So much controversy now surrounds the interpretation of the Qur’an that it is perhaps worth recalling the man who gave us the first reliable translation into any language: George Sale. So little regarded were Oriental scholars in his day that we do not even know his date of birth, but we know that when he died in 1736 he was not quite forty. Sale was praised for the accuracy of his scholarship by Voltaire and Gibbon, but the former mistakenly claimed that Sale had spent 25 years living in the Middle East, while Gibbon mischievously suggested that the work of translation had left Sale “half a Mussulman.” Deists such as Voltaire and Gibbon admired Islam more than Christianity, but the suggestion that Sale placed the two religions on an equal footing was scandalous to most of his countrymen.
In reality, Sale not only did not travel in the Ottoman lands: he never even left England. He learned Arabic from the small community of Arabs living in London, and accumulated a small but valuable collection of manuscripts, which are now in Oxford University’s Bodleian Library. Sale remained a Christian, but he conceded that Mohammed “gave his Arabs the best religion he could, preferable, at least, to those of the ancient pagan lawgivers.” He appended to his translation, which first appeared in 1734, a “Preliminary Discourse” of more than a hundred pages, which gives a remarkably fair account of Islamic history and theology.
Sale made his living as an attorney, and he dedicated his translation to Lord Carteret, which suggests that he had at least one patron. Yet he is reported by Isaac Disraeli (father of Benjamin) to have “pursued his studies through a life of want.” In his Calamities of Authors, Disraeli asserts that “this great Orientalist . . . when he quitted his studies, all too often wanted a change of linen, and often wandered in the streets in search of some compassionate friend who would supply him with the meal of the day.” The Dictionary of National Biography rejects this claim on the grounds that Sale possessed a library, but it seems to me quite possible that the great scholar preferred to go hungry and unwashed rather than to part with his books and manuscripts.
The central defect of Sale’s version is that he translates the Qur’an as prose rather than poetry, ignoring the division of the text into verses—though by turning it into a continuous narrative, he certainly renders the Qur’an more readable. His language is simple yet elevated; it recalls not only the King James Bible but also his contemporaries: John Locke, Jonathan Swift, and David Hume. The most sensitive passages, on issues such as jihad and the treatment of infidels, are clear and unambiguous. There may be more modern translations of the Qur’an—but Sale’s still remains the best prose.
Michael, long time reader of your blog and frequent contributor; love your stuff.
To paraphrase Krauthammer and some others, if Hamas and Fatah laid down their arms, peace would follow in short order. If the Israelis laid down their arms they would all be dead or fleeing shortly.
To hell with a proportional response. Israel is surrounded by enemies bent on their annihilation. If they don’t fight a bloody, no quarter, decisive battle now, one fought later will be even bloodier and the Jewish state may very well cease to exist.
With all due respect, a phrase that inevitably precedes an insult, Michael, rather than navel gaze and survey world opinion Israel needs to sack up and neutralize the Hamas threat as completely as possible. That may include ground operations, reoccupation, house to hovel fighting and whatever else it takes. Anything less subjects the Israeli civilian populace to further indiscriminate artillery attack.
What other nation would accept such a state of affairs?
Mikey: With all due respect, a phrase that inevitably precedes an insult, Michael, rather than navel gaze and survey world opinion Israel needs to sack up and neutralize the Hamas threat as completely as possible.
I don’t think Israelis need to concern themselves overly much about a proportionate response. (Nuking Gaza would be psychotically disproportionate, but you know what I mean.) The point here is to get those who think Israelis should concern themselves overly much to think about what they are saying.
You’re taking a more thoughtful approach to answering those who push the proportional response meme. It’s a challenge to them to actually back up all the emotion with a reasoned argument.
In my heavy-handed way I just dismiss it out of hand as inherently dishonest.
You have to challenge the premise of these critics or else what they say is simply made into propaganda that forms the basis for policies and U.N. resolutions. These people exist in an echo chamber and their words are just taken for fact, when in fact they have no basis. But how does a cursory observer (the public at large) discern what is the truth if those who know the truth don’t say anything? This is the value of the writers at commentary, but it something that all conservatives must learn to do in challenging hyperbolic liberals.
Welcome, Michael! Good to see your stuff on this site.
Insightful, as always. But isn’t this “proportional response” stuff kind of a dumb point? Does it really deserve a reasoned intellectual discussion? Didn’t Dirty Harry put this crap to bed years ago?
A “proportionate response” would be to drop cluster bombs randomly around Gaza missile launch sites. That would terrorize the Gaza inhabitants in proportion to the Israelis. But it would require Israel to sink to the level of Hamas and the U.N., which Israel will will never do.
DFP states it clear.
Terrorism is total war, id est, war made without any discrimination. In fact, terror usually DELIBERATELY avoids military targets so as to target civilians, and thus obtain a greater terroristic impact among the enemy populace.
Were Israel to respond in kind, they would go to some lengths to avoid targeting the gunmen, and aim for as many Palestinians as they could.
Palestinian terror consistently tries to hit as many Jews in one spot as possible.
Buses, discos, pizzarias and shopping malls are thus favourite jaunts for the followers of mohammad.
What the Israelis are doing, though some laud them for it, is still something that isn’t going to advance their strategic interest.
What did General Sherman say?
“War is violence, moderation in war is an imbecility.”
And Sherman did far more to end hostilities, genuine hostilities in the South, than Grant did slugging it out with Lee in Virginia.
So are the Israelis simply involved in reprisal strikes, which though not without provocation, still do little to advance the ball towards a DURABLE, LASTING peace in the region.
Which is why I’ve advocated buying out those Palestinians who will take the cash, {dispensed on a per capita basis} and forcibly evicting those that refuse.
Fifty years of reprisals, strikes and counter-strikes, fifty years worth of worthless diplomatic wrangling, which has now boiled down to strongarming and pressuring Jews into making concessions without any corresponding concessions from killers, murderers and a community that vicariously gets it kicks from such killers and murderers.
So are you guys ready and willing to watch this pathological drama play itself out for the next fifty years?
Or are you ready now to finally embrace the only policy that guarantees tranquility West of the Jordan.’
The whole “proportionate response” argument is conceptually mistaken and is actually a back-door delegitimization of Israel’s right to self-defense and ultimately to exist. A right to self-defense means the right to take all means necessary to end (stress on the word “end”) acts of aggression against it’s citizens. A proportional response, by definition, will not end the aggression, because the aggressor has already factored the proportional response into its decision to attack.
When America was attacked on 9/11, they responded by attacking and occupying not one, but two countries. Why should Israel’s right be any different? There are two reasons. First, Israel is small, and other countries (especially the U.S.) can boss us around. The world wants quiet in this region, and to a large extent are willing to sacrifice Israel’s security for a short term calm. Don’t get me wrong, the U.S. is the best friend Israel ever had, but our needs aren’t always parallel. The second reason is original sin. Have you ever noticed that in any argument the Israel haters will bring out a long laundry list of historical grievances that have no bearing on the issue at hand? Israel is burdened with original sin, and therefore its right to exist is conditional and impaired. Israel is like the common law thief that breaks into someone’s house at night. Does the thief have the right to defend himself when the owner attacks him? This is how the Israel haters see the argument. That’s why there is the unquestioned assumption that Israel is limited to proportional responses.
This is a pet peeve of mine.
I teach the Law of Armed Conflict to deploying National Guard troops.
According to US Army doctrine, which is intended to comply with international law obligations, “proportionality” of force is measured against the military objective to be achieved. It is “don’t destroy the entire village when the military objective is a sniper in a single building.” It is NOT a “tit for tat” thing. It has nothing to do with how many of my people your side killed.
It is related to “discrimination” which is the concept that force should be used only against combatants – although collateral damage and injury to non-combatants may occur (is the collateral damage “proportionate” to the intended military objective? Do you have positive identification of the target before shooting?).
The foregoing is my personal opinion and most certainly not the opinion of anyone or anything else.
The goal is to stop Hamas firing the missiles, on that even the left agrees. So the amount of violence that achieves that goal is appropriate. Given that Hamas has vowed to continue fighting, it is clear that Israel has currently applied less than than the appropriate amount of force. Ergo: sustain the attacks or even increase them.
You might want to familiarize yourself with the basic ideas about proportionality — even though the whole area is somewhat obscure and fuzzy — before writing about it.
“Proportionality” is not some made-up term that people throw around solely in relation to Israel. It’s an element of just war theory, and relates to two distinct considerations: “jus ad bellum,” i.e. whether entering into war is justified, and “jus in bello,” i.e. how combatants are to act once war has begun.
a proportionate Israeli response would be to move its population closer to the border with Palestine.
Leave massively populated buildings within the range of the Hamas’ rockets so that civilian casualties would skyrocket.
Each time a Hamas rocket killed Israeli citizens, undercover IDF agents would carry the dead bodies over the streets, exhibiting them as trophies.
Meanwhile, the avid reporters from CNN and the NYT would be ready to broadcast the touching images to the world (and don’t forget the images of Israeli soldiers throwing stones at Hamas’ terrorists), which would hopefully sympathize with the zionist cause…
Perhaps even The Nation would start a campaign to send money to these poor families.
I wonder why Israeli leaders didn’t come up with such a simple solution before…
A variation of this same argument is that the use of force is not justified because it will not completely stop the attacks. When pressed on what constitutes a supposedly proportionate response, this is the typical fall back position. Of course this variation plays the same rhetorical game in denying the right of self-defense that proportionality does. Just as critics cannot define how Israel should respond “proportionately” in the face of rocket and mortar attacks, the fall back position creates another artificial standard whereby force becomes unjust or excessive insofar as it allegedly will not achieve absolute success.
It is an argument with questionable assumptions. For example, why should the ability to achieve the complete cessation of attacks be the standard of justified force? This is an argument not so much against the justness of Israel’s actions but their ultimate wisdom. Maybe force will not completely stop rocket attacks. (Although the effectiveness of Isreal’s operations in the West Bank is a strong factual counterpoint aganst this assumption). Yet how does this then support the conclusion that Israel is acting unjustly when it does strike back? It doesn’t and involves the conflation of two distinct concepts.
Moreover, if military force is not justified because it will supposedly not be absolutely effective, does this mean that Israel should just learn to live with rockets and mortars raining down on its population? A military response of even limited or temporary effectiveness would seem a much better alternative to such outright capitulation. Certainly killing the individuals firing the rockets, destroying the equipment and dismantling the terrorist infrasructure are practicable goals which, even if pursued incompletely and impermanently, are justified in the context of self-defense. So too establishing deterrence, another practicable goal, also does not require the destruction of every rocket and the killing of every belligerent, but instead requires the instilling in the minds of Israel’s enemies that there will be a severe price to pay for such attacks.
It is also worth noting that if the standard of judging the propriety of military action is the degree to which it effects the complete cessation of attacks, how is this not an argument in favor of greater force? If military force is only justified if it completely stops future attacks, isn’t that a brief in favor of an even more vigorous response? After all, the reoccupation of Gaza would probably fit the bill if that is the standard. Somehow I doubt that is what the critics have in mind.
Underlying this entire line of argument is the idea that addressing the “root causes” of the attacks is the proper solution. Forget for a moment what those root causes supposedly are. How can giving into your enemy’s demands so that they will stop attacking you be described as anything but appeasement and surrender? In fact that is exactly what it is. Let’s say that Hamas had completely justifiable and reasonable grievances, and that simpy addressing these grievances would be enough. Even in this framework how does one possibly defend a viewpoint that requires Israel to forego any military actions in its own defense despite being under attack while caving into Hamas’s demands literally under the barrel of a gun? Just because the conflict’s ultimate solution is supposedly diplomatic does nothing to invalidate a military reponse to being attacked. That such attacks on the other hand should bring into question the core assumption about the efficacy of diplomacy should go without saying.
Of course it is the assumption that diplomacy will suffice to solve the conflict that makes this line of argument not merely fallacious but absurd. Hamas is not exactly shy in communicating that what it opposes is the existence of Israel and what it seeks is Israel’s destruction. In this light how is diplomacy supposed to work? What is the good faith basis in believing that it will? To argue that military force is unjust because diplomacy is the better answer should at least require some factual basis that diplomacy actually has a legitimate chance to work. Without one the argument is not simply wrongheaded but perverse.
in the face of attacks its own fense How can Shouldn’t a necessary precondition of addressing those supposedly grievances be the cessation and renunciation of violence and incitement?
Fair enough. What happens however if the root cause of these attcaks ios the desire to destroy Israel. something Hamas has not exactly been shy about?
The edited version (the two last paragraphs should have been deleted during editing; getting late):
A variation of this same argument is that the use of force is not justified because it will not completely stop the attacks. When pressed on what constitutes a supposedly proportionate response, this is the typical fall back position. Of course this variation plays the same rhetorical game in denying the right of self-defense that proportionality does. Just as critics cannot define how Israel should respond “proportionately” in the face of rocket and mortar attacks, the fall back position creates another artificial standard whereby force becomes unjust or excessive insofar as it allegedly will not achieve absolute success.
It is an argument with questionable assumptions. For example, why should the ability to achieve the complete cessation of attacks be the standard of justified force? This is an argument not so much against the justness of Israel’s actions but their ultimate wisdom. Maybe force will not completely stop rocket attacks. (Although the effectiveness of Israel’s operations in the West Bank is a strong factual counterpoint against this assumption). Yet how does this then support the conclusion that Israel is acting unjustly when it does strike back? It doesn’t and involves the conflation of two distinct concepts.
Moreover, if military force is not justified because it will supposedly not be absolutely effective, does this mean that Israel should just learn to live with rockets and mortars raining down on its population? A military response of even limited or temporary effectiveness would seem a much better alternative to such outright capitulation. Certainly killing the individuals firing the rockets, destroying the equipment and dismantling the terrorist infrasructure are practicable goals which, even if pursued incompletely and impermanently, are justified in the context of self-defense. So too establishing deterrence, another practicable goal, also does not require the destruction of every rocket and the killing of every belligerent, but instead requires the instilling in the minds of Israel’s enemies that there will be a severe price to pay for such attacks.
It is also worth noting that if the standard of judging the propriety of military action is the degree to which it effects the complete cessation of attacks, how is this not an argument in favor of greater force? If military force is only justified if it completely stops future attacks, isn’t that a brief in favor of an even more vigorous response? After all, the reoccupation of Gaza would probably fit the bill if that is the standard. Somehow I doubt that is what the critics have in mind.
Underlying this entire line of argument is the idea that addressing the “root causes” of the attacks is the proper solution. Forget for a moment what those root causes supposedly are. How can giving into your enemy’s demands so that they will stop attacking you be described as anything but appeasement and surrender? In fact that is exactly what it is. Let’s say that Hamas had completely justifiable and reasonable grievances, and that simpy addressing these grievances would be enough. Even in this framework how does one possibly defend a viewpoint that requires Israel to forego any military actions in its own defense despite being under attack while caving into Hamas’s demands literally under the barrel of a gun? Just because the conflict’s ultimate solution is supposedly diplomatic does nothing to invalidate a military reponse to being attacked. That such attacks on the other hand should bring into question the core assumption about the efficacy of diplomacy should go without saying.
Of course it is the assumption that diplomacy will suffice to solve the conflict that makes this line of argument not merely fallacious but absurd. Hamas is not exactly shy in communicating that what it opposes is the existence of Israel and what it seeks is Israel’s destruction. In this light how is diplomacy supposed to work? What is the good faith basis in believing that it will? To argue that military force is unjust because diplomacy is the better answer should at least require some factual basis that diplomacy actually has a legitimate chance to work. Without one the argument is not simply wrongheaded but perverse.
The parent who says, “Fight nicely, children,” has the power to separate them, and they all know it. The people who cry “disproportianate response” do not have that power, so Israel has to be both parent and actor. What a disfunctional family we have here in the Middle East!
If we would look in the mirror for a moment we might see some arrogant meddlers reading the rules of warfare to a country fighting a gang of thugs who long ago burned and spat on the rulebook. We are earning the contempt the Islamic fascists, and we are doing our civilization no good.
Since a military victory by Israel – in terms of ending future attacks, is not even considered a remote possibility the only option they have is to make those who would consider carrying out such attacks pay a very high price for them.
It is simply deterence.
Israel must make Hamas pay an ever increasing price for the rocket attacks if it hopes to achieve anything in terms of it’s security.
They can’t go into the village and take out the sniper because the village is infested w/ snipers.
They can’t destroy the whole village because they would be condemed by even their friends for going over the top.
Once they run through most of their target list, they should stop. But they must make it clear that they will be back with an even greater level of punishment if the attacks continue
The correct level of response is the one where the enemy is dead.
Otherwise stay home and watch TV.
HAMAS has unapologetically, and ceaselessly striven for one thing only, and it isn’t to lift the blockade, or end the occupation of the west bank. Changing either of these two conditions would change nothing.
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”
“The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. ”
“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.” HAMAS
OK Fine.
This is the govt which the people of Gaza freely chose, making themselves RESPONSIBLE for it’s actions in a fair and open vote. I truly believe those sentiments reflect the values of the Palestinians themselves.
Now that bill is due.
I don’t want to see schools bombed even if under them are Grad launchers, but I’m sure that B-29 pilots over Japan didn’t want that either.
Israel and the Palestinians are clearly in a RELIGIOUS (on the arab side) war of the peoples.
For the correct level of response we need only consult a famous philosopher in this vein:
“This war differs from other wars, in this particular. We are not fighting armies but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war.
War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over. ”
To pretend that what lies between the Israelis and the Palestinians is anything other than this is to ensure this never ends.
If HAMAS lives sooner or later Israel will not.
The Israeli Navy thought Cynthia McKinney was a Somali pirate and rammed her boat. Entirely proportionate if you ask me.
How about this for proportionality? For every “Israeli collaborator” that Hamas (or the PA, for that matter) kills, we get to lock up forever three useful idiots. Or at least get them removed from our own newspapers, airwaves or Knesset.
Everyone is getting into a lather about something that really is just a problem in word definition. It all becomes clear and easy to understand if you realize that to Israel’s critics “disproportionate” is a synonym for “effective.”
Meanwhile, here’s a dream sequence from an alternate reality:
June 1, 1944 Washington, DC– President Franklin D. Roosevelt today announced the cessation of hostilities with Japan. “According to our calculations we have now inflicted about 3,000 fatalities on the Japanese, destroyed several hundred of their aircraft, and sunk or damaged two dozen ships. This matches the destruction the Japanese committed when they attacked Pearl Harbor. Any further response by the United States would be disproportionate.”
Since the UN is facilitating much of this violence, perhaps porportionality would be that Isreal gets to shoot a UN Ambassador as well.
The proportionate response to Hamas is to wipe them (Hamas) off the face of the earth. The only way to get rid of cancer is to remove it completely. Hamas has gone on record and said they hide their military equipment in civilian populations and use the Palestinian people as human shields and that they would rather die then live because the love death more then life. If they want to die then let them die. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTu-AUE9ycs
I would love to see people like this goat rapist and the other goat rapist around him and in the crowd just do a mass suicide with a bunch of kitchen knives and get it over with already. The world will be a better place without them.
In just war theory, war is justified if it is likely to restore the peace, not to retaliate in kind. Proportionality applies as a limit to the military action. When your enemy is no longer able to persist in his aggression, it is unjust to continue action against the enemy, such as slaughtering the defenseless. The Palestinian/Israeli conflict is too much like the Hatfield and McCoy feud. One smack-down years ago would likely have resulted in fewer casualties than have accumulated over the decades that the conflict has run. Too many outsiders with no responsibility or accountability have intruded.
proportionate force would be for israel to send thousands of rockets to hit randomly in gaza as close to populated centers as possible.
why not just do it and smoke out these lying “proportionate response” people
My suggestion: for each day the Hamas terrorists have launched missiles into Israeli territory, the Israelis get to launch missiles into Gaza. No restriction on the number of rockets fired.
But what about the “disproportion” on the other side? Hamas terrorists aim to kill and terrorize civilians, while the IDF (like the US armed forces) seek to avoid civilian casualties, and often call off attacks because of the risk to civilians. Once the world starts clamoring for Hamas to end this “disproportion,” I might take their concern about Israeli disproportion slightly more seriously.
Israel could “make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war” without firing a single weapon. They control almost all of the support infrastructure available to Gaza, particularly power and water. All they have to do is this – one rocket, one week without power and water. “You want clean water and power, stop the attacks.”
Of course the international meddlers would never permit this to go on. It would offend their dear humanitarian sensibilities to see their favorites forced to make the real choice between war and death, or peace and life.
Unfortunately, Israel is hamstrung by political realities from taking effective action here. Taking that into consideration, the only way that the rocket attacks/terrorism will stop is when all aid (including “humanitarian” aid) to the Palestinians is contingent on a lack of attacks. Probably impossible to get all nations to agree to that, but it might be possible (although I wouldn’t hold my breath) to get a few of the main donor nations to agree to that. And it might work if just the U.S. did it, although it would take longer to take effect.
This proportional response nonsense is ridiculous. If you use that logic, then maybe Israel should be launching rockets at Gaza everyday and terrorizing civilians on a daily basis? The proportional response advocates say that 17 Palistinians should be killed for the 17 Israeli’s killed. If you use that logic Israel will eventually disappear (which is what they want) because the populations aren’t proportional. The only solution here is to destroy the enemy’s will to fight. They could be among the richest muslims in the world simply from tourism if they would just let go of their hate and recognize that both peoples have ligidimate claims to the land. Thanks to oil rich evil sponsers like Iran, I don’t it happening so they have to be defeated.
Hamas, and the ‘palestinian nation’ in general, are genocidal weapons masquerading as political movements and a culture/people, respectively.
They exist only to destroy Israel. They have no identity other than the ‘anti-Israel’. Their cultural heroes are of recent vintage and drawn solely from the ranks of murderers of Jews/Israelis. Making peace with Israel would destroy their identity, and they would merge back into the arab collective from which they were molded for the very purpose of first delegitimizing, and then, destroying, Israel. They are incapable of this, and the arab world has no desire to defuse the most effective weapon it has ever fielded against the Jewish state.
What is the correct way to deal with someone who is is not only pointing, but shooting a weapon at your children?
One of the most depressing things about the calls for ‘proportionality’ is how clearly they reflect the widespread notion that Jews have no right to defend themselves.
The oldest hatred, alive and well in the 21st century.
Mike, got to reading your stuff while I was in Iraq. Really good. We’re indebted to the very few like you much more than most know.
Anyway, “proportionality” is just a cover. Israel cannot be legitimately demanded to stop defending itself, although that is the wish of those crying over “proportionality”. Since their true wish cannot be stated in plain simple terms, they are couching it in cries for moderation. Such is the cover for apologists, PR folks, and the ignorant. See Obama’s call for both sides to exhibit restraint when Russia invaded Georgia (yes, South Ossetia is part of Georgia).
Until the proponents of “true” Islam, intolerant of all else, make their enforced views too expensive and painful to teh majority who really don’t care, they’ll keep doing it. I’d also tie every dollar of Palestinian aid to the notion of ending the use of schools as propaganda machines.
Disproportionate Force, when not used by Jews, is called the POWELL DOCTRINE.
Great post Michael. Has anyone done a comparison on the level of restraint and concern for innocent civilians being displayed by combatants in recent conflicts? Surely Hamas, Taliban, Al Qada, and Russians in Georgia compare very unfavorably to the US, Nato and the IDF.
A proportionate response would be a rain of nukes on Gaza, SYria, and Iran
The greatest diplomats of the last century, the peacemakers, are the ones who defeated aggression. The most prominent ones that come to mind are the Pattons, the scientists of the Manhattan Project and President Truman whose bold action saved a lot of lives including American and Japanese. Israel needs a 21st century Sharon.
Good thoughts, but it strikes me as kind of a waste to spend time on a thoughtful answer to an un-thoughtful argument.
#38 – No. Twenty-first century Sharon gave away parts of our Gaza defense and made thousands of Jews homeless. A 1970s Sharon would be good.
#39 I should have been more specific. I was thinking of Sharon as a general and not as a politician.
Israel should target the terrorists firing the rockets and the workshops that make the rockets. If Israel think they are going to stop Hamas from being the government of Gaza, just look back at 2006 in Lebanon. Hezbollah is stronger than ever. Like Tony Soprano said, “Use your head”!
State Jag made the point, but I’ll make it too, since so few people seem to get it.
Proportionality has nothing to do with the relative magnitude of each side’s actions. It has to do with the sufficiency of force for neutralizing a military objective.
Hamas’ incompetence or technological inferiority has no bearing on what Israel or anyone else may do in response while observing the principle of proportionality. If there’s a legitimate military target, proportionality is using the right amount of force to take it out.
Proportionality is not a precise stricture; it leaves considerable latitude in order for the actor to accomplish his objective. In other words, the failure of proportionality will be obvious overkill, not some precisely calibrated measurement.
Asymmetry of response can be entirely proportionate. The fact that one’s enemy lacks sufficient resources to adequately neutralize one’s military assets has no bearing on one’s own ability to neutralize his.
If anything, the element of terrorism on the part of Hamas increases the latitude of Israel’s actions. That is in part because of the criminal targeting of civilians but also because of the criminal act of Hamas’ hiding among Palestinian civilians. If Palestinian non-combatants die because Hamas hides military targets among the civilian population, those deaths are Hamas’ responsibility, provided Israel uses proportional force to neutralize the targets.
Once and for all, the civilized world needs to draw the distinction between legitimate military actions (as spelled out in the Geneva Conventions) and the war crimes of terrorism, both aggressive and defensive (hiding among civilians). Either that or critics should admit that they don’t really think the Geneva Conventions have any validity and admit they are hypocrites and/or ignorant fools for arguing that they should apply to terrorists.
It’s curious that these same “experts” can’t seem to stay consistent in their comprehension, definition and analysis. Terrorism is asymmetric warfare, and by definition, precludes any concept of symmetry and proportionality. It uses limited engagements against non-combatant civilians to create mass fear and terror, violating international treaties on acceptable warfare.
Clowns and intellectual poseurs like Greenwald are either exceptionally dense or disingenuous when advocating proportionality against war crimes. This is a false premise, to which Israel would be further convicted in the court of international opinion for carrying out. Proportionality through reciprocal launching of missiles against innocent Gaza residents as the only legitimate response to Hamas missile strikes? You’ve got to be kidding me.
And worse yet, such proportionality advocacy disregards thousands of years of military strategy and sets ethics aside, suggesting that the only legitimate response is a continuing game that sacrifices endless innocents to no end. For this, I accuse Greenwald and other proportionality advocates of being no greater than Hamas and other criminals through their advocacy of such irresponsible, harmful constraints.
The UN said that if Israel would lay down their weapons they would issue each and every one of its citizens a pair of running shoes, so they could better avoid those poor terrorists that need to be understood.
I am all for proportional response. Here’s how I invision it:
The IDF coordinates with homemade bomb-makers, providing materials and explosives. These homemade bombmakers can be high school and college students, people with engineering degrees, basically anyone who want s a new hobby for their garage. They build their own, maybe we plans provided by the IDF but maybe built with their own designs; I’m pretty confident in the Israeli populations ability to engineer things. Then as their built, they launch them into the civilian population centers of Gaza.
And we see who’s better at this game.
Ack, too many errors…early pre-coffee posts should be discouraged.
If it were up to me I’d say Israel shoud just forceably expell all of the so-called “palistinians” from Gaza into the Sinai and from the west bank into Jordan. Then erect the barriars necessary to keep them out., and declare hostilities at an end. The Arabs know they can’t win a conventional war with Israel. For decades they have used these people as pawns in a lager game. Let them support them and take them in.
As several posters have noted, “proportionality” is a term of art in Just War Theory (and the laws of war that follow it).
It means nothing like what Greenwald et al think it does. Pat Buchanan wrote an incredibly disingenuous op-ed back during the Hezballah war in which he deliberately conflated the vernacular notion of proportionality — which is absurd on its face, as you (MT) and other posters have noted — with the technical notion, thereby accusing Israel of violating Just War doctrine and (explicitly) Christian ethical conduct.
In short: (1) No country has ever restrained itself according to Greenwald-proportionality. (The poster who noted the Powell doctrine was particularly trenchant on this point.) Nor does any law of war demand it. (2) The form of proportionality that is required by Just War theory is NOT being violated by Israel, because its military goal — stopping the (illegal, war criminal) rocket attacks from Gaza — requires just the sort of tactics they are employing. Indeed, it may well require more. Since Israel did not succeed in stopping the Hez rockets, it could have responded MORE severely, militarily, without violating the real proportionality criterion. For instance, it could have invaded and occupied Lebanon.
People who use “proportionality” to criticize Israel either don’t know what that concept means in the context of the laws of war, or are being disingenuous.
Another form of “proportionate response” would be for Israel to deliberately target schools, playgrounds, restaurants, hospitals, and mosques, and to loudly celebrate every child that is killed, with traveling exhibits joyfully depicting the slaughter of women and children. For good measure Israel could also broadcast “documentaries” and dramas claiming that Muslims drink the blood of Jewish children as an essential religious rite. Being civilized a civilized nation, Israel will not do this, but it did this would be taken as irrefutable evidence that Israel is a fascist state with no right to exist. It is very instructive that Israel’s neighbors do behave like this, but the world’s “progressive” thinkers do not take this as evidence that those regimes and factions that so behave are illegitimate and deserving of destruction–and certainly undeserving of respect or tolerance.
In just war theory, war is justified if it is likely to restore the peace, not to retaliate in kind.
I agree. Therefore, the just war is to find and kill every single HAMAS member and sympathiser, and anyone else who would see their death as a cause for violence against Israel. Only then will Israel have peace from HAMAS.
“Therefore, the just war is to find and kill every single HAMAS member and sympathizer”
That would result in a five-fold decimation of America’s universities.
Seems to me the ball should be put in Hama’s court. Letter bomb Gaza that for every rocket shot into Israel the IDF will return fire with 2 cluster bombs to random populated areas. Don’t like it? Then quit the rockets. Up to you. Maybe then the Palestinian people will put some pressure on Hamas.
Given that the Palestinians in general seem to think “proportionate” means “driving the Jews into the sea”, I’d advocate driving the entire population of Palestinians into Jordan and Egypt, then ignoring them as being now the problem of the oil-rich Arab world that claims to be concerned about the Palestinians. This messy solution nonetheless frankly reduces the chances of Israel later being forced in later years to take more radical steps (such as a nuclear response) in the face of unrelenting and ever more heavily armed opposition to the mere existence of Israel with which to begin.
In a recent interview with Alan Colmes on Fox News, John Bolton said [approximately] that a right of self defense is not simply a right of tit for tat, it’s a right to eliminate the threat. That’s a particulary sticky wicket for Israel considering that the chief instigators are Saudi Arabia and Iran. If all of Hamas were annihilated, the threat would remain.
Dan, although i generally agree with what you said two of your statments i find personally somewhat offencive.
First of all let me start by saying i am a jew who lives in Israel, i served in the IDF and i have friends and reletives in the front line.
The first point is you reffering to the terrorists as “the followers of mohammad”, i think this approch could never realy bring peace in the region, Muhammad and Islam has nothing to do with the issue at hand, and i personally dont see much difference between the approach of Hamas, the spanish inquisition or jewish extremists who call for killing as many arabs as passible, Islam is not the religion of the devil, and just as you have a large majority of people who belive in Islam and are not out to kill every american and israeli they can get their hands on, you also have a small minority who enterprates the Kor’an in an extremeist way and is fanatically motivated, as a proof you dont see Turkey Egypt or Jourdan and even states like Qatar and Kuwait acting like Hamas, though i can assure you their no less Islamic, what you are talking about is a bunch of fanatic extremists who rose to power.
Second of all, i personally, and i belive History can establish my point there, that you cant blow a Terrorist organisetion to a pulp by bombing it to oblivion, and that is NOT what Israel is trying to do. The only people who can remove Hamas from power are at the end of the day the Palastinian people, what Israel is trying to show is that fiering rockets on us has a price tag, and that this price tag is far too high for both Hamas and the people whp support it. once the Palastinian people understand that Hamas is not the way to go THEN there can be talk about peace and stability in the region.
On a third and last note i can bearly see how is it that Israel even waited that long, for two years we have been takeing in about 6,000 rockets on our southern population, the rocket dropping became so casual that there was a propposition in one of the major news channels here to have a red light blinking at the top of the screen every time a Qasam drops on the town of Shderot, and on top of that you still have the Issue of the abducted soldier who has not even been given aid from the rest cross and is being captived as a bargenning chip for about two years now with Hamas demmanding thousend of bloody handed prisoners released for him at some times. Correct me if im wrong but would ANY country take this kind of treatment for over 2 years without responding? and now they call it a”disproportionate use of force”? what wount ANY other country in the world would do in a situation like this? and if Russia the united states france or england would have done the same would they have said that about them also? i think not.
The inherent flaw of demanding a proportional response is that it assumes that this is a game which should continue. The correct response, practically and morally, is to use as much force as necessary to end it. The most deadly wars are those which sputter on endlessly in fits and starts, killing small batches of people over long periods of time. The least deadly wars are those which are fought to a conclusion with authoritative means. Those who argue for proportional response in war are arguing for maximum bloodshed over the long term.
“So what do they have in mind? What would a legitimate and “proportionate” response actually look like? Surely they don’t believe Israel should scrap its sophisticated weapons systems, build Qassam rockets, and launch those at Gaza instead.”
If they did, I imagine the critics might then point out that throwing inaccurate rockets into cities (re: haphazardly / randomly) is a war crime… you know, if Israel did it.. Otherwise it’s a snoozer / nonissue. Gotta have lower standards for the other side….
“Given that Hamas has vowed to continue fighting, it is clear that Israel has currently applied less than than the appropriate amount of force. Ergo: sustain the attacks or even increase them.”
Yes. Hamas needs to be made to cry “uncle”. In Arabic. In front of an Al Jazeera camera, with witnesses. And they need to remove all reference to Israel from their charter.
Until those happen, nothing is disproportionate.
Steven Says:
“These people exist in an echo chamber and their words are just taken for fact, when in fact they have no basis. But how does a cursory observer (the public at large) discern what is the truth if those who know the truth don’t say anything?”
Sometimes we luck out and the general public (not being part of the echo chamber) just says ‘ummm, where did this proportionate response requirement come from? Sounds lame’.
That’s the weak point with shifting PC priorities made into memes and narratives. The public notices airbrushing and rewrites when they’re done too quickly…
Are you that igorant, Mr. Totten? The concept of proportionate response comes from Just War Theory. Guess what – Cynthia McKinney did not develop it.
Proportion in war gets you WWI, with its man-killing trench warfare.
According to this idea, after Pearl Harbor, we should have attacked Yokahama and stopped.
State JAG, I’m saddened that you have to teach this nonsense to our militiamen. Apparently we have learned nothing from the War of Independence, the Confederate War, or WWI or WWII, or even conflicts since. To use your example, while I might consider alternatives to destroying the entire village to take out a single sniper, other considerations, such as the effect of the sniper (who he’s killed, who he’s targetting), the time factor, and possible casualties to our side would take precedence. Whether the village were needed intact for strategic or tactical reasons would be a more important consideration than the horror of killing enemy noncombatants.
That was the difference between us and our enemies (and in some cases, our allies) in the aforementioned conflicts; strategy drove tactics; in WWII we bombed ball-bearing factories rather than churches, not because it’s awful to kill Christians, but because bombing churches wastes munitions and does not damage the enemy’s ability to wage war. In today’s world, a million American boys would have died, because dropping nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was ‘disproportionate’, by the definition you give. But dropping the bombs demonstrated how “disproportionate” our war making capabilities had just become.
@Gerry (#60):
Are you so ignorant that you both don’t understand how the notion of proportionality is actually used in Just War Theory, and failed to read the previous comments that explain it — and explain why it’s being blatantly (if not disingenuously) misused by the likes of Greenwald?
I have to disagree with this “small fanatical minority” view of Islam. If it were just a small fanatical minority, the vast majority of Moslems would put them down and stop them. Judaism and Christianity have no comparable fanatics, and even those few who seem militant are put down… by Jews and Christians.
(Please point to the Christian who shouted “Jesus loves you!” as he rammed a jet into a skyscraper, or the Jew who yelled the Aleinu prayer while detonating his bomb-vest in a pizza parlor… it’s not the fanaticism, it’s the religion)
(and yes, I had to look up Aleinu in wikipedia, I’m not Jewish; I apologise for any offense I may have inadvertently caused).
by embedding its command centers within civilian area and even civilian homes, Hamas makes it impossible for Israel to avoid civilian casualties. So Hamas quite deliberately contributes to Israels “disproportionate ” force. Funny, the critics never bring this up.
State JAG has it correct. As I recall from my cadet days and every PME course since, the idea of proportionality applies to how and what weapons are used – not some bogus balance between combatants. Broadly speaking, if a precision guided bomb is needed to remove a target, then that’s what you use, unless the collateral damage is judged to be too great to warrant the attack using that method.
Who is the judge of what collateral damage is allowable? As far as I can tell, the combatant commander decides. He might be later second-guessed by appropriate authority, but there is no nuetral authority that can make the judgement in the middle of combat.
The idea of proportionality between the combatants is ludicrous. When engaging in warfare the intent is to bend the enemy’s will, not to provide an even playing field.
Let’s reduce it to a singularity –
On a legal level –
Typically, an act of pre-meditated murder dictates the cessation of the life of the perpetrators of that murder. Thus, if a bevy of two or three murderers conspire to kill a man, perhaps by dragging him in chains behind a pickup truck after beating him, the multiple individuals responsible for the crime of killing that one man will be executed.
Expanding that, it is logical that proportional response would dictate that the death of one Israeli via Hamas fired rocket would merit the death of all members and associates of Hamas, from those who fired the rocket, to those who procured the rocket, to those who transported the rocket, hid the conspirators, commanded that the rocket be fired, et al.
One Hamas rocket fired, causing one death, is the responsibility of all of Hamas, based upon the conspiracy that Hamas has engaged in to commit pre-meditated murder.
On a military level —
Proportionate response to incoming fire is whatever force is required to cause a cessation of incoming fire. If making a threat causes the cessation of the rockets, fine. If one bomb causes a cessation of the incoming rockets, that’s fine, too. Killing every member of Hamas is also acceptable, if that is what must happen to cause the incoming fire to cease.
There, problem solved.
As others have pointed out, but bears repeating: the IDF response is disproportionately small; it’s manifestly and demonstrably not sufficient to end either the pallie missile launches, or the threat of them. And there’s no hint that Israel is going to use proportionate force.
The “proportionate response” crowd appears to be motivated by the pacifist faith, which considers it a moral victory to eliminate all violence, including self defense. Since these pacifists have no hope of eliminating terrorist violence, they focus their efforts on anyone who is unfortunate and soft-hearted enough to listen to their babble. Israel is one of those unfortunates.
The pacifist “proportionate response” ideal has helped terrorist violence increase worldwide. “Proportionate response” laws prohibiting self-defense have also been responsible for the recent crime wave in Britain.
Here are the basic rules for self-defense in Britain, via Uncommon Misconceptions:
“You are permitted to protect yourself with a briefcase, a handbag, or keys. You should shout “Call the Police” rather than “Help.” Bystanders are not to help. They have been taught to leave such matters to the professionals. If you manage to knock your attacker down, you must not hit him again or you risk being charged with assault… ”
British laws against self defense are based on the UN’s “human rights” legislation. Like the British people, the Israelis have slowly gotten accustomed to living with UN laws forbidding self-defense, a basic right that every being, even the lowliest amoeba, requires for its existence. Because of this, UN pacifist laws are, in reality and practice, a severe violation of human rights.
Because of their history of violating human rights, the UN and their followers should not be giving out military or moral advice. And really, no one should listen to them
The idea of ‘proportionate force’ has always been a pet peeve of mine. If both sides in any conflict limted themselves to proportionate force then no war would ever end, leading to a far greater loss of life than decisive military victories bring. The whole arguement is absurd and fantasy like.
“Proportional Response” –
Hamas has stated that the goal of it’s efforts is : To Destroy Isreal, and to Kill ALL Jews, Everywhere.
Irseal’s Proportional Response : To Destroy Hamas, and kill Hamas members
/ Q.E.D. — Proportional Response!
@Daran, #10
The only way to get Hamas to stop firing missiles is to destroy Hamas, so you are absolutely right, that anything that achieves that end is appropriate. Unfortunately the World pretends that’s not the case. One pleasant surprise I had was to read where Zippi Livni has something sane to say on that…
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=6D96B957-48E4-42C6-B830-922BBCC76124
Of course that makes some of her other positions harder to fathom, given the depth of understanding she seems to have in this. It would seem that believing in peace with Abbas is no less delusional and/or hypocritical than she accuses some of our detractors of being.
Bottom line, as my Rabbi said over 10 years ago when things were already even then so messed up, that only Moshiach could get us out of them. How much more so is that the case now!
MY “GOSPEL OF JUST-WAR THEORY” …
… is that one must take it from theory into practice, and in practice with those who just want to make war the proportional response is to JUST make war on them until they are all DEAD, because if even one is left alive he will declare victory and start all over again.
Remember when Saddam lost the frist Gulf War because Colonitis Powel told Bush Sr., that we had done enough? Saddam’s response was, “So, we’ve won.” and we only had to go back and do it right, only with MUCH MORE SUFFERING ALL AROUND.
So, it isn’t a “just-war” unless it is just war until we win. Anything short of that is unjust in the long run.
A point which has been grazed but not addressed: folks speak as if the Hamas regime in Gaza is something which just “happened” to the residents there, like bad weather. Sometimes it rains, sometimes it’s hot, sometimes it’s Hamas. That’s not the case here. Hamas was elected in reasonably free and fair elections, and when they forced out the remnant of the PA, the good people of Gaza did not take to the streets in protest. Nor did they do so when Hamas rained missiles down upon Israel. Does anyone think that they figured Israel was going to suffer this situation indefinitely? Even in Gaza, a government expresses the will of the people. This is a point overtly ignored in the NYT article today, which begs readers to identify with the suffering of the “innocent” victims of violence. I don’t deny that a popular movement in Gaza to oust the Hamas would result in worse violence against the citizenry there than the present Israeli attacks, but that’s the measure of personal or national responsibility which true nationhood requires. In the final analysis, the folks in Gaza are responsible for the Hamas regime, and if they don’t choose to repudiate it, then they do not deserve the sympathy of righteous victims.
ref. terrorists, type Hamas
“Kill’m all. Let God sort’m out.”
~ Sgt. Will, former U.S. Marine
Hey, how come Dresden hasn’t been mentioned?
What is a proportionate response to Hamas rocket attacks? Obliterate the enemy. They need to suffer the same way the Jews have suffered for many generations. WHether at the hands of the Geramns, the Egyptians, the many other anti-semites orgaanizatrions in the world. Hamas and Al Fatah are just a few of the organizations extolling the virtues of a jewish free world. The Israelis’ have never used such verbiage in opposition to any group espousing such genocide. The Jews have seen this before, throughout history. Can anyone else see and realize that is is the Arabs who ALWAYS break the “Cease Fire aggreements” between Israel and whom ever? Why is this never discussed? Why are the Israelis always the heavies in this. No where do I see the Al Fatah, Hamas, PLO, PLFP, etc etc etc named as the heavy handed country who has no right to existance. I applaude the restraint used by the Israelis. And for that restraint, the Arabs should be thankful I DO NOT RUN THIS SHOW! I would call for B-52 carpet bombing runs, 24/7 umtil the enemy either surrenered all arms or were blown into oblivion! Right will win out over terrorism!
What’s this “proportionality” nonsense? When you wage war, particulatrly when war is forced upon you by the other side’s military aggression (such as continuous firing of missiles into your populated territory), the only criterion by which you can be rationally judged is whether (a) you do what is necessary to protect your population, your soldiers and your resources to the extent it is feasible, and (b) you defeat the enemy decisively, which in my book means that on a tactical level you defeat his forces in the field rendering them unable to fight, and on a strategic level, you destroy his war making capability for a long time to come. As whatsisname said, those who fail to understand this simple truth either don’t understand what war is, or opt in favor of fighting, and fighting, and fighting, without ever accomplishing anything, except needless loss of life of its citizenry.
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor we did not respond “proportionaely” — we destroyed their fleet and obliterated their cities, so that — fanatical as they may have been — they had no alternative but to surrender.
State JAG correctly clarifies for us how the concept of proportionality is defined for the purposes of making LOAC judgments from a military perspective.
“Proportionality,” however, is not constrained to mean only what it does to the LOAC. When pundits and politicians speak of proportionality, they are using it differently, and that’s OK. They are not wrong to have a different perspective.
We just need to be careful to recognize which perspective a commentator speaks from. This is usually simple to sort out: pundits rarely speak from a LOAC-smart perspective, and left-wing politicians never do.
Israel’s basic problem isn’t one of tactical proportionality but one of objective. It isn’t enough for Israels’ security to just “make Hamas stop launching missiles,” and it will never be enough. The only objective that would decisively end all Israeli need to attack Hamas is this one: making Hamas relinquish its purpose of destroying the state of Israel.
What measures and tactics are proportional to that objective? I don’t think Israel even has control over all of them. Denying a guerrilla force its sources of supply and refreshment is a key measure in killing its will, and Israel actually has limited options in that regard. It would require the cooperation of at least some major portion of the international community for Israel to effectively close off Hamas’ lines of supply — and that’s just the logistic side of the problem. I don’t foresee a time when Hamas will be denied the opportunity to present its case to the world via the media, either a truthful case or the series of fabricated vignettes we are routinely treated to.
Intimidating an enemy into giving up his purpose is a rare feat, and requires great size and power relative not only to the enemy, but to everyone else — as with the US versus the USSR in the Reagan years. Smaller states don’t have this option, simply because other nations exist whose succor of the enemy makes him immune to decisive intimidation. Typically, if smaller states want to deliver a decisive blow, it must be achieved through comprehensive destruction of the enemy: his manpower, resources, and all means of hope for fighting another day.
But Israel has justifiable reasons for seeing this sort of blow, and an objective this decisive, as a last resort. Besides a humanitarian resistance to the inevitable necessity of killing off most of the Palestinian Arabs to achieve it, Israel must be concerned with the likely response by neighboring Arab states, and the implications of that for her national existence.
Israel’s security and integrity are a perpetual condundrum. Cheap shots from her many political enemies about “proportionality,” in the partisan political sense, are superficial and opportunistic: they sound good without meaning anything. But even measuring proportionality from the military LOAC perspective doesn’t get at Israel’s basic problem — which is that she doesn’t see a reasonable way to select an objective proportional to her security needs.
A proportional response would look like the Jews pushing the Psuedostinians into the sea, and using terrorism to accomplish it.
“If someone was sending rockets on my house where my daughters were sleeping at night, I would do everything to stop it, and I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.” – President-elect Barack Obama
Barack, Michelle wants to have a word with you. When you bought your house, YOU PICKED THE WRONG NEIGHBORHOOD!! If I move into an area taken over by drug gangs, I shouldn’t expect the neighbors to bring me freshly-baked muffins on the day of my move-in. And if all your neighbors hate my guts, bombing their houses and killing their children is probably not going to change that.