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The Israeli Way of War

Two years ago I interviewed Yaacov Lozowick, then-chief archivist at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, and he characterized Israel’s 2006 war in Lebanon as stupid and indefensible. I agreed with him at the time, and I still do, as least about that war being stupid. (I do not believe Israel has no right to hit back at Hezbollah.)

Despite Lozowick’s criticism of the 2006 war, he is hardly a pacifist or an Israel-hater. He’s the author, after all, of Right to Exist: A Moral Defense of Israel's Wars.

If you’re following the current war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, you might want to bookmark his site where you can read short sharp analysis like the following:

In the week of air-attacks, the IDF proved it had excellent intelligence, and in many cases targets hit from the air kept on exploding for a number of minutes after they were hit, as the ordinance stored there exploded. More significant, the IDF has figured out how to separate the civilians from the weapons: call the neighbors and give them ten minutes warning. The numbers prove how efficient this has been: prior to the ground invasion, more than 600 targets had been destroyed, fewer than 500 Palestinians killed, and fewer than 100 of those were civilians even by Palestinian and UN reckoning. Of course, there remain the pictures of civilians surrounded by devastation, but they're alive, and it wasn't Israel that stacked bombs in their cellars. [Emphasis added.]

Think about those numbers. Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on the face of the earth. If Israeli Air Force pilots were trying to kill civilians -- if they were the war criminals they're accused of being all over the world -- they'd kill a lot more than 0.8 people per air strike.

Gaza and the Law of Armed Conflict

While much of the world engages in hand-wringing, placard-waving, teeth-gnashing, and rocket-launching over Israel’s “disproportionate” response to Hamas attacks from Gaza, it’s worth looking at what the doctrines of “proportionality” actually say.

Making the rounds is a two-year old quote from Lionel Beehner’s paper for the Council on Foreign Relations in which he summarizes the principle of proportionality as laid out by the 1907 Hague Conventions. “According to the doctrine, a state is legally allowed to unilaterally defend itself and right a wrong provided the response is proportional to the injury suffered. The response must also be immediate and necessary, refrain from targeting civilians, and require only enough force to reinstate the status quo ante.”

The precise wording of the doctrine can be found in Article 51, not Article 49 as Beehner writes, of the Draft Articles of the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts. “Countermeasures must be commensurate with the injury suffered, taking into account the gravity of the internationally wrongful act and the rights in question.”

This is vague and open to interpretation, as Beehner admits. And it’s further complicated by the fact that the doctrine was laid out at a time when war was fought between sovereign states with standing armies rather than asymmetrically between a sovereign state and a terrorist gang.

Proportion, as defined by Beehner and the Hague Conventions, is impossible between Israel and Hamas. The Israel Defense Forces are more professional, competent and technologically advanced than Hamas and will inflict greater damage as a matter of course. And Hamas’s war aim is entirely out of proportion to Israel’s. Israel wants to halt the incoming rocket fire, while Hamas seeks the destruction or evacuation of Israel.

Beehner’s proportionality doctrine is therefore unhelpful. Each side’s ends and means are disproportionate to the other. And nowhere in that doctrine are casualty figures or the intent of the warring parties factored in.

In any case, no war has ever been fought tit for tat, and the Hague Conventions doesn’t say any war should be. The American response to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor went well beyond sinking an equal number of ships in a Japanese harbor, for instance. And European Jews certainly were not entitled to execute six million German civilians after the Holocaust.

The proportionality doctrine spelled out here is really only useful up to a point. “It’s always a subjective test,” Beehner correctly quotes Vanderbilt University Professor Michael Newton as saying. “But if someone punches you in the nose, you don’t burn their house down.” That much most of us can agree on. Israel should not – and will not – implement a Dresden-style fire-bombing of Gaza City in response to Qassam and Grad rocket attacks.

So aside from the obvious, we’re wading into murky territory that could be debated forever. Another doctrine of proportionality, though, clearly applies to this war, and it’s found in the Law of Armed Conflict.

The Law of Armed Conflict “arises from a desire among civilized nations to prevent unnecessary suffering and destruction while not impeding the effective waging of war. A part of public international law, LOAC regulates the conduct of armed hostilities. It also aims to protect civilians, prisoners of war, the wounded, sick, and shipwrecked.”

Proportionality, in short and according to the law, “prohibits the use of any kind or degree of force that exceeds that needed to accomplish the military objective.”

In other words, if a surgical strike is all that is needed to take out a Grad rocket launcher, carpet bombing the entire city or even the neighborhood isn’t allowed.

Hamas is still firing rockets; therefore, the IDF is not using more force than necessary to disrupt the firing of rockets. Israel, arguably, is using less force than necessary. And the IDF, unlike Hamas, does what it can to minimize injury to civilians. “Militants often operate against Israel from civilian areas,” the Associated Press reported last week. “Late Saturday, thousands of Gazans received Arabic-language cell-phone messages from the Israeli military, urging them to leave homes where militants might have stashed weapons.” Israeli commanders are even warning individual Hamas leaders that their homes are on the target list so they can vacate the premises in advance.

Read the rest in Commentary Magazine.

What Would a Proportionate Response Look Like?

“If someone was sending rockets on my house where my daughters were sleeping at night, I would do everything to stop it, and I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.” – President-elect Barack Obama

Now that Hamas’s long war against Israel is matched with a short war in Gaza, protests are erupting everywhere from the blogosphere and Arab capitals to the United Nations, and they began on the very first day. Salon.com "blogger Glenn Greenwald calls the Israeli retaliation to more than a year of rocket attacks a “massively disproportionate response.” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay “strongly condemned Israel’s disproportionate use of force.” The Israeli counterattack is, indeed, disproportionate, but it could hardly be otherwise. “At last count,” J.G. Thayer wrote, “one Israeli and two Palestinians (sisters, ages 13 and 5) died from rocket attacks. So a proportionate response, one presumes, would have required Israel to kill a single Palestinian and two of its own citizens.”

There were, I suppose, other “proportionate” responses available aside from killing one Palestinian and two Israelis. The Israel Defense Forces might have launched thousands of air strikes against targets in Gaza to match the thousands of Qassam rockets fired at the cities of Sderot and Ashkelon. It’s unlikely, however, that this is what Israel’s critics have in mind.

So what do they have in mind? What would a legitimate and “proportionate” response actually look like? Surely they don’t believe Israel should scrap its sophisticated weapons systems, build Qassam rockets, and launch those at Gaza instead.

The “disproportionate response” crowd doesn’t seem to mind that Israel struck back at Hamas per se. They aren’t saying Israel should only be allowed to negotiate with its enemies or that any use of force whatsoever is wrong. They’re clearly saying Israel should use less force, inflict less damage, or both.

One problem here is that it’s not at all clear how they think Israelis should go about doing it. The weapons used by each side can’t be the same. No one has ever said Israel ought to put its superior weapons systems in cold storage until Hamas can develop or purchase something similar. Presumably Israel is allowed to use its superior technology as long as the casualty count on each side is proportionate.

But how would that work in practice? A single Israeli air strike is going to kill at least as many people as Hamas can kill in twelve months. Does that mean Israel should be given a “license” of one air strike per year to use in the war? If IDF commanders want to take out a target where they expect five Hamas leaders or fighters to be killed, do they have to wait until five Israelis are killed first? If the Israelis endure rocket fire until one civilian is killed, do they get a “kill one Palestinian terrorist” coupon?

Read the rest in Commentary Magazine.

Home Again, At Last

by Michael J. Totten

I just returned home after spending three weeks in Iraq, two weeks in Lebanon, and one week in transit hell on my way home thanks to a labor strike at the airport in Rome. The behavior of the staff at Italy's Alitalia airline -- management and worker alike -- shocked and appalled me. At this point I would rather go back to Iraq than to Italy, and I am not joking. I'm going to write about what happened, partly to blow off some steam, and also to warn you to stay the hell away from that airline at all costs. Alitalia delenda est.

Thanks to Charles Chuman for helping me out on the blog while I was away. Now that I'm back and can write full time, we'll go back to the regular publishing schedule. Stay tuned for dispatches and analysis from Iraq, Lebanon, and...Italy.

Suicide Bomber Targets Iraqi Gaza Protest

by Charles Chuman

The attack on Sunnis protesting the conflict in Gaza can only be understood through Iraqi sectarian violence. If that is not the explanation, I have no idea what to make of this.

Inside Israel's Gaza Attack

by Charles Chuman

If there was ever any doubt, the Israeli plan to attack Gaza was formulated long ago. As I noted in the previous post, the Israelis had a long list of targets gathered through months of intelligence gathering.

Ha'aretz explains some key components leading up to the attacks.

One striking fact now revealed is that Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni flew to Cairo to personally inform the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak about Israel's plans.

Hamas was ready for an Israeli attack after the Israeli cabinet meeting, but a strategic Israeli disinformation campaign lured Hamas into a vulnerable position: ""Hamas evacuated all its headquarter personnel after the cabinet meeting on Wednesday," one defense official said, "but the organization sent its people back in when they heard that everything was put on hold until Sunday."

The article claims:

Long-term preparation, careful gathering of information, secret discussions, operational deception and the misleading of the public - all these stood behind the Israel Defense Forces "Cast Lead" operation against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, which began Saturday morning.

The disinformation effort, according to defense officials, took Hamas by surprise and served to significantly increase the number of its casualties in the strike.

Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas. According to the sources, Barak maintained that although the lull would allow Hamas to prepare for a showdown with Israel, the Israeli army needed time to prepare, as well.

Barak gave orders to carry out a comprehensive intelligence-gathering drive which sought to map out Hamas' security infrastructure, along with that of other militant organizations operating in the Strip.

Why Gaza? Why Now?

By Charles Chuman

The Israeli attacks on Gaza took the world by surprise. Why? Why now? And is it surprising?

A common response about the reason for the current military action is that “the Israelis are tired of daily qassam attacks against Sderot and Ashkelon and require their government do something.”

This simplistic explanation answers the “why?” but not “why now?” When confronted with the further evidence that Israel has sustained barrages of up to 60 qassams a day for years, this explanation makes Israel’s attacks (or counter-attacks) seem even more surprising and disproportionate. It leaves observers confused.

Why did Israel suddenly launch this attack? Why so massive? Why doesn’t Israel target the individual qassam launchers, or mount smaller, more frequent operations? There is no pattern. That might be the point, but it partially explains the shocked reactions.

It’s All About Politics

Others, like Katya Adler of the BBC, believe that the Israelis mounted the attack for political reasons. According to this thesis, the Israelis chose to act now because:

1. Israel holds elections in 2009. The winner of these elections will confront a number of existential questions about Israel’s existence: from the debate over Jewish communities in the West Bank, to the creation of a Palestinian state, to negotiations with the Syrians and the Arab League.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of Kadima and Defense Minister Ehud Barak of Labor see that Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud is significantly ahead in preliminary polls. However, many Israelis are still skeptical of Netanyahu and are concerned that Likud’s Knesset list is too far to right (see Moshe Feiglin).

The attacks on Gaza prove to the Israeli people that Kadima and Labor - the parties that failed to win the 2006 war - can still defend their country. Israelis do not need to compromise their social and existential beliefs in the name of defense.

2. US President George Bush has given Israel a free hand. President-elect Barack Obama is an unknown quantity, and it is widely assumed that he will be more critical of Israel. If Israel wants to launch a large-scale attack, the assumption is that it is best to do it now under Bush than to wait until Obama enters the White House.

The political explanation was my knee-jerk reaction; however, this explanation is also simplistic.

Military Action

The IDF released pre-attack aerial images of many of the destroyed sites. I have yet to see independent confirmation that these specific sites are actually what the IDF alleges, and that these were the sites destroyed. Regardless, the images show myriad alleged training camps, arms caches and military installations.

This list of targets most likely existed for a long time.

On December 20, 2008 Hamas ended the six month Egypt-brokered truce with Israel claiming that the Israeli blockade of Gaza broke the agreement. The Israelis allegedly wanted to extend the truce, and justified the blockade because of the ongoing qassam attacks that Hamas did not or could not stop.

When the cease-fire ended, the Israelis promised violence would result for obvious reasons: Hamas was re-declaring war. Hamas manifested little interest in negotiations and has shown no interest in returning Gilad Shalit, the IDF soldier Hamas holds hostage since his capture in 2006.

As in 1967, the Israelis chose to act first before Hamas had a chance to launch an attack or kidnap another soldier.

Unlike 1967, Gaza is blockaded, semi-contained, and Hamas does not pose an immediate existential threat to Israel, as Egypt and Syria did. The attacks alienate Palestinian populations in the West Bank, provoked the ire of the Arab League, and have incensed international observers.

The death of 300 people and the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people is tragic. However, I am at a loss to see what other options are available to the Israeli political and defense establishments and to the Israeli voters in Sderot and Ashkelon.

Before these attacks, Gaza was a human rights disaster. Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and attacks immediately began. The February 2007 Saudi-sponsored Mecca Agreement to bring Hamas and Fatah together after the Palestinian elections failed miserably when Hamas militarily took control of Gaza and forced Fatah out. Kidnapping skyrocketed. Churches were ransacked. Rocket attacks on Israel increased. The blockade was ineffective, and Hamas called off the ceasefire.

Israel’s response is destructive and asymmetric. That is the point. Israel is proving to Hamas that it is willing and able to mount a war, regardless of Arab and international opinion, if that is what Hamas desires. Hamas and Hezbollah taught Israelis that unilateral withdrawal from territory only prolongs the violence. If Israel’s enemies are willing to use violence, Israel has no qualms about using violence. If, like Syria, Israel’s enemies remain non-belligerent, those enemies can exist in perpetuity. In fact, Israel might even help its enemies achieve their goals, as it has done with the Syrian regime.

A critical re-think of the situation is imperative to end this cycle of violence. The state of Israel is predicated on survival, and it has powerful allies to assist it. The Palestinians need and deserve a state, but rejection of the state of Israel is not how that state and a future peace will occur.

International demonstrations on behalf of Palestinians or Israelis supporting human rights and rejecting violence are commendable as manifestations of humanitarian concern and expressions of free speech. However, ideologies and facts on the ground must change before a solution is found.

Political decisions undoubtedly played a part in the current attacks on Gaza, but this is part of an on-going war and cannot be viewed as a solitary act.