? Not really.

Fisk On Gaza

Robert Fisk's column about Israel's attacks on Gaza are rather balanced and perceptive.

Here's a taste:

We hear the usual Israeli line. General Yaakov Amidror, the former head of the Israeli army's "research and assessment division" announced that "no country in the world would allow its citizens to be made the target of rocket attacks without taking vigorous steps to defend them". Quite so. But when the IRA were firing mortars over the border into Northern Ireland, when their guerrillas were crossing from the Republic to attack police stations and Protestants, did Britain unleash the RAF on the Irish Republic? Did the RAF bomb churches and tankers and police stations and zap 300 civilians to teach the Irish a lesson? No, it did not. Because the world would have seen it as criminal behaviour. We didn't want to lower ourselves to the IRA's level.

Yes, Israel deserves security. But these bloodbaths will not bring it. Not since 1948 have air raids protected Israel. Israel has bombed Lebanon thousands of times since 1975 and not one has eliminated "terrorism". So what was the reaction last night? The Israelis threaten ground attacks. Hamas waits for another battle. Our Western politicians crouch in their funk holes. And somewhere to the east – in a cave? a basement? on a mountainside? – a well-known man in a turban smiles.

Read the whole thing.