"Ha'aretz says, "The left-wing Meretz party on Thursday issued a rare call for military action against Hamas in order to bring an end to cross-border attacks on Israel by Gaza militants." Meretz said, "The time has come to act without compromise and without narrow political considerations to protect the residents of Gaza-area communities and Sderot...Strike Hamas in a targeted manner and work for a new cease-fire." But J Street called for superpower intervention to restrain Israel. "Today's IDF strikes will deepen the cycle of violence in the region...We call for immediate, strong diplomatic intervention by the United States, the Quartet and allies in the region.""

www.meforum.org/.../j-street-says-us-and-qaurtet-should-restrain.html

Those who call for proportionate response ought to spell out what they mean by it. Someone on the Internet suggested Israel launch equal number of unguided missiles into Gaza. Would that do the trick?

Here is one of those strange stories that symbolize the total insanity of this conflict:

"A rocket apparently fired by Palestinians on Friday struck a house in the Gaza Strip, killing two Palestinian sisters aged five and 13, Palestinian medics said.

Hamas police said they were investigating the cause of the blast in Beit Lahiya village in northern Gaza, which medics said seemed to be due to a rocket aimed at Israel that had misfired.

Earlier in the day, a seriously wounded 35-year-old Palestinian man, hurt by a misfired rocket on Tuesday, was taken to an Israeli hospital for treatment. Two children were also reportedly wounded in the Tuesday attack, but it is unclear whether they were the man's children.

The man was apparently injured in the head after a rocket directly hit his home. He received initial treatment at a hospital in Gaza, but it was later decided to transfer him for treatment in Israel.

A Magen David Adom ambulance evacuated the man from Gaza to the Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv. "

www.ynetnews.com/.../0,7340,L-3644809,00.html

"Message: do not fuck with the Jews."

Imagine if Bush had said "Message: do not fuck with the Christians."

Peretz, stop making a fool of yourself.

"If a rocket or missile is launched against us, if you take captive one of our soldiers (as you have held one for two and a half years), if you raise a new Intifada against us, there will be an immediate response. And it will be very disproportionate. Proportion does not work." Marty, if Israel were to raise its eyebrow in chagrin that would be regarded as disproportionate.

ok, Marty should have written Do not fuck with the Israelis, just as the message around the world should be do not fuck with the Americans. Is that better? It is what I absolutely believe.

And do not say I am being blythe to civilian deaths. I regret every death, if Hamas were to stop Israel would stop, that is undeniable.

"What would be proportionate, oh, so so proportionate apparently, are those tried-and-true half measures to contain Hamas that have never worked."

As opposed to the disproportionate attacks like this one which have now killed over two-hundred, whch have historically worked so well?

Come back to earth.

glas0159:

What would be your estimate of a "proportionate' retaliation?  Have you any viable proposals that  could be used by Israel to stop the terrorizing of civilian population in Israeli towns? What  is your tolerance level when it comes to Israeli kids being targeted and terrorized on a day to day basis??

Disproportionate:

From George Szirtez:

"The Israeli response is being declared disproportionate, as before. But what would be proportionate? How would one go about arranging a proportionate response? Make sure one was firing duds? Aiming to miss? Executing a Hamas prisoner? Would that be internationally welcomed? Fixing the bombs so that when hitting a Hamas target situated in a crowded part of the city they only kill members of Hamas?

Hamas is already deploying longer range rockets. Iran is working towards the possession of nuclear weapons. President Ahmadinejad, the Christmas messager of Channel Four, has often called for the erasure and death of Israel.

You think they don't mean it? If you were surrounded by hostile states who have never recognised you, who have vowed your destruction and keep lobbing rockets at you, you might want to take it a little more seriously. On the other hand - and this is what I increasingly hear - you might be coming round to thinking that maybe Israel, the one country where Jews are not in a vulnerable minority, has outlived international goodwill (friends have said this much to me) and really should be vanished (unspecified how) along with all those Zionists who support it. Remember Zionism equals Fascism, Racism, Nazism, Genocide and the True Holocaust."

georgeszirtes.blogspot.com/.../disproportionate.html

medan said:

""Message: do not fuck with the Jews."

Imagine if Bush had said "Message: do not fuck with the Christians."

Peretz, stop making a fool of yourself."

Medan, you are showing your ignorance.

Jews in the phrase above does not mean  a religious community. It means a secular community.

Judaism is both a religion as well as a civilization. It's hard for some people to understand even though they have no trouble hating "Jews" like Marx or George Soros who are not religious or even Jewish in a secular sense.

Antisemites have no trouble hating non Jewish "Jews" as well as Jewish Jews.

Also ask the Muslim Brotherhood what they mean by "Jew."

As to the charge that Israel used “disproportionate force,” my answer is to point out that there has been a much larger disproportionate hatred on the Arab side which targets not just those deeds and people who commit wrongful and criminal acts but whole peoples.

Red the Hamas charter and you will see an example of a disproportionate response: “all Jews are evil” they say. Such words lead to targeting of women and infants. Yet no one speaks of a disproportionate response of the part of the Arabs fighting Israel.

What was the murder of the Hassidic Rabbi and his wife in Mumbai if not an example of a disproportionate response?

Why is the firing of missiles at civilians in Israeli towns not an example of disproportionate force?

Which country in the world would have waited more than a year to respond to attacks on its civilians before it decided to strike back? This in itself is a sign of moderation.

Like Marty,  I hope that each time a missile is fired, each time a suicide bomber kills innocents that Israel reacts with disproportionate force. Moderation doesn’t seem to work in this conflict.

Correction:

"Red the Hamas charter"

should read:

Read  the Hamas charter....

There is indeed a doctrine of "proportionality" in the law of war (leaving aside for the moment all arguments about the moral and legal status of such international law).  However, the concept as invoked by the media and by unfriendly or mendacious leaders is not at all that the casualties inflicted by the side responding must approximate those inflicted by the side attacking, or vice versa.  The meaning of the doctrine is that (1) the force used and casualties inflicted must not be disproportionate (implicitly "grossly disproportionate") to what is necessary to accomplish the military objective at the least cost to oneself and (2) the cost necessary to achieve the military objective not be grossly disproportionate to its military value.  Thus, for example, you cannot destroy an entire town to eliminate one building that contains enemy combatants if you can relatively cheaply simply destroy that building.  Nor can you destroy an entire town merely to eliminate a building containing six combatants even where you have no other means of doing so (unless for some strange reason the six combatants are of surpassing military importance).

Nothing about the doctrine of proportionality, properly understood, bears on Israel's response to Hamas rockets.  Israel has an absolute right, enshrined in the UN Charter, to defend itself against such attacks without need of any Security Council authorization, and defending means, not "proportionate" retaliation, but the actions necessary to eliminate the attacks.  Indeed, absolutely contra the notions of such as Sarkozy, retaliation purely for its own sake, to inflict damage solely as punishment, would be prohibited as non-defensive.  Only actions rationally intended to eliminate the attacks would be legitimate self-defense.  On the other hand, in defending against such attacks, one is entitled to use such force as is necessary to end them.  Thus, if the Israeli actions, rationally intended to end the willingness and/or ability of Hamas to continue its rocket attacks, are not sufficient to end them, the force being used is not only not disproportionate, it is insufficient.

It is a terribly painful position for Israel to be in, knowing that force sufficient to end Hamas' attacks will be subject to vicious international criticism.  But that is probably still better than using insufficient force and enduring much the same criticism without achieving the outcome.  Doing what is necessary, at least cost to itself, in a completely unambiguous effort not to achieve some particular political outcome but to stop the attacks would at least have the advantage of being sanctioned by law, even if many hostile nations would choose publicly to deny it.  They know that no nation is under an obligation to allow itself to be attacked and no nation with the means to defend itself would allow itself to be attacked in this manner..  The US inflicts far more civilian casualties in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan for less reason.  There is language with which this can be pointed out without casting the US as merely an even greater villain.  In war, there are civilian casualties.  They should be minimized but are not the basis for compromising the achievement legitimate military objectives, not now, not ever.  There is not and has never been any such law of war.

jackson, I do prefer to say Israelis, after all Israel is a multi-religious state with full freedom of religion, Hamas rockets fall on Israeli Arabs and Israeli Christians as well. Israel's response is as much as for them as it is for the jews in Israel. To Hamas their killing Israeli arabs is Israel's fault, and is a favor to the Arabs they are killing since they are being made martyrs. Their is no reasoning with them, the only solution is to take out every rocket site on sight regardless of its location. That is not disproportionate, that is simple self defense. Yes, I know they are out to exterminate the Jews, but this is Israeli self defense which is the right of every nation.

I find it extraordinary how all of these Arab nations criticize Israels right, yet are absolutely silent to the actions of China, which truly represses Muslims in Xinjiang. They know if they ever screwed with China they would know the real meaning of disproportionate response.

blackton said:  "jackson, I do prefer to say Israelis, ..."

I have no problem with that myself.

Excellent post, roidubouloi.

"I find it extraordinary how all of these Arab nations criticize Israels right, yet are absolutely silent to the actions of China,"

The late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish stated on one occasion:

"Do you know why we Palestinians are famous? Because you are our enemy. The interest in us stems from the interest in the Jewish issue. The interest is in you, not in me. So we have the misfortune of having Israel as an enemy, because it enjoys unlimited support. And we have the good fortune of having Israel as our enemy, because the Jews are the center of attention. You’ve brought us defeat and renown.”

Thanks, jackson.

roid, me too, especially But that is probably still better than using insufficient force and enduring much the same criticism without achieving the outcome.

roidubouloi,

I like this part the most:

"Indeed, absolutely contra the notions of such as Sarkozy, retaliation purely for its own sake, to inflict damage solely as punishment, would be prohibited as non-defensive.  Only actions rationally intended to eliminate the attacks would be legitimate self-defense."

It clarifies the difference between "collective punishment" and massive military action in legitimate self-defense. I really don't think too many people can understand this distinction, because the one may seem, or feel, very much like the other, during war. A bomb hits a military target near a hospital, which causes damage to the hospital and may harm the patients is not the same as a bomb directly targeting the hospital. But for the people watching from the sidelines, the difference is not always clear.

--Excelente artículo de David Levy, que destaca los múltiples errores cometidos por Israel y los países occidentales en relación a Hamás. Por supuesto, con el punto número uno del dilema, el que sigue ignorando Israel: Never forget the basics...

Porque crees que las opiniones de David Levy son superior de las opiniones de mucha otra gente que ha estudiado la situacion y que cree que era el Hamas que ha cometido mulptiples errores?

Enviar cohetes para hacer  víctimas entre la población civil es una causas belli.

As flies to wanton boys are men to the Gods.

And with yet another descent into the madness of blitzkreig the State of Israel allows its Zionazi ideology to usurp the God of the Jews and betray the Judaism that is supposed to be its guiding light.

Good posts here.  I am waiting for Ginzy to weigh in and provide a little more perspective from Israel.  Here are my thoughts.

Israel has thought about this response for a while, and Hamas badly miscalculated. Fighting terrorism has gotten a lot more detailed and professional in the last few years.  America fighting in Iraq & Afganistan, The Indians and Pakistanis going at it, the Russians fighting the Chechens.  These battles are being studied and the professional fighting forces are changing their tactics to meet this assymetric enemy.

Hamas has tried to copy the Hezbollah success from Lebanon and planned a lot for this war.  Unfortunately they are fighting the last war.  Hezbollah had a natural ally in Syria and Iran to fall back on.  Egypt really will not help the Muslim Brotherhood of Hamas.  So Israel really feels no pressure in a counter attack from larger forces to their south.  In addition, there is no retreats or friendly places in the former occupied territory.  Hamas was pushing for this fight and failed to anticipate an overwhelming response, and lack of support from the outside world.

While Hamas is fighting the last war, Israel is fighting the next.  It is absolutely imperative that Israel remove any ability for Hamas to counter attack.  Israel has a few objectives here that start to make sense with the battle plan.  

First Israel needs to obliterate any fightin ability in Gaza.  As an occupied territory, this region is close to Israel Proper and has freedoms that any enemy would exploit if given an opportunity.  Second, Israel needs to send a message to the world that they have the capability to defeat an enemy who attacks them.  Any failures in Gaza would limit their options on Iran.

Thridly the Israeli's are looking towards Lebanon and the Hezbolloah front that could open up shortly.  Iran uses Hezbollah to keep the possibility of a 2nd or 3rd front for attacking Israel.  Any distractions or weakness in the south could embolden Hezbollah.  

It is hard to determine why Hamas would start this fight now.  There must be something.  The only thing I can think of is the possibility of overturning Egypt's Mubarak.  With Gaza under attack, and the Egyptians machine gunning them to keep them out of Egypt and in Gaza, is really appalling.  Egypt can not win in this one, they wouold be better off as an ally to Israel, than trying to support people that want to kill their President and install an Islamic Republic.

I thought we would see a larger response from Hezbollah back in February when Imad Mughniyah was killed in Syria.  But instead everyone started storing their missles and making plans.

Well, well, look who is back the naaaaaaaaazi maaaaackenzie!

you can rely on this Jew hater for comments like "Zionazi." He is such a profound thinker!

Alifa, aqui tiene una conexion a un articula que critica  las ideas de David Levy:

"The Gaza Crisis: Let’s Be Fair to Hamas"

Published by Eamonn McDonaghon  

blog.z-word.com/.../the-gaza-crisis-lets-be-fair-to-hamas

"Here Comes the Hamas Propaganda Attack"

lennybendavid.com/.../israel-attacks-hamas-here-comes-hamas.html

Make no mistake about it Mackenzie is part of the Hamas Islamic nazi propaganda attack!

hey jackson, not bad Spanish. After 3 years my Spanish is still terrible. That alifa is just a trackback, or whatever they are called, which is why it is in Spanish. I love this bit of silliness:

Never forget the basics – the core issue is still an unresolved conflict about ending an occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state – everything has to start from here to be serious (this is true also for Hamas who continue to heavily hint that they will accept the 1967 borders).

Heavily hint? What is it, charades? Hamas wants nothing except the annihilation of Israel and are willing to send wave after wave of their own young as suicide bombers to achieve that end, they are vermin. I would love for there to be a Palestine, one that is peaceful and democratic and would even support one on the 67 borders if that was guaranteed, but it is not.

Prof. MacKenzie,

In your opinion, do Israel and the Jews enjoy, in common with all other states and peoples on earth, an inherent right of self-defense?  Would you care to enlighten us all here on just would in your opinion be an acceptable military response by Israel to rocket attacks by Hamas?  Are you capable of articulating anything even loosely connected to international law and the law of war that supports your opinions or are you nothing more than the anti-Semite and crypto-Nazi you are routinely accused of being?

"I would love for there to be a Palestine, one that is peaceful and democratic and would even support one on the 67 borders if that was guaranteed, but it is not." blackton

Me too and

it was doubtful enough under Arafat but under Hamas it's an impossibility.

As for their "heavy hints" is this like saying one thing in private and another in public?  Hints, heavy or no, have no standing in law.

Does David Levy think that one can draw up a peace agreements with 'heavy hints?'  

blackton said: "hey jackson, not bad Spanish."

As for my Spanish, about a decade and a half ago I decided to read Don Quijote in Castellano and started to teach myself some Spanish. There are so many aids these days to learning a foreign language: tapes, dvd's, audiobooks, TV programs, films that I was reading the novel a few years after I started.  It was almost as easy as learning French which I did while I studied in Lyon a couple of decades before that.

It was worth the labor.  There is nothing sweeter than listening to Don Qujote and Sancho go at it in their own idiom.

I am doing the same with Hebrew, now.

Establishing the truth in the Middle East still comes down to the same three things in the end:

1] rationalization

2] rationalization

and

3] rationalization

It used to be a lot easier to rationalize the behavior of Palestinians and their supporters. And that was because it once revolved more around a far more secular pan-Arabism. And in many complex ways that was linked in turn to the global conflict between capitalism and communism. Indeed, within Israel itself back then, the political philosophy of the kibbbutzim embraced a collectivist approach to political economy. Zionism and socialism combined. Today however Israel is becoming more and more integrated into the global economoy---for better and for worse.

In any event, that is all gone. Today, groups like Hamas and Hezbollah are linked to fundamentalist and Islamist zealotry. These theocratic extremists seek to forge a broad evangelical caliphate that would encompass all of the Middle East and into South Asia. For this reason alone, Israel is the better pick of the two. Alas, however, this is what history has reduced it all to.

All of the contemporary players...those here and those there...are stained with the blood of the innocent. Almost all are corrupt and venal. They reflect the Bush/Cheney adminstration writ large across the globe. The best we can do is to support the least unscrupulous and mercenary among them.

george walton

news.yahoo.com/.../us_mideast

Should the link be dead, there is a photo of demonstrators in Yemen with a sign saying, "No Peace Unless Israel leave [sic] Gaza."

This is a very strange thing to put on a sign. Israel DID leave Gaza, three years ago. This is the result of that move:

en.wikipedia.org/.../File:Qasam_graph2002-2007.svg

George,

It is a commonplace of our thought that we are constantly trying to place ideas and events in "a larger context."  We assume that this always provides greater clarity and insight.  But that is not necessarily the case.  If one believes, as I do, that Israel's policies in the West Bank have largely been misguided and self-defeating, it does not justify those policies or make them effective that Israel is less unscrupulous and mercenary than its neighbors.  If those policies are mistaken, they are mistaken.

Conversely, the justification for Israel's counter-attacks on Gaza is not that Israel is not as bad as they are.  Would Israel be justified in anything it does so long as it remains not as bad as its neighbors (pretty easy to do)?  I don't think so.  This sort of argument can be used to justify almost anything and is indeed precisely the sort of argument made by the Arab fanatics:  Israell is not legitimate therefore anything we do is justified.

The justification for Israel's current actions in Gaza is that it is being attacked from Gaza, attacks organized by the de facto government there, and that it has the right to defend itself by whatever means are necessary and sufficient to end the attacks upon it.  It is really just that simple.  There is no reason to try and decide who is the more morally acceptable actor in general and doing so invites only intellectual mischief.  The invitation to consider this in some larger context invites all those who disagree with one or another of your premises to question whether Israel (and by extension any other nation under attack) has the right to defend itself.  That is not a desirable outcome.  The context you seek to provide merely blurs.

Don't f*** with Jews? Sounds a lot like bring it on.  

Many writers of this magazine would consider madness the idea we could pacify Iraq  through violent bombings of residential neighborhoods on a permanent basis but when a foreign power does somehow it's the highest example of moral and pragmatic politics.  

Palestine is for all purposes a bantustan of Israel with Gaza nearing concentration camp conditions. Most Palestinians don't have a problems with lobbying missles at Israel because there lives are hell thanks to its government. If Peretz's definition of peace is permanent military terror, then neither Israel or us will ever have peace.

"Palestine is for all purposes a bantustan of Israel with Gaza nearing concentration camp conditions."  Aex

This is left wing nonsense.

Israel left Gaza hoping it would develop into a prosperous area.

It did not impose an embargo till Hamas took power and started to attack Israel with rockets; moreover and it did it together with Egypt and other members of the international community.

It’s easy to use terms like Bantustan and concentration camps. But they don’t apply to a place which has a hostile government that spends its money on rockets instead of food and would rather teach its children to become suicide bombers than biologists.

There has never been a Bantustan or a concentration camp that was armed to the teeth and was constantly engaged in killing civilians: it’s own as well as Israelis.

Thou knowest not of that which thou writest.

roid writes::

George,

It is a commonplace of our thought that we are constantly trying to place ideas and events in "a larger context." We assume that this always provides greater clarity and insight. But that is not necessarily the case. If one believes, as I do, that Israel's policies in the West Bank have largely been misguided and self-defeating, it does not justify those policies or make them effective that Israel is less unscrupulous and mercenary than its neighbors. If those policies are mistaken, they are mistaken.

George responds:

Mistakes are no less problematic than solutions. Why? Because they are interchangable. Why? Because no matter how hard we try to situate them contextually we are never able to find a context [a font] that can essentially, objectively or universally verify or falsify our value judgments such that one point of view can be shown to the most rational or virtuous point of view to have. In other words, with respect to moral and politcal narratives, human behavior is always a zero sum game in the absense of God.

In a world without God [an assumption, of course], it always comes down to who is endowed with a power great enough to enforce their own values. That is what is happening in the Gaza Strip right now. Lots of people will come forward with rationalizations that either defend or reject the conflict from the point of view of...of what? of who?

Of [among others] whatever narrative they happen to find most persuasive, whatever narrative benefits them economically or politically, whatever narrative they have been taught to embrace since they were a child, whatever narrative pleases their God, whatever narrative coincides with how they happen to view the world around them.

Here and now.

The illusion [or self-delusion] most embrace revolves around a belief that 1] if we think long and hard enough about something and 2] if we struggle honestly to grasp...to encompass...the most benign, beneficent and benignant virtues, than if it turns out one way we feel vindicated and if it does not we feel wronged.

But at least that allows us to situate ourselves in an either/or world. We're the good guys...they're the bad. Why? Because we stand for principle, justice, character, goodness,  rectitude, truth. They stand for none of it.

Of course others will scrap all that [or hide behind it] and choose the path of least resistance...a path that is the most expedient, practical or profitable for them. And you are right, of course. This line of thinking can justify almost anything. My point is merely to suggest that either path can be more or less dangerous when pursued by more or less dangerous people in more or less perilous times. And with the global economy literally dangling over into the abyss, it's not likely to get less perilous anytime soon.

But nothing is ever as "simple" as the manner in which you rationalize Israel's side of the conflict. At least no more so than the simplistic manner in which the other side rationalizes their condemnation of Israel. No narrative can reduce or be reduced to rubbish by any other narrative. Only armies and bombs and military might has that capacity.

Conflict in the world has always revolved around an ever ambiguous relationship between narratives and power. It's just that in the past 60 odd years these conflicts have gained access to some very, very nasty weapons of mass destruction.

george walton

George,

It is a commonplace of our thought that we are constantly trying to place ideas and events in "a larger context." We assume that this always provides greater clarity and insight. But that is not necessarily the case. If one believes, as I do, that Israel's policies in the West Bank have largely been misguided and self-defeating, it does not justify those policies or make them effective that Israel is less unscrupulous and mercenary than its neighbors. If those policies are mistaken, they are mistaken.

George responds:

Mistakes are no less problematic than solutions. Why? Because they are interchangable. Why? Because no matter how hard we try to situate them contextually we are never able to find a context [a font] that can essentially, objectively or universally verify or falsify our value judgments such that one point of view can be shown to the most rational or virtuous point of view to have. In other words, with respect to moral and politcal narratives, human behavior is always a zero sum game in the absense of God.

In a world without God [an assumption, of course], it always comes down to who is endowed with a power great enough to enforce their own values. That is what is happening in the Gaza Strip right now. Lots of people will come forward with rationalizations that either defend or reject the conflict from the point of view of...of what? of who?

Of [among others] whatever narrative they happen to find most persuasive, whatever narrative benefits them economically or politically, whatever narrative they have been taught to embrace since they were a child, whatever narrative pleases their God, whatever narrative coincides with how they happen to view the world around them.

Here and now.

The illusion [or self-delusion] most embrace revolves around a belief that 1] if we think long and hard enough about something and 2] if we struggle honestly to grasp...to encompass...the most benign, beneficent and benignant virtues, than if it turns out one way we feel vindicated and if it does not we feel wronged.

But at least that allows us to situate ourselves in an either/or world. We're the good guys...they're the bad. Why? Because we stand for principle, justice, character, goodness,  rectitude, truth. They stand for none of it.

Of course others will scrap all that [or hide behind it] and choose a path of least resistance...a path that is the most expedient, practical or profitable. And you are right, of course. This line of thinking can justify almost anything. My point then is merely to suggest that either path can be more or less dangerous when pursued more or less dangerous people in more or less perilous times.

But nothing is ever as "simple" as the manner in which you rationalize Israel's side of the conflict. At least no more so than the simplistic manner in which the other side rationalizes its condemnation of Israel.

Conflict in the world has always revolved around an ever ambiguous relationship between narrative and power. It's just that in the past 60 odd years these conflicts have gained access to very, very nasty weapons of mass destruction.

george walton

roid writes::

George,

It is a commonplace of our thought that we are constantly trying to place ideas and events in "a larger context." We assume that this always provides greater clarity and insight. But that is not necessarily the case. If one believes, as I do, that Israel's policies in the West Bank have largely been misguided and self-defeating, it does not justify those policies or make them effective that Israel is less unscrupulous and mercenary than its neighbors. If those policies are mistaken, they are mistaken.

George responds:

Mistakes are no less problematic than solutions. Why? Because they are interchangable. Why? Because no matter how hard we try to situate them contextually we are never able to find a context [a font] that can essentially, objectively or universally verify or falsify our value judgments such that one point of view can be shown to the most rational or virtuous point of view to have. In other words, with respect to moral and politcal narratives, human behavior is always a zero sum game in the absense of God.

In a world without God [an assumption, of course], it always comes down to who is endowed with a power great enough to enforce their own values. That is what is happening in the Gaza Strip right now. Lots of people will come forward with rationalizations that either defend or reject the conflict from the point of view of...of what? of who?

Of [among others] whatever narrative they happen to find most persuasive, whatever narrative benefits them economically or politically, whatever narrative they have been taught to embrace since they were a child, whatever narrative pleases their God, whatever narrative coincides with how they happen to view the world around them.

Here and now.

The illusion [or self-delusion] most embrace revolves around a belief that 1] if we think long and hard enough about something and 2] if we struggle honestly to grasp...to encompass...the most benign, beneficent and benignant virtues, than if it turns out one way we feel vindicated and if it does not we feel wronged.

But at least that allows us to situate ourselves in an either/or world. We're the good guys...they're the bad. Why? Because we stand for principle, justice, character, goodness,  rectitude, truth. They stand for none of it.

Of course others will scrap all that [or hide behind it] and choose the path of least resistance...a path that is the most expedient, practical or profitable for them. And you are right, of course. This line of thinking can justify almost anything. My point is merely to suggest that either path can be more or less dangerous when pursued by more or less dangerous people in more or less perilous times. And with the global economy literally dangling over into the abyss, it's not likely to get less perilous anytime soon.

But nothing is ever as "simple" as the manner in which you rationalize Israel's side of the conflict. At least no more so than the simplistic manner in which the other side rationalizes their condemnation of Israel. No narrative can reduce or be reduced to rubbish by any other narrative. Only armies and bombs and military might has that capacity.

Conflict in the world has always revolved around an ever ambiguous relationship between narratives and power. It's just that in the past 60 odd years these conflicts have gained access to some very, very nasty weapons of mass destruction.

george walton

roid writes::

George,

It is a commonplace of our thought that we are constantly trying to place ideas and events in "a larger context." We assume that this always provides greater clarity and insight. But that is not necessarily the case. If one believes, as I do, that Israel's policies in the West Bank have largely been misguided and self-defeating, it does not justify those policies or make them effective that Israel is less unscrupulous and mercenary than its neighbors. If those policies are mistaken, they are mistaken.

George responds:

Mistakes are no less problematic than solutions. Why? Because they are interchangable. Why? Because no matter how hard we try to situate them contextually we are never able to find a context [a font] that can essentially, objectively or universally verify or falsify our value judgments such that one point of view can be shown to the most rational or virtuous point of view to have. In other words, with respect to moral and politcal narratives, human behavior is always a zero sum game in the absense of God.

In a world without God [an assumption, of course], it always comes down to who is endowed with a power great enough to enforce their own values. That is what is happening in the Gaza Strip right now. Lots of people will come forward with rationalizations that either defend or reject the conflict from the point of view of...of what? of who?

Of [among others] whatever narrative they happen to find most persuasive, whatever narrative benefits them economically or politically, whatever narrative they have been taught to embrace since they were a child, whatever narrative pleases their God, whatever narrative coincides with how they happen to view the world around them.

Here and now.

The illusion [or self-delusion] most embrace revolves around a belief that 1] if we think long and hard enough about something and 2] if we struggle honestly to grasp...to encompass...the most benign, beneficent and benignant virtues, than if it turns out one way we feel vindicated and if it does not we feel wronged.

But at least that allows us to situate ourselves in an either/or world. We're the good guys...they're the bad. Why? Because we stand for principle, justice, character, goodness,  rectitude, truth. They stand for none of it.

Of course others will scrap all that [or hide behind it] and choose the path of least resistance...a path that is the most expedient, practical or profitable for them. And you are right, of course. This line of thinking can justify almost anything. My point is merely to suggest that either path can be more or less dangerous when pursued by more or less dangerous people in more or less perilous times. And with the global economy literally dangling over into the abyss, it's not likely to get less perilous anytime soon.

But nothing is ever as "simple" as the manner in which you rationalize Israel's side of the conflict. At least no more so than the simplistic manner in which the other side rationalizes their condemnation of Israel. No narrative can reduce or be reduced to rubbish by any other narrative. Only armies and bombs and military might has that capacity.

Conflict in the world has always revolved around an ever ambiguous relationship between narratives and power. It's just that in the past 60 odd years these conflicts have gained access to some very, very nasty weapons of mass destruction.

george walton

www.haaretz.com/.../1050459.html

I know I am late on this one, but there is one thing that everyone seems to forget in all of this and that is people's irrational feelings toward Israel. Be they positive or negative Israel is never viewed as any other nation would be in the same situation. So, when Israel does attack Gaza in this fashion those anti view it as abhorrent and those pro view it as completely justified. Of course, Peretz must push things farther than others, but still everyone adheres to this strict binary of anti/pro Israel. If these two camps were to step back and view these recents events not as Israel/Palestine but as any two other countries/peoples there is no way that we would ever condone Israel's actions. The fact that people feel so strongly anti/pro binds them vehemently to positions that they would never take on disputes between, say, Honduras and Ecuador. Thus you get moronic statements like; "Don't fuck with the Jews." Imagine that being said about any other country (um, outside of our own, of course). That is the real problem with this discussion, it is a classic binary within which no one can win, and only the bystanders (civilians) really suffer.

I'm tired of this shit. Both sides are unable to get along. We have that part. Go and kill each other.

If this makes me unable to see the "injustices agains the Palestinian people" or makes me callous about the "Right of existance of Israel", so what. Message to all: nobody really cares anymore.

It does my heart good to read the eloquent statements of roidubouloi, blackton, jackksondyer and others in defense of Israeli's right of self-defense.

medan said:

"Message: do not fuck with the Jews."

Imagine if Bush had said "Message: do not fuck with the Christians."

Peretz, stop making a fool of yourself.

As many of us may recall Bush uttered the word "Crusade," which more than sufficed.

Be they positive or negative Israel is never viewed as any other nation would be in the same situation.

Bullshit, absolute bullshit. I am a historian by training, a teacher by trade, I have lived all over the world in some places I doubt you have ever heard of, to state my thoughts are based on irrationality is irrational in itself. Do I have my biases, sure, but as an Irish Catholic I grew up as a person who has strong anti-imperialistic leanings, but good lord at some point I faced reality. I grew up and admitted to myself that the IRA bombing pubs was monstrous however sympathetic I am to the idea of a united Ireland. I am also sympathetic to the plight of our own original inhabitants, yet how would you feel if the Navajo reservation started lobbing missiles indiscriminately at Phoenix? Really at some point I think people are choosing to be willfully stupid. If Hamas stopped acting like a bunch of deranged lunatics motivated by an impossible ideology and instead worked on development I can guarantee in 10 years Gaza would have a per capita income approaching Israel.

I can give you examples of numerous countries that put aside its own sense of entitled grievance and started acting like adults, Ireland being at the top of the list, but we can add South Korea, China, etc. as well as others.  I simply have observed the world, I have absolutely no reason to be irrational in favor of Israel and against the Palestinians, nothing in training or disposition, I simply observed development in other parts of the world and learned something. I suggest you do the same as well.

I have been away for a while.

Clearly I have been missing something by the evidence of this therad.

It's superior, and rather amazingly so.

Itzik Basman

I'm also late to the party, but of course blackie, roid, et al. are correct in referencing Israel's right to self-defense.

it is also apparent that there can be no "peace process' with Hamas as an interlocutor.  Seems we are back to the pre-Oslo status quo ante.  Hamas does not recognize Israel's right to exist, so how can Israel negotiate with them?  To what end?

Remember the good old days, when we were told that if only Israel would end its occupation of Gaza, all would be well.  We now see what they have received for their efforts.

"Message to all: nobody really cares anymore."  Ingolfson

Are you "nobody?" Or are you everybody?

Lot's of people here care, ingolfson.

For those who can read Spanish:

"Algunas reflexiones sueltas sobre el conflicto y la guerra mediática"

fabitas.blogspot.com/.../algunas-reflexiones-sueltas-sobre-el.html

Well, George, some things are simple and, in those cases, "complexification" merely obscures, whether intentionally or unintentionally.  I do not believe it is necessary to start weighing the moral claims or the moral character of both sides since the beginning of the conflict to decide that Israel has an unambiguous right to defend itself against missile attacks.  Nothing about the stature of the claims of either side has the remotest thing to do with it and that does not change no matter the sheer volume of the verbiage poured out upon it.

When someone comes to kill you, you have the right to defend yourself, killing them first if need be.  When they stop coming to kill you, you don't any longer have the right to kill them in self-defense.  There may be grievances, legitimate or illegitimate, but they do not constitute a right of self-defense and are not likely to be such as justify continuing violence.  Indeed, in a case of self-defense, the only uncertainty is about when the threat and action giving rise to the right of self-defense has terminated.

In this case, there is not the slightest reason to believe that, if the Gazans desisted from and abandoned its attacks, Israel would do anything other than encourage Gaza to flourish.  Hence, there is no basis for Hamas' attacks against Israel regardless of its political claims.  So long as it refuses to desist from its missile attacks and in fact continues them, Israel has the right to defend itself, that is, to act militarily to eliminate the willingness and/or ability of Hamas to continue.  If there is any question about Israel's willingness to desist, it is a simple matter for Hamas to put it to the test:  Declare that it will desist indefinitely from missile attacks and do so.  If Israel does not then immediately stand down, I will be at the head of the pack insisting that it must, as a matter of law and morality, do so immediately and that it cannot pursue merely political, non-defensive ends by military means.  

At least understand what is happening:  Hamas does not want Gaza to flourish because that might, indeed probably would, lead the Palestinian people there to abandon it and their current devotion to the destruction of Israel.   Hamas therefore immiserates its own people and deliberately provokes Israel in a manner that gives it no alternative to a military response for the very purpose of subjecting its own people to death and maiming in a military confrontation, thereby to maintain its own political stature and stoke the Palestinian rage against Israel.  Hamas missile attacks are not only not defensive in character, they are suicide bombing by another name, except that the victims don't get to choose themselves.  Hamas allows them to be chosen by the randomness of armed conflict while affirmatively conducting its military operations in a manner that is designed to maximize civilian casualties when the response comes.

The convoluted character of the respective moral and political claims and meditation upon it contributes exactly nothing to that understanding.  Those are not unimportant questions, they are just irrelevant to the immediate conflict.

What roid said - everything, all of it.

On the positive side, Hamas' latest threat to assissinate not only Israeli leaders but also the leaders of Arab countries who do not fully defend Hamas should finally end any discussion as to whether Hamas is a terrorist organization, a "terrorist" organization, the political arm of a terrorist organization, or an afternoon tea party with the Queen.  I wish there were a way to wage war against Hamas' "militants" without killing civillians and children - there is, if Hamas stopped hiding behind women and children, or if the Arab world simply took all the women and children and let Hamas fight it out in Gaza, but that will not happe, because dead babies are essential to Hamas' existence - but in the meantime, "proportionality" does not mean "no civillian deaths".  It's just really sad.

On the whole, I feel a lot better with Barak in the Defense Ministry than with Peretz ...

There are times and places to put issues into larger contexts. Judgments have to be made, and are always being implicitly made, as to the extent  and scope of analysis. These judgments will be contingent and provisional, but it is impossible to live and act in the world otherwise. I'd call this a version of negative capability.

Important to note, vis a vis the accusations of "disproportionality", who is in charge of prosecuting this campaign against Hamas. Gaby Ashkenazi, the chief of Staff, is known for his moderate positions, urging in the past consideration for  Palestinian normalcy over strictly and starkly Israeli interests:  

"Appointed IDF Deputy Chief of Staff in 2002, Ashkenazi was considered the most moderate member of the Israeli General Staff during the al-Aqsa Intifada, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.[2] When Israel began to construct a West Bank barrier in order to physically separate Israeli and Palestinian communities with the purpose of preventing terrorist attacks within Israel, Ashkenazi was placed in charge of the project. He advocated building the barrier as close to the Green Line as possible, a position which would minimize the effects of the barrier on Palestinians. The General also "objected to aggressive acts against the Palestinians" during the Intifada and once described his "greatest fear" for the IDF as "the loss of humanity [of Israeli soldiers] because of the ongoing warfare."

In early 2005, Israeli commentators speculated that Ashkenazi might be appointed Chief of Staff.[3] However, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz chose former Israeli Air Force Commander Dan Halutz instead. Haaretz speculated that Sharon might have rejected Ashkenazi because of the General's moderate political views. "

en.wikipedia.org/.../Gabi_Ashkenazi

Well, one understands Roid's post. It actually makes important points on the meaning of international self-defense.

But there is something very upseting here. One is clearly outside the boundaries of international self-defense when the objective of the military operation is not to neutralize the military capabilities of the enemy, but to cause the fall of Hamas ("regime change"). And the Israeli PM has clearly stated that this last one was the objective....

What exactly is Israel is supposed to do?  

Fret about being called Nazi's (wrong people, if Arial Sharon can say what a bunch of tough people Israeli's are, I can too) and continue to be bombed by known terrorists who hide among civilians to get get the knee jerk "sympathy" of Eurpoean editorialists, etc?  Please!  Nothing will change in their lives until they decide to stop such nihilism.

This game is brought on by Hamas, these people are monsters. They'd rather see their own people killed than govern. Its terribly sad that they would do this yet again, may they rot in hell.

roi is brilliant above, but you can always count on wandrey to put it best.  luis, I haven't seen that -- do you have a link?  Everything that I've seen, from Olmert to Barak to Livni on down has been to clearly state that the prick to action was the rocket-firing, and that the operation will cease when the firing stops.

Okay CRS9TNR since you asked...

I actually don't have anything profound to say.

In the interest of full disclosure I want to state up front that I am speaking as the parent of a tank commander currently on the border with Gaza, presumably waiting for the orders to go forward in the anticipated ground operations.

My youngest daughter is currently in Sderot, as part of a organization Lev Echad - לב אחד (One Heart) that sends volunteers to Sderot to help with the kids & the elderly during Qassam-laden times like these.  And my oldest son is waiting to see if his reserve infantry unit is called up (so far it seems not).

I found roidubouloi's analysis of proportionality & the laws of war quite interesting reasonably reasonable.  I just heard a roughly similar (but shorter) analysis on an Israeli radio legal affairs program.  All of this leads me to the conclusion that most of these laws of war are sort of like a perpetual motion machine -- sounds great on paper but doesn't work, actually it can't work, in reality.

In the hands of the "international community", the UN, Sarkozy, Russia, the ICC in the Hague, and others who have condemned Israel for deigning to defend itself AFTER 80 (not 70) rockets and mortar shells were fired at Israeli civilians on Wednesday alone, all these legal notions are applied to Israel in a very asymmetric and biased fashion such that it becomes a suicide pact, be it for the individual soldiers or the country as whole.  And just as the late Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson noted that the constitution is not a suicide pact, neither is international law.

I could and perhaps should expand on this a bit more but I have to leave for home now before they lock the garage with my car in it.

Be well,

Hershel Ginsburg

Jerusalem / Efrata

Luis:

"One is clearly outside the boundaries of international self-defense when the objective of the military operation is not to neutralize the military capabilities of the enemy, but to cause the fall of Hamas ("regime change")."

Care to elaborate on that?  There are no hard laws on the subject, by the way, and international law is somewhat hazy on the issue.  There are the Geneva Conventions that address collective punishment and so on, but they do not have much by way of what constitutes "self-defence".  There is Article 51 of the Charter, which is helpful only to the extent that it exists and affirms the right of self-defence (France and the US insisted on its inclusion; some other countries thought that collective security should replace self-defence altogether).  There is also Webster's statement on "proportionality of response" in the Caroline Case, conspicuous only by the fact that it is the only statement on the subject.  Finally, there is the principle of proportionality of response set out in the Draft Articles in State Responsibility, recently adopted by the International Law Commission as de lege ferenda (developing law) but not actual law - not yet at any rate.

All this to say that as Roid has noted eloquently, the talk about "proportionality" and "self-defence" usually misses the point.  The object of self-defence is not just to repel an attack, but rather, where necessary, to repel also the possibility of an attack, otherwise, with an existing and immediate threat, you will always be living in terror.  Nothing in international law condemns a country to such persistent terror - well, if you believe the blather, any country other than Israel, at any rate.  As for injunction again "regime change" - I'm afraid that particular train has left the station, if it ever was there in the first place.  The Versaille, St. Germaine and Lausanne treaties demanded or ratified "regime change" in the losing Empires following the First World War.  "Unconditional surrender" in the context of the Second World War meant regime change - Keitel hanging from a noose and Mussolini from a meathook are about the most vivid images of what "self-defence" against an existential threat might exact as the price for peace.  And what exactly do you think the arrest of Milosevic and his trial was about?  

Fact is, we would not be having this discussion if Namibia, in response to repeated bombardment of its boundaries, invaded Angola and sought to replace its government with one that recognised its right to exist.  The Rwandan army marched on Kinshasa and its agents killed the President of the Congo (and a couple of million Congolese) without so much as a peep out of the international community.  All this handwringing and the sudden fascination with international law on proportionality exists because of Israel.  At least ndmackenzie is honest about his hatred ...

I haven't got a link in an English language newspaper. But that was said by the Israeli Vice-PM, Haim Ramon:

ultimahora.publico.clix.pt/noticia.aspx

(well, if you understand Spanish, you'll understand Portuguese)

Luis,

I am not aware that "regime change" is a stated objective as you say.  The news I have seen is that, to the contrary, Israel has stated that the objective is limited to security for southern Israel.  If Hamas were to declare a ceasefire, then, for all its loathsomeness, regime change as a military objective would be problematic.  There are of course circumstances where nothing short of regime change can suffice to abate the threat (by which I mean the threat of immediate harm or of harm that cannot be adequately defended against in the future, not verbal threats although they can properly be considered in assessing an enemies intentions if not its abilities).  We can all cite historical examples  But there are certainly grounds to question that here particularly as Hamas' reach is quite limited..  It would not be desirable if self-defense were interpreted to mean that any time there has been a breach of the peace, either party can continue fighting until the other is completely defeated upon the claim that nothing less can achieve successful self-defense.  There was, after all, a ceasefire with Hamas that held for quite a while.  In the end, this is a murky question, but the question does not really arise concretely until Hamas offers an indefinite cease-fire.  

As well, it is not at all clear that regime change is an achievable military objective short of a complete reoccupation, a dangerous business both militarily and politically.  If Hamas continues fighting, continues its missile attacks, and does not offer to desist, then it may just come to that in any case.  Tactically and politically, however, it is not what I would do.  Rather, I would find a convenient line along which to cut off the north of Gaza from the south, occupy the north, disarm it, pacify it, and then work hard to restore some decent life and prosperity there.  Then let the Palestinians south of the line and in the West Bank contemplate whether they really prefer to continue their fight or would rather share in the prosperity available with peace, if not friendship.  It would be a lot easier and more credible on that basis for Israel to claim that it is merely acting in its own defense, not seeking to own Gaza.  From a pacified base in the northern end of Gaza, it could, if necessary in the face of continued missile attacks, move the line progressively further south to push Hamas out of missile range.  This too might end up with the complete reoccupation of Gaza

Hmmm ... Roid, that's what Israel tried to do in Lebanon in 1982 - look where it got them.  As well, any additional Palestinian population under Israeli occupation only means more suicide attacks, regardless of any prosperity Israel might bring to the region.

Thanks Roid. In such a context, one understands.

"All this handwringing and the sudden fascination with international law on proportionality exists because of Israel.  At least ndmackenzie is honest about his hatred ..."

I have no hatred of Israel and will ignore such reticences.

And one thing is for sure. Article 51 and the inherent reduction of the traditional "jus belli" to legitimate self-defence is clearly not a devise that exists "because of Israel". It was introduced in light of the experience of the I and II World Wars.

And the idea of proportionality is inherent to the idea of self-defence. Not only of international self-defence.

When Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman said that "war is hell," he was arguing that the Civil War would be brought to a successful end only when the Confederacy's civilian supporters experienced that hell and felt directly "the heavy hand of war."  That is why his army destroyed all civilian infrastructure within reach during its march from Atlanta to Savannah.  History proves that Sherman was correct.  It was the certain knowledge of what continued resistance would bring that led Robert E. Lee to surrender at Appomatox rather than follow the counsel of the hotheads who urged ongoing guerrilla war against the Union.  Similarly, if we look at the history of Germany after both world wars, it is evident that its ultimate abandonment of militarism after 1945 was the result of the country's utter destruction and defeat.  We have every reason to believe that if, say, the "Valkyrie" plot to assassinate Hitler had succeeded and (as is likely) the German forces had thereafter collapsed or sued for peace, another "stab in the back" legend comparable to that of 1918 would have arisen, quite possibly leading to yet another effort to restore German "greatness" by force of arms.

For these reasons the human rights advocates who insist that the necessary use of military force always be "proportionate" and limited are actually making the resort to force more rather than less likely.  War is not some kind of jousting contest with elaborate rules and referees to enforce them; it is, rather, a serious if ugly business, justified only to the extent that the defeated enemy loses its appetite for further fighting.  Plainly, Hamas, and also Hizbollah, will continue to kill Israelis so long as they enjoy the support or acquiescence of the Palenstinian civilians who persist in cheering them on.  They will desist only when that support evaporates ... which willl not happen until they experience directly the destruction and destitution that they wish to see visited upon Israel.

Yes, icarus, which is why a complete reoccupation of Gaza ought to be considered a last resort.  Militarily, there is not a good comparison between Lebanon and Gaza.  In Lebanon, there would could only be a huge population and territory north of the buffer that remained beyond Israel's control, with a border open to a hostile Syria.  Prior to the withdrawal from Gaza, it was less of a problem than the West Bank in terms of control.  Controlling the north end of Gaza free from serious challenge is a lot less difficult than controlling a piece of Lebanon.  However, it should be remembered that Israel did not fully occupy the security zone in southern Lebanon,nor did it cut it off from the rest of Lebanon.  If it had, it might have had a fully pacified buffer zone, but it is not clear how much military significance that would have had.  It is precisely because the buffer zone was not really of great value (more of symbolic value to Sharon to vindicate his war there) that Israel was not willing to invest a lot of resources in securing it.

It is important to be careful with tactical analogies;  one has to be very clear about the salient features.

...But there is something very upseting here. One is clearly outside the boundaries of international self-defense when the objective of the military operation is not to neutralize the military capabilities of the enemy, but to cause the fall of Hamas ("regime change")...

If this is the objective, why is it upsetting to want to cause the fall of Hamas? And why is it outside the boundary of international law in this case?

Me wonders what would have happened had Israel attacked Hamas after 1/20? Obama would probably decry Israel's escalation of violence and asked them to "show restraint. " You get what you wanted Peretz.

My post in response to Hershel Ginsburg disappeared.  I will try to recreate the thought if not the words.

Regarding international norms on violence -- the laws of war -- Adon Ginsburg says:

"sounds great on paper but doesn't work, actually it can't work, in reality."

I don't know what this is supposed to mean.  Are we to understand that internationally accepted (at least rhetorically) norms on violence are of no value, of no consequence, to be ignored at will, to be discouraged?  Should we desire a world, as existed prior to the UN Charter, in which war for whatever reason deemed sufficient to the combatants was considered merely a right of states?  Should we care whether civilians are targeted, captives are tortured, limbs are hacked off?  If there are no such norms, then there are only pragmatic, not principled, objections to Moslem efforts to destroy Israel.  

If for no other reason, international norms regarding war and violence, no matter how imperfectly framed or observed, do matter.  They shape public opinion, both in the world generally and in the places that Israel relies on for its security, particularly the United States, where people are loath to believe the we make war simply for power, money, or whatever interest of ours is at stake (whether that is objectively true or not).  While Israel must be as self-reliant as possible in its own defense, it would be willfully blind to believe that Israel without friends and trading partners would survive for very long.  While there are those who are implacably hostile to Israel and those who mendaciously criticize Israel for doing what they would do or do do when attacked, it should not be thought that as scrupulous an adherence as possible to international norms does not benefit Israel and limit the scope of efforts to render it a pariah.  That matters.  Sophisticated world-weariness about the manifold imperfections of the regime of international law are not helpful.  

How could Obama "decry Israel's escalation of violence", having stated this:

"At the Sderot press conference, Obama said that Israel had every right to defend itself against attacks on its civilians, referring to the Qassam rockets that plagued the southern town and neighboring communities until a recent cease-fire with Gaza's Hamas rulers.

"If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I would do everything in power to stop that, and would expect Israelis to do the same thing," he said."

www.haaretz.com/.../1004747.html

Of course Israel has the right to self defence and the spin that no European country would tolerate having their civilians huddle in bomb shelters is very hard to dispute.

However, what's next?

Gaza is a prison, and a malnourished one at that. What is the end game here? I'm not of the opinion that the bombs won't severly damage Hamas but will bombing the university stop the primitive rocket attacks? Are the February elections not driving some of this?

What next? When the civilian deaths become too much and the bombing stops the rocket attacks for a couple of weeks, months. What happens when they start again?

Israel is laying siege to 1.5 million people, food is scarce, poverty and desperation is high. Is this the right environment for a moderate administration? It's not good enough to claim that Hamas are the ones who always start it. Israel is not above picking off juicy targets from above when it gets these opportunities.

Either Fatah is supported with cash, prisoner releases, easing the blockade, whatever works, and an election is called, which gets rid of Hamas. Or Hamas is allowed a place at the negotiating table. Or Hamas is physically removed from power. At this point, I couldn't care less which one is used, once it works.  

But creating a cesspit of extremist despair in the most densley populated area on earth and periodically bombing it while claiming the moral high ground is not a long term solution. It might give Marty et al a good opportunity to indulge in some macho chest beating  but it's not a long term solution. It might prove useful in the run up to an Israeli election but it's not a long term solution?

Did I mention it's not a long term solution?

Luis: "It was introduced in light of the experience of the I and II World Wars."  If the negotiating history of the Charter accurately represents what the negotiators were seeking, the text of Article 51 codifies and limits the exercise of self-defence in the light of the fact that collective security and Chapter VII action was meant, at the time, to replace self-defence.  The United States and France, for different but obvious reasons, insisted on the inclusion of the clause, because even in those heady days, neither country fully expected the Security Council to work.  The way Article 51 works is that a country that is under attack or that apprehends attack goes to the UN, and when the SC fails to act or cannot act, then the right of self-defence kicks in.  The UNSC has not worked this way, but that is the historical background to Article 51, for what it's worth: a codification and limitation of an existing and broader right.

Roid: fair enough - but then, too deep a buffer and the IDF will find itself in Sinai.

JWL: Me wonders what would happen if you actually had a brain and reflected on saying something, rather than just saying anything for the sake of saying it?  Russia/Georgia is vastly different from Israel/Gaza; if you can't understand the difference, and if you think that the rest of the world is as stupid as you are and therefore will have the same reaction to these different circumstances regardless of context, then I suggest you simply put a cork in it.

Noga: it is pointless to expect any sort of rational response out of JWL - he's a boor and a hater and deserves only contempt and derision.

"...but will bombing the university stop the primitive rocket attacks? " asks the ignorant populist.

It does not sound good when an army attacks a center for academic learning. Perhaps IgPo was not aware that:

"Two laboratories in the university, which served as research and development centers for Hamas's military wing, were targeted. The development of explosives was done under the auspices of university professors.

University buildings were also used for meetings of senior Hamas officials.

The IDF said rockets and explosives were stored in the buildings. "

www.turkishweekly.net/.../iaf-hits-islamic-university-targets.html

Isn't there some provision in international law prohibiting the use of academic institutions as storage facilities for weapons?

Free Marwan Barghouti.

Before anyone starts squealing like a banshee, I basically support this action by Israel, and I trust Barak. The 'proportionate' question seems quite debatable, but  I'm no expert on southern Israeli security, and I doubt anyone else on this thread is either. Also, Olmert and Barak (and Livni?) seem to have different stated goals.

I'm not a psychopath like Peretz though, the death and mayhem sickens me, from where I sit, Peretz seems to take real pleasure in it.

Finally, it's starting to occur to me that Israel kinda plays the territories a bit like the American North played the American South during the first half of the 20th century. It's not a perfect analogy, but we kinda have Palestinian elites (represented by Abbas) selling out the Palestinian population to Israel. It's a bit of divide and conquer.

That's why I think all the peace talks are bullshit, not merely because Abbas doesn't have general credibility (he doesn't) and not because many members of Hamas are terrorist radical thugs (they are), but because there's one legitimate Palestinian leader, one who has a shot at uniting the people and marginalizing the radicals, and he's locked up in prison.

All talks are bullshit until Barghouti is released.

noga1:

That was said in the heat of campaign to show that he wasn't the weak-kneed sissy-mary that he is.  We'll see what he's really made of - I still have my "audacity of hope" but I'm not holding my breath.

As for you, icasaurus or whatever, you actually brought tthe russian/georgian incident to mind when I had no intention of comparing the two incidents.  That's actually quite an apt comparison - two US allies who had vested their interests in the word of the US.  And all Obama could say in one is to beg Russia to "show restraint. " Having no actual policy decisions yet to base my impression on, it doesn't look good for Israel.  Finally, jews in America will get precisely what they voted for.  Unfortunately at the expense of a worthy and deserving ally.

Alas, dgbecker, what you say is true; the only true guarantee of peace is to utterly crush a population's will (and whatever fantasies and illusions fuel it) so that they might see the wisdom of accepting a new reality.   Of course - for better or worse - that is a difficult thing to pull off in this day and age, and more difficult for some than for others.

Luis, quem é Ramon?  Nao conta -- sobre tudo comentando na estaçao 10, p'amor de deus.  Mas importante o que dizem Barak, Olmert, e Livni -- que os ataques israelies vao seguir até hamas terminarem de lançar tiros.

Sorry, you caught me just as I was brushing up, actually.  Certainly, if the global objective were/is the downfall of Hamas, the present action is woefully misguided.  But I don't think any rational Israeli actually believes crushing Hamas is presently achievable (though it remains a long-term objective).

What Israel is doing presently is sending a powerful message that they still maintain a deterrent force, and Hamas needs to watch out for how they tip-toe around the sleeping bear.  This is not a long-term solution, but it will cause Hamas to think twice next time they decide to break a truce and invite further bloodshed.  In this sense (-uniquely- in this sense) the prior war in Lebanon was an Israeli success:  for all its fiery rhetoric, since the war Hezbollah has been very careful to focus on its internal power grab, aware that heating the Israeli front would carry serious repercussions.

To broaden it, Iggy, there is no next, at least not at present.  Hamas will not stop attacking, Israel will not stop retaliating, neither side genuinely sees a horizon for peace.  It's cynical and political and, when hundreds of lives are lost, deeply unsettling -- but in modern times most long-running conflicts (think Cold War) are basically played out in the same way.  The hidden stinker in the room is Iran.  And I'm afraid Obama/Brown/Sarkozy will soon have their hands full playing referee there.

"Article 51 codifies and limits the exercise of self-defence in the light of the fact that collective security and Chapter VII action was meant, at the time, to replace self-defence."

You're right, Icasrur,  in saying that renounciation to "jus belli" had to do with a framework in which collective security and Chapter VII action would be much more important than it actually is.

And I agree that self-defense has a broader scope if and while that framework remains theoretical.

But with less strict boundaries, article 51 still applies. To Israel and to any other country. And it is  wrong to say that article 51 and the inherent demand on proportionality exists because of Israel.

I do think that one should argue within International Law precisely for the reasons given here by Roid. And Roid's arguments offer a very powerful case for Israel.

"Luis, quem é Ramon?  Nao conta -- sobre tudo comentando na estaçao 10, p'amor de deus.  Mas importante o que dizem Barak, Olmert, e Livni -- que os ataques israelies vao seguir até hamas terminarem de lançar tiros."

Muito bem homem! É um prazer falar com pessoas cultas.

Voltando ao assunto, ainda assim, o tal do Ramon é vice-primeiro ministro e, segundo li, disse mesmo isso... Bom, em qualquer caso admito que a coisa tenha sido mal interpretada (ou que o homem se tenha involuntariamente descaído...) e que o que conta é o que dizem o Barak, o Olmert e a Livni.

roid writes:

Well, George, some things are simple and, in those cases, "complexification" merely obscures, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

George responds:

Things that happen around the globe are "simple" depending on how narrowly you define the context. Israel justifies the attack because Hamas has been lobbing rockets over the border. Hamas justifies that because it furthers their approach to Israel over Fatah's. And then all the players up on the stage go farther back in time until you come to the conflicting narratives about the birth of the Israel state. And that goes all the way back to the birth of Christianity, Judaism and Islam thusands of years ago.

You may not lend much credence to these historical fictions, but many others live and die by them. And what becomes most crucial is that "by any means necessary" is invariably the mantra of those who link the the means to a Holy Scripture and to God.

At the same time, I tend to favor the anthropological narrative of Marvin Harris. Harris suggested that once you strip away the cultural superstructure you expose the manner in which moral, political and religious narratives defend a particular economic infrastructure that furthers the material interests of the few over the many. Complexity is very crucial to this story line. The more you can keep hidden the things all people share in common the easier it is to divide and conquer them regarding all the fabrications that are invented to keep them apart.

You speak of "self-defense" and I speak of all the ways children are indoctrinated to internalize a sense of self that can later be manipulated in conscripting them to fight and to die for their God and their religion...for their leaders and their ideologies.

And why should Hamas and the citizens of Gaza believe that Israel will allow them to flourish when 1] they saw how Israel and the Bush administration reacted to the "wrong" Palestinian party being elected deomcratically and 2] they see all the ways in which Israel has put up roadblocks in the West Bank and in Jerusalem to stop Palestinians from creating a viable motherland.

And what some Palestinian militants choose tactically to confront Israel is a measure of just how unsophisticated...how primitive...their own military sources are. The Israelis, unlike the Palestinian extremists, are able to bomb univeristies in Gaza. And while 2 Israeli citizens have died thus far over three hundred are dead in Gaza. Over 50 are reported to be children.

And to suggest that the "convoluted character of the respective moral and political claims" are irrelevant to the immediate conflict seems to imply that in the weeks and months prior to the attacks, Israel and Palestinian rulers were working diligantly to dismantle them.

On the contrary, the illusions and self-delusions about Gods, ethnicity, nationalism and the like are almost never at the head of the line to obviate future conflicts. And when they are these bogus divisions are often merely cemented into place all the more.

george walton

Luis: who said that Article 51 exists only because of Israel?  Please note what I wrote: "All this handwringing and the sudden fascination with international law on proportionality exists because of Israel."  It is the hand-wringing that is specific to Israel; the "international community" could not and would not give a rat's ass about proportionality elsewhere in the world.  As soon as Israel reacts, however, everyone and their uncle becomes an expert on the subject.

What is more, roid had it right on why all the tut-tutting over proportionality gets it precisely wrong.  If Israel hits back at Palestinian civilian targets with the intention of killing as many civilians as Hamas kills, a good case can be made that this is illegal under the Geneva Conventions - regardless of how awful Hamas' attacks are.  If, however, Israel responds to continued provocation and attacks by Hamas by using overwhelming force, as long as that force is *proportionate* to the threat and also to ending the threat, it is perfectly legal.

Sadly, the law on "proportionality" of response, to the extent that one can be found to exist, has become the latest casualty of Palestinian manipulation of Western media, woolly-headed academics and conscientious liberals.

To paraphrase Blair, self-defence means being tough on attacks and on the causes of attacks.  Article 51 codified an existing right pending the functioning of Chapter VII; in the absence of a Chapter VII army, it is up to states to defend themselves, singly or collectively, against external threats.  A response to an actual or imminent attack must be proportionate not only to the force to be deployed, but to the threat of ongoing absence of security.  Israel therefore has the right not only to repel existing attacks, but to do that which is necessary to ensure that they do not continue.  If it means removing Hamas, then so be it.  As roid has said, this is not necessary because Hamas cannot and does not pose an existential threat to Israel, but if it did, of course Israel could counter by getting rid of the threat.

JWL: "Having no actual policy decisions yet to base my impression on, it doesn't look good for Israel."  Not that this sentence makes any sense at all, but to the extent that it does, you are just saying that you have an impression of a situation in the absence of any actual evidence on which you could base am in impression on.  Not that I am expecting any more incisive analysis from you, but I mean if you yourself are recognising that you are talking out of your ass, I mean, seriously, time to fold up the tent and move to Wasilla.

"icasaurus or whatever" ... mon dieu, tu me blèsses! Such cutting wit.

icasaurus - you getting too much sun over there?

Not having any actual policy decisions as evidence does not preclude me from guessing what his actual decisions would have been, from the many quotable quotes from his election campaign and from his overall world-view.  Hell, you assholes elected him based entirely on his words and your "gut feeling" - and I can't criticize him based on his words and my gut feeling?

Just like a dude who threatens to kill but hasn't done it yet is grounds for cops to arrest him.  Gauging from lefty wusses like you who form his base, if he's at all true to his support base I think it's highly predictable what his actions will be.

mmathog writes:

I'm not a psychopath like Peretz though, the death and mayhem sickens me, from where I sit, Peretz seems to take real pleasure in it.

George responds:

This opinion in my view speaks volumes regarding the salivating arm chair apologists on both sides of the conflict. It will almost certainly not be them who are blown to bits. And they will not have watch as their families and loved ones are shredded in the meat grinder of the war machines.

They sit back and wield their abstractions from a safe distance while debating the day to day consequences of this human tragedy as one might debate strategies at a chess tournaments.

The devil here is not in the details. The devil is in the absurd religious and ethnic fairy tales that children are duped into believing...delusions many spend their entire lives kowtowing to.

God and Satan are interchangable when the unspeakably brutal tactics of war are the narratives that flocks of sheep on both sides of the battlefields follow blindly into the killing fields.  

george walton

I am a "lefty" but see the current conflict in basic (some would say simplistic) terms:

1) Civililians will always bear the brunt of retaliatory attacks when rocket launchers are placed deliberately in civilian areas to hide them from retaliation.  This is the objective of Hamas, to provoke Israeli attacks knowing any retaliation will involve innocent bystanders.  This is the standard MO for terrorists and cowards.  They fully understand the P.R. value of these tactics.

2) Hamas, being the duly elected "government" of Gaza, must distract the world from it's failure to provide anything resembling public services by turning the country into a professional victim of Zionism.  This also plays very well in the Islamic world where most of the leaders are self-serving and employ distraction techniques with their own populations on a daily basis.

3) You cannot define rational concepts of proportionality when civilians are being used as cannon fodder.

geroge walton continues his preoccupation with God and Satan:

"God and Satan are interchangable when the unspeakably brutal tactics of war are the narratives that flocks of sheep on both sides of the battlefields follow blindly into the killing fields."

www.youtube.com/watch

"do not f*%# with the Jews" says it all.  Add "enough".  No one else on earth cares, including most American Jews.  

desertdogwrites:

Civililians will always bear the brunt of retaliatory attacks when rocket launchers are placed deliberately in civilian areas to hide them from retaliation. This is the objective of Hamas, to provoke Israeli attacks knowing any retaliation will involve innocent bystanders. This is the standard MO for terrorists and cowards. They fully understand the P.R. value of these tactics.

George responds:

This is the same sort of flagrant dissembling, dissimulation, and rationalization used by the war-mongers in the US to extenuate the tens of thousands of civilian casualties [and the millions of refugees] who "collaterally" got in the way of Bush's bungling and brutal occupation of Iraq. In this way, "civilians" can be reduced to just one more abstraction in the debate. We don't see their suffering, we don't see their utterly shattered lives.

Similiarly, the destruction [antisceptically inflicted by bombs and planes] of universities and other non-military targets in Gaza is defended on the grounds that the Evil Enemy deliberately embeds their military in the midst of civilians. And this is used to further confirm just how demonic and dehumanizing the Evil Enemy has become.

In fact, this is often the tactic taken by local forces [whether in Iraq or the Gaza Strip] who are hopelessly out matched by a military machine hundreds and hundreds of times more powerful than their own. Indeed, I remember military reports in Iraq in which soldiers voiced their scorn regarding these "cowardly" guerillas who hid in mosques or in the homes of civilians. "Why don't they come out and fight like men!" was the refrain. Meanwhile, US soldiers had access to the world's most sophisticed military technologies. The Iraqi fighters had access to none of that. They had no jets or helicopters or body armor or robotic predators. They had to use only what was available to them to balance the martial equation.

We can all agree or disagree with the politics or the eccleiasticsal fairy-tales of both sides, but let's stop the feckless hypocrisy about how much more "saintly" and 'humane" the tactics are on our side of the conflict.

george walton

noga writes:

geroge walton continues his preoccupation with God and Satan:

"God and Satan are interchangable when the unspeakably brutal tactics of war are the narratives that flocks of sheep on both sides of the battlefields follow blindly into the killing fields."

George responds:

When the flocks of sheep stop measuring all that is good by God and all that is evil by Satan, I promise you my preoccupation will dwindle in turn.

But what has always fascinated [me as the height of banality] is the manner in which those who believe in both never really think through the relationship.

Satan could only have been created by God and God, in being omnipotent, could smite him without breaking a sweat. Indeed, Satan is an instrumental element in God's alleged path to salvation.

And yet if God is also omniscient there can be no act of Satan that is not also inherently a manifestation of God.  

Calvinists, for example, simply come right out and preach this. It matters not what mere mortals think, speak or do. It matters not what Satan thinks, speaks and does. It is all preordained. It is always the best of all possible worlds because it is the only possible world.

george walton

The problem the Israelis face is that they are a deeply humanistic people trying to deal with a people most of whose members have little regard for human life, not even their own and that of their children.

People who send their own children out to commit murder-suicide are sick beyond sick.   They deserve contempt and pity, and little else.

But anybody who hates Americans and Jews is OK with george walton, who was born with a swastika where most people have a heart.

Bulbman1066 writes:

The problem the Israelis face is that they are a deeply humanistic people trying to deal with a people most of whose members have little regard for human life, not even their own and that of their children.

People who send their own children out to commit murder-suicide are sick beyond sick. They deserve contempt and pity, and little else.

But anybody who hates Americans and Jews is OK with george walton, who was born with a swastika where most people have a heart.

George responds:

I have no doubt that a majority of Jews are no more or no less humane then a majority of Palestinians. But to speak of either one as though in being a Jew or a Palestinian was interchangable with evil or depravity....or to suggest that being a suicide bomber is "natural" for Palestinians, is to reflect the most spurious and specious prejudices.

My view is that violence flows [on all sides in the world's trouble spots]  from ignorance that is manipulated by racial, ethnic, religious, or political fanatics who poison each new generation with supernatural hogwash and insist that the world can only be understood righteously as We versus all that is Other.

In fact, one of the most remarkable aspects of the American melting pot is the way in which these mindless conflicts are fewer and farther between. Communities of Jews and Muslims in America go about the business of holding down jobs, raising families, participating in social and political activities etc. without feeling compelled to blow themselves up in the name of God. Indeed, if it ever comes to that here you can be all but certain that extremists will have managed to leverage a national calamity into a political platform to feed on the vicious cycle of hate and violence.

Anyone who has read my posts in TNR knows I am not as you describe me. My target is always the inane, fatuous, autocratic and brutally authoritarian personality of the True Believer. My own political perspective revolves around moderation, negociation and compromise. But that can only happen in a democratic environment; and democracy is the enemy of all secular and religious dogmas.

george walton

JWL: "Hell, you assholes elected him" ... I gather you are addressing yourself to 53% of the American electorate, some 65 million "assholes" in the US, right?  Your respect for your fellow citizens is stunning. (I'm not American and did not vote for Obama, so I definitely do not fit the description.)

"Gauging from lefty wusses like you who form his base, if he's at all true to his support base I think it's highly predictable what his actions will be."

Spoken like a true idiot.  

Whether or not I'm a wuss (and constantly screeching "bomb the fuckers" as you do does not make one a manly man, just a boorish loudmouth who has not the balls to join up and fight the war himself), I have no idea where you get the idea that I am "lefty", to be able to "gauge" anything from that.  Not to mention, of course, that the conditional "if" is itself highly contingent, and that "his support base" - the same 65 million - is incredibly diverse and not susceptible to easy characterisation.  In other words, you are criticising him for something he has not done (and may never do) on the basis of a supposition resting on a suspect assumption derived through faulty analysis.

I have to wonder if you wake up every morning thinking to yourself, "ah, today is a good day to holler my ignorance and stupidity to the universe from the highest rooftop."  Because, you know, if you do, you do a remarkable - admirable, even - job of achieving your objective.

When Obama becomes president he will have a chance to solve the Arab-Israeli situation.  The first thing he should do is to present the Iranians with an ultimatum.  Stop your support for Hamas and Hizbollah and stop your nuclear program or we will invade Iran, arrest the leadership and let the new Iranian government put them on trial, condemn them and take them unto a place of execution and hang them by the neck until they are dead.

The governments of the Arab countries would protest loudly in public.  In private they would give us a big wink.  Not only that, but this program would enjoy widespread support in Iran.

Good God, Bulbman - pass me whatever it is you're snorting.  I've not laughed this hard since - well, ever.

Just a piece of advice: the value of a threat resides in its capacity for realization.  "we will invade Iran" ... with what army, exactly?  "arrest the leadership" ... because Osama bin Laden has been arrested and tried and hanged already? "enjoy widespread support in Iran" ... just like Americans were welcomed as liberators in Iraq ...

History is tragedy, repeats itself as farce, and returns as a hallucination in Bulbman's writings ...

Bulbman writes:

When Obama becomes president he will have a chance to solve the Arab-Israeli situation. The first thing he should do is to present the Iranians with an ultimatum. Stop your support for Hamas and Hizbollah and stop your nuclear program or we will invade Iran, arrest the leadership and let the new Iranian government put them on trial, condemn them and take them unto a place of execution and hang them by the neck until they are dead.

The governments of the Arab countries would protest loudly in public. In private they would give us a big wink. Not only that, but this program would enjoy widespread support in Iran.

George responds:

A friendly suggestion if you don't mind....

Every once in a while you should actually read what you write.

Then read it out loud to the first 5 to 10 people you pass at random on the street.

Sooner or later it will begin to dawn on you that you should desist from writting anything ever again.

If, however, that doesn't work you might consider becoming a mercenary and invading Iran yourself. You can send us the occasional dispatch from the front line.

Now, I am assuming that, given the bellicose, pugnacious inflection that is marbled compulsively throughout your prose, you must have spent many, many years dodging bullets and bombs around the world.

So, instead of writing sporadically in TNR blogs [which, let's be honest, few in the world read] you can collect your thoughts and publish book after book after book. I'm thinking that, at the very least, you're the new  Ernest Hemingway.

Then your posts in here will be worth millions!  

george walton

George, you and I live in different moral universes.  I believe in America and all it stands for.   Words like "honor", "liberty", "decency", and "country" really mean something to me.   To you they mean absolutely nothing, except maybe some fraudulent leftoid garbage.  Fortunately there are more Americans who believe as I do than there are who believe as you do.  Otherwise Hitler and/or Stalin would have won, and George Walton would be making a lot of money as a police spy for a totalitarian regime.

Bulbman1066 writes:

George, you and I live in different moral universes. I believe in America and all it stands for. Words like "honor", "liberty", "decency", and "country" really mean something to me. To you they mean absolutely nothing, except maybe some fraudulent leftoid garbage. Fortunately there are more Americans who believe as I do than there are who believe as you do. Otherwise Hitler and/or Stalin would have won, and George Walton would be making a lot of money as a police spy for a totalitarian regime.

George responds:

What defines a totalitarian state better than frenzied citizens who swear alleigance to it because they believe it embodies what HONOR and LIBERTY and DECENCY and COUNTRY mean.

Do you actually believe the flocks of sheep who followed dictators like Hitler and Stalin didn't swear by those words too?

george walton

icasurl,

Your hero Saddam Hussein is dead, hanged by his own people.   Iraq is free.  Get over it you terrorist- loving  America-hating little eunuch.

The Hitlers the Stalins and their followers like George Waltons repeat the good words and mean the opposite.    George Orwell pointed that out long ago.

.