While the avoidance of unnecessary civilian casualties may be a strong consideration, no country, having engaged itself in mortal conflict with another, will hold itself to ‘proportionality’, in the sense of ‘one of yours for one of ours’. The means of a country to the ends of war will be the defeat of the enemy’s will and ability to car…
While the avoidance of unnecessary civilian casualties may be a strong consideration, no country, having engaged itself in mortal conflict with another, will hold itself to ‘proportionality’, in the sense of ‘one of yours for one of ours’. The means of a country to the ends of war will be the defeat of the enemy’s will and ability to carry on the fight by the application of overwhelming force at the least cost in terms of its own personnel and materials, and the least exposure of its own civilian population: to maximize its advantage, and the strategic ends of war a fundamentally disproportionate outcome. War by definition entails an abridgement of the moral balance and hierarchy that define peace: the operational abeyance of moral absolutes where they conflict with the perceived demands of existential necessity; which is not to absolve combatants from the responsibility for the protection of innocents and the avoidance of causing unnecessary suffering or for acts of retribution beyond the legitimate ends of war. However, war will, even under the guidance of best practices, remain, as Sherman succinctly described it, “hell”.
For those on the ground, for Israelis and Palestinians, the current conflict is very much a war, rather than, as the international community would prefer to have it, yet another disruptive flareup in a long series to be ameliorated by moral suasion, the status quo ante to be restored while cooler heads continue the ongoing search for the holy grail of a just and sustainable peace. As Russell Walter Mead commented, the ‘peace process’ has gone on for longer than the Thirty Years War. . Those on the ground, those within the circle of the conflict, however, may see the struggle in terms of mutually exclusive existentialities. Others may afford the perspective of one as witness to a spectator sport, keeping score in terms of moral equivalencies. All acts are subject to moral judgement, and crimes are crimes irrespective of justifiable ends, yet ultimately events regarding perceived national interest, while they may be strongly flavored by moral considerations, are shaped in large part by perceptions of necessity.
Israeli estimates claim 30% of those killed to be belligerents, those of an enemy employing a strategy of shielding within civilian populations in a densely urban theatre. While Israel should be pressured to do everything reasonably possible to spare civilians, the U.S. should take pains not to be drawn into the role of giving support to Hamas, by way of irresolute support in response to political pressures from the progressive left or popular outcry in the international swell of pro Hamas propaganda, but to be bold enough to acknowledge the nature of war and to resist popular pressure to stay the gun hand of an ally engaged in mortal combat with a common enemy.
There is no moral equivalency between the intentional savagery of October 7th and the horrific disaster to Palestinian noncombatants resulting from Israel’s reaction to being attacked and its realization that the continued existence of Hamas constitutes an intolerable threat, given that entities history and the proximate illustration of its will and capacity in pursuit of its plain and oft stated policy of continued violence toward the end of Israel’s elimination and the death of Jews The act of Hamas was a deliberate assault on civilians, on the Jewish people qua Jews, as well as in their capacity as citizens of Israel, savage by intent to generate the maximum reaction of outrage whereby to burnish its credentials as the face of the resistance, defender of the faith, the righteous arm of God. By contrast Israel’s launch of an all-out war was directed against Hamas, not against the Palestinian population, though for one on the ground in Gaza that distinction may seem too fine a point. But especially in urban warfare, and where the enemy shields itself within the densest and most sensitive domestic concentrations, and where the suffering of its own people can be used to maximum propaganda advantage, civilian casualties will be an inevitable byproduct of war. Given the nature of the enemy and the actualities of the theatre, and if Israeli estimates of a 2:1 ratio of civilian deaths to those of enemy combatants is taken as approximately accurate, the number of dead may not seem exceptional as compared to historical and contemporary examples of urban conflict. The death toll and the general suffering and destruction is, despite pressure from the U.S. and the international community and Israeli efforts to ameliorate collateral damage, likely to remain high for the duration of the war.
Of the current conflict, and the suffering produced, proportionality cannot be measured in numbers alone where existential questions are concerned, that of civilization versus barbarity, or, for Israel, its security and claim to legitimacy. One may argue that to launch an all-out war in response to a limited incursion, however horrific that incursion, is of itself disproportionate, an overreaction that may well, in this case, have derailed the flowering of the normalization of relations with countries within the Arab block, may embroil the region in a wider conflict, further Israel’s pariah status within the U.N. General Assembly, weaken U.S. public and Congressional support, and inure to the advantage of its enemies, especially to that of Iran, and in general work to the strategic detriment of Israel. The dilemma presented to Israel policy makers presents these risks and consequences, both real and hypothetical, against the unignorable outrage of the incursion, which ripped away any pretense of a manageable situation in which, between using Hamas as a foil against the P.L.O. while expanding settlements so as to reduce the viability of a standalone Palestinian state, any meaningful Palestinian political consensus, such that might lead to serious negotiations toward a two state solution, could, with an occasional ‘mowing of the grass’ be put off indefinitely. Hamas’s incursion of October 7th presented such a stark proclamation of intent, demonstration of destructive capability, and expression of pure evil, providing such a shock to the Israeli consciousness as to make very difficult or to preclude a reaction that might be described as a measured or ‘proportional’ response.
Calls for a cease fire in order to relieve civilian suffering and calls for the prioritization of recovery of the hostages would seem of laudable intent. Israel has a responsibility of discrimination between military and civilian targets and to minimize collateral damage. The thin reed of public support may not long survive the nightly news, which, as with the war in Vietnam, brings the human cost of war into sharp and memorable focus. Nonetheless, any cessation of hostilities would benefit Hamas, giving a wounded adversary time to regroup while the deluge of anti-Israeli propaganda would continue, if only in the form of re-runs, a BBC parade of greatest carnage hits, complete with up close and personal accounts of real suffering by real people. It is in the interest of the Israelis, if not even that of the Palestinian people, who, while at risk of violent death, suffer as much or more from displacement, from the collapse of infrastructure, the dearth of sustenance and threat of disease, that the conflict be concluded as soon as possible. From the Israeli perspective that conclusion must involve the effective dismantlement of Hamas. Other considerations impacting Israeli interest in avoiding a stop and start war, of negotiations which have no prospect of success, is the growing pressure from the Arab street for their governments to stand up for the Palestinians. Iranian catspaws as well, especially Hezbollah, reluctant as it may be to become further embroiled in a war it cannot currently afford, will be best checked by a timely conclusion of the conflict. For Israel it may be better that the wound bleed than that it fester.
As of December 12, 425 Israeli soldiers were reported by the Israeli army to have died in the conflict and another 1,573 wounded. Presuming the Israeli army to be making progress in its campaign to eliminate Hamas, one may ask how many additional soldiers may die or be wounded if release of hostages is be prioritized over the strategic aims of the war effort, if concerns for hostages leads to relieving pressure on a wounded Hamas such that they are able to regain their footing? In war, nations are called upon to make great sacrifices, and considerations for the wellbeing of individuals may be sacrificed in the interest of strategic necessity. A soldier’s courage begins with the acceptance of the concept of his own death, and the patriotic citizenry will, should circumstance require, expect no less of themselves. In a national cause, such that would invoke a universal commitment to its successful outcome, the civilian as well as the soldier would see his life or those of his loved ones as forfeit, if necessary, to the larger cause, as the first Brutus of note, Lucius Junius Brutus, founder of the Roman Republic, presided over the execution of his sons for the crime of treason, though by his office he might have spared them. The hostages are for Hamas a powerful weapon, that weapon negated when discounted by sacrifice. Which is not to suggest devaluation of one’s own, or that every reasonable effort not be made for their return, but that where individuals become involved in matters of national interest the undefinable value of a life may be subject to triage.
While the avoidance of unnecessary civilian casualties may be a strong consideration, no country, having engaged itself in mortal conflict with another, will hold itself to ‘proportionality’, in the sense of ‘one of yours for one of ours’. The means of a country to the ends of war will be the defeat of the enemy’s will and ability to carry on the fight by the application of overwhelming force at the least cost in terms of its own personnel and materials, and the least exposure of its own civilian population: to maximize its advantage, and the strategic ends of war a fundamentally disproportionate outcome. War by definition entails an abridgement of the moral balance and hierarchy that define peace: the operational abeyance of moral absolutes where they conflict with the perceived demands of existential necessity; which is not to absolve combatants from the responsibility for the protection of innocents and the avoidance of causing unnecessary suffering or for acts of retribution beyond the legitimate ends of war. However, war will, even under the guidance of best practices, remain, as Sherman succinctly described it, “hell”.
For those on the ground, for Israelis and Palestinians, the current conflict is very much a war, rather than, as the international community would prefer to have it, yet another disruptive flareup in a long series to be ameliorated by moral suasion, the status quo ante to be restored while cooler heads continue the ongoing search for the holy grail of a just and sustainable peace. As Russell Walter Mead commented, the ‘peace process’ has gone on for longer than the Thirty Years War. . Those on the ground, those within the circle of the conflict, however, may see the struggle in terms of mutually exclusive existentialities. Others may afford the perspective of one as witness to a spectator sport, keeping score in terms of moral equivalencies. All acts are subject to moral judgement, and crimes are crimes irrespective of justifiable ends, yet ultimately events regarding perceived national interest, while they may be strongly flavored by moral considerations, are shaped in large part by perceptions of necessity.
Israeli estimates claim 30% of those killed to be belligerents, those of an enemy employing a strategy of shielding within civilian populations in a densely urban theatre. While Israel should be pressured to do everything reasonably possible to spare civilians, the U.S. should take pains not to be drawn into the role of giving support to Hamas, by way of irresolute support in response to political pressures from the progressive left or popular outcry in the international swell of pro Hamas propaganda, but to be bold enough to acknowledge the nature of war and to resist popular pressure to stay the gun hand of an ally engaged in mortal combat with a common enemy.
There is no moral equivalency between the intentional savagery of October 7th and the horrific disaster to Palestinian noncombatants resulting from Israel’s reaction to being attacked and its realization that the continued existence of Hamas constitutes an intolerable threat, given that entities history and the proximate illustration of its will and capacity in pursuit of its plain and oft stated policy of continued violence toward the end of Israel’s elimination and the death of Jews The act of Hamas was a deliberate assault on civilians, on the Jewish people qua Jews, as well as in their capacity as citizens of Israel, savage by intent to generate the maximum reaction of outrage whereby to burnish its credentials as the face of the resistance, defender of the faith, the righteous arm of God. By contrast Israel’s launch of an all-out war was directed against Hamas, not against the Palestinian population, though for one on the ground in Gaza that distinction may seem too fine a point. But especially in urban warfare, and where the enemy shields itself within the densest and most sensitive domestic concentrations, and where the suffering of its own people can be used to maximum propaganda advantage, civilian casualties will be an inevitable byproduct of war. Given the nature of the enemy and the actualities of the theatre, and if Israeli estimates of a 2:1 ratio of civilian deaths to those of enemy combatants is taken as approximately accurate, the number of dead may not seem exceptional as compared to historical and contemporary examples of urban conflict. The death toll and the general suffering and destruction is, despite pressure from the U.S. and the international community and Israeli efforts to ameliorate collateral damage, likely to remain high for the duration of the war.
Of the current conflict, and the suffering produced, proportionality cannot be measured in numbers alone where existential questions are concerned, that of civilization versus barbarity, or, for Israel, its security and claim to legitimacy. One may argue that to launch an all-out war in response to a limited incursion, however horrific that incursion, is of itself disproportionate, an overreaction that may well, in this case, have derailed the flowering of the normalization of relations with countries within the Arab block, may embroil the region in a wider conflict, further Israel’s pariah status within the U.N. General Assembly, weaken U.S. public and Congressional support, and inure to the advantage of its enemies, especially to that of Iran, and in general work to the strategic detriment of Israel. The dilemma presented to Israel policy makers presents these risks and consequences, both real and hypothetical, against the unignorable outrage of the incursion, which ripped away any pretense of a manageable situation in which, between using Hamas as a foil against the P.L.O. while expanding settlements so as to reduce the viability of a standalone Palestinian state, any meaningful Palestinian political consensus, such that might lead to serious negotiations toward a two state solution, could, with an occasional ‘mowing of the grass’ be put off indefinitely. Hamas’s incursion of October 7th presented such a stark proclamation of intent, demonstration of destructive capability, and expression of pure evil, providing such a shock to the Israeli consciousness as to make very difficult or to preclude a reaction that might be described as a measured or ‘proportional’ response.
Calls for a cease fire in order to relieve civilian suffering and calls for the prioritization of recovery of the hostages would seem of laudable intent. Israel has a responsibility of discrimination between military and civilian targets and to minimize collateral damage. The thin reed of public support may not long survive the nightly news, which, as with the war in Vietnam, brings the human cost of war into sharp and memorable focus. Nonetheless, any cessation of hostilities would benefit Hamas, giving a wounded adversary time to regroup while the deluge of anti-Israeli propaganda would continue, if only in the form of re-runs, a BBC parade of greatest carnage hits, complete with up close and personal accounts of real suffering by real people. It is in the interest of the Israelis, if not even that of the Palestinian people, who, while at risk of violent death, suffer as much or more from displacement, from the collapse of infrastructure, the dearth of sustenance and threat of disease, that the conflict be concluded as soon as possible. From the Israeli perspective that conclusion must involve the effective dismantlement of Hamas. Other considerations impacting Israeli interest in avoiding a stop and start war, of negotiations which have no prospect of success, is the growing pressure from the Arab street for their governments to stand up for the Palestinians. Iranian catspaws as well, especially Hezbollah, reluctant as it may be to become further embroiled in a war it cannot currently afford, will be best checked by a timely conclusion of the conflict. For Israel it may be better that the wound bleed than that it fester.
As of December 12, 425 Israeli soldiers were reported by the Israeli army to have died in the conflict and another 1,573 wounded. Presuming the Israeli army to be making progress in its campaign to eliminate Hamas, one may ask how many additional soldiers may die or be wounded if release of hostages is be prioritized over the strategic aims of the war effort, if concerns for hostages leads to relieving pressure on a wounded Hamas such that they are able to regain their footing? In war, nations are called upon to make great sacrifices, and considerations for the wellbeing of individuals may be sacrificed in the interest of strategic necessity. A soldier’s courage begins with the acceptance of the concept of his own death, and the patriotic citizenry will, should circumstance require, expect no less of themselves. In a national cause, such that would invoke a universal commitment to its successful outcome, the civilian as well as the soldier would see his life or those of his loved ones as forfeit, if necessary, to the larger cause, as the first Brutus of note, Lucius Junius Brutus, founder of the Roman Republic, presided over the execution of his sons for the crime of treason, though by his office he might have spared them. The hostages are for Hamas a powerful weapon, that weapon negated when discounted by sacrifice. Which is not to suggest devaluation of one’s own, or that every reasonable effort not be made for their return, but that where individuals become involved in matters of national interest the undefinable value of a life may be subject to triage.