Israel Must Reject Calls for ‘Proportionality’

Jon Gabriel, Ed. (View Post):

What are the proponents of proportionality even asking for? Would they praise Israel for breaking into Gaza without warning, taking civilian hostages, beheading babies, and livestreaming it all for laughs and celebrity approval? Would they have praised the UK for the industrial murder of 6 million random Germans? Of course not.

Point of order - the 6 million killed by the Germans weren't random.

You already beat me to the larger issue though - presumably "proportionality" would be for the Israelis to go in, rape some women and kill a bunch of random civilians, including babies.

The people crying for "proportionality" don't really want proportionality, they want Israel to surrender.

Fortunately, Israel is going disproportionality medieval on their asses.

Given what happened I'd vote "salt the earth" as a proportional response.

I started writing a brief history of how Israel is continually accused of atrocities in their self-defense efforts against constant attacks from Hamas, Hezbollah, and assorted other Muslim aggressors. The further I got into that, the more I realize that everyone on this site certainly knows that history and total hypocrisy of those who call upon Israel, and no other nation to exercise "proportionality." What happened last Saturday is the direct consequence of Israel doing exactly that. It is the time for total and complete annihilation of Hamas and Hezbollah if it chooses to get involved. That is the only proportional response when someone is attempting to kill you and your family.

As a concealed carry permit holder I have been through a great deal of training about what constitutes a justification for the use of deadly force. It isn't hard to extrapolate that concept out to a situation in which your country, your family members, and all you hold dear are in imminent danger. Such a time exists and Israel has every right to take whatever actions it needs to to insure that that peril is totally eliminated. Proportionality be damned! When has any other nation been called when attacked to limit their response? I would conjecture, never.

Jon Gabriel, Ed. (View Post):

Asking for tit-for-tat responses guarantees a forever war.

Assuming there can be no negotiated peace, indeed.

Wrt disproportionality, just from wiki, but:

The Dahiya doctrine, or Dahya doctrine,[1] is a military strategy of asymmetric warfare, outlined by former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of General Staff Gadi Eizenkot, which encompasses the destruction of the civilian infrastructure of regimes deemed to be hostile as a measure calculated to deny combatants the use of that infrastructure[2] and endorses the employment of "disproportionate force" to secure that end.[3][4]

The doctrine is named after the Dahieh neighborhood of Beirut, where Hezbollah was headquartered during the 2006 Lebanon War, which were heavily damaged by the IDF.

IMO the only meaningful constraint on how disproportionate is public opinion in the West. It's a balance, and hence the propaganda war.

So, our Editor in Chief goes beyond advocating that Israel ignore the Geneva Convention. He is even critical of those who advocate that Israel follow such international law.

The specific provisions involved are part of "Protocol I" (or "Additional Protocol I"), a 1977 amendment to the Geneva Convention. According to Wikipedia, it has been ratified by 174 states, though I haven't counted them myself. Here is the webpage of the International Committee of the Red Cross listing the parties to Protocol I, if anyone wants to check the count.

The United States signed Protocol I, but did not ratify it. Israel has neither signed, ratified, nor acceded to Protocol I. Other notable nations that have not done so are Iran, Pakistan, India, and Turkey.

Article 51 of Protocol I addresses this point. Section 4 prohibits indiscriminate attacks, in no uncertain terms. ("Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited.") Section 5 provides that:

Among others, the following types of attacks are considered to be indiscriminate:

. . .

(b) An attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.

Article 57 of Protocol I also addresses this point. Section 2 requires the following precautions to be taken:

(a) those who plan or decide upon an attack shall:

. . .

(iii) refrain from deciding to launch any attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated;

I have added the emphasis in these two quotes, as it is these terminology about attacks being "excessive" which is commonly expressed in the language of "proportionality."

I'm rather a skeptic of the effectiveness of international law myself, but these are the established rules. They were established after WWII, in an attempt to prevent the type of frightfulness that occurred in that conflict.

The vast majority of the world has agreed to them, though not the US or Israel (or Iran and a few others).

It is quite ironic to see calls for disregarding the laws of civilized warfare, such as they are, in the name of opposing barbarism.