Daniel, if Nasrallah is so important to kill, then Israel should wait for him to leave crowded areas, or better yet, send in special ops for him. But if you seriously think that killing (or risking killing) 500 civilians to get to one legitimate target is not “…excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated,” then i really don’t have anything else to say to you.

Nasrallah isn’t surrounded by civilians by accident. All the terrorist targets are strategically surrounded by civilians because terrorists seek to maximize civilian losses on both sides. When they kill civilians with their bombings, they claim they’ve struck a blow for the oppressed, and when retaliatory strikes against their offices and personnel have civilian casualties, they can gnash their teeth and bellow about the atrocities, as can all the parties who are hostile to Israel or the United States.

Photos of dead Arab children on blogs and satellite television are a far more precious currency for the terrorists than news of dead Israelis, and youu have to recognize that the acts of terrorists are done to maximize harm to civilians on both sides. You and I see eye to eye on the tragedy of these losses, but we disagree on who should properly be blamed.

Well done. Very well done indeed.

PhilosophyBy David – July 19, 2006 6:43 pm

Patriotism as Gratitude

[...]

But if you seriously think that killing (or risking killing) 500 civilians to get to one legitimate target is not “…excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated,” then i really don’t have anything else to say to you.

How many civilian deaths resulting from killing Nasrallah would you find acceptable?

How many civilian deaths resulting from killing Bin Laden would you find acceptable?

How many civilian deaths resulting from killing Hitler would you have found acceptable?

Sigmund et al.: You know, when I criticize Israel, it’s sure as hell not anti-Semitism, and many other Jews do the same without being anti-Semites. We criticize a state and a government’s actions. We don’t criticize a religion or an ethnic group, and if Israel, with its given history and situation and actions, belonged to Lakota or Xiong-nu, I’d call them out on the same sins.
I don’t flash my Hebrew-Card often, but this is an occasion for it.
I do level criticism, and loudly, at China, Russia, Saudi Arabia. But you know what? I damn well hold Israel to a higher standard, the same way that I hold post-Apartheid South Africa to a higher standard. Not ethnically: based on history and the individuals and families involved.
I hold it to the higher moral standard of being full of people who know exactly how it feels to be hurt, oppressed, crushed, ground down, and murdered, and ought to know better. I hold it to the standard of being full of people who were once ejected from their homes, who wandered without a safe homeland, who were refused and shot at and told good-luck-but-no-thanks. I hold it to the standard of people who understand pain as well as a people can and ought to think more than twice before handing more of it out like candy.
I do expect our Arab brethren to be equal moral partners. I do expect them to behave as civilized people. Most of the Arabs I know are, after all. It’s not a contempt for them, or an infantilization, and you insist on imagining it. But I also expect Palestineans to behave as a people who’re hurting right now. And I expect a people who’ve known little but suffering in their long history to be, yes, better behaved. On both sides.
Someday, I can only hope.

Yes civilian losses in war do happen, but you know what helps stop them from happening? Not falling back on brute force as the first option. When you were 10 and some neighborhood kid stole your ice cream was your first reaction to beat the shit out of him? I know mine wasn’t- i preferred to ask for it back and maybe try to negotiate a little first. I wasn’t about to just attack the kid. I think Israel’s response was clearly disproprtionate- and contrary to the democratic ideals that we would hope they display.

Negotiate a little first?

There has been a great deal of negotiation. However, Hamas and Hezbollah will not take the necessary step of acknowledging Israel’s legitimacy, and while Israelis would negotiate with Palestinian leaders like Mahmoud Abbas and negotiators like Saeb Ereket, or with the Lebanese government, these leaders clearly lack the ability to deal with the militants. These attacks also occured in the wake of Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and during a planning of a withdrawal from most of the West Bank.

There have been a number of articles written about Lebanon’s inability to disarm Hezbollah and Israel’s history of negotiations with Palestine. This is not an immediately arising issue. What it is is a provocation to war by terrorist groups backed by Iran and Syria.

Number of Israeli dead since last week: 24, including 12 soldiers.

Number of Lebanese dead since last week: over 200, almost all of them civilians. (source)

I think that pretty much fits the definition of “disproportionate.”

Proportionality has nothing to do with counting bodies. Proportionality is a balancing of civilian losses against the value of a military target consistent with the Geneva Protocol of 1977.

The killing of a civilian on one side does not justify the killing of civilians by the other, and though war crimes by one side may justify reprisals that would otherwise be illegal, those reprisals may never be targetted at civilians. The calculation you use to define proportionality would be a war crime if it were used to instruct military policy.

It is reasonably anticipated that, where one side is weaker and is conducting an illegal war, and the other side is much more powerful and acts within the law, the law-abiding side will kill more civilians, and yet its actions will be proportionate and the terrorists’ actions will be disproportionate.

Every one of those rockets launched at Haifa is a war crime. The fact that Israel’s proportionate strikes against infrastructure with properties that makes it legitimate for military targets has caused civilian loss is not disproportionate if the need to destroy those targets is legitimate. Similarly, firing non-targeted rockets at civilian areas is an intentional attack on civilians with no justified military purpose, and is a war crime whether the rocket kills anyone or not.

For example it would be consistent with that protocol to bomb an apartment complex containing Hassan Nasrallah and 500 innocent civilians, and it would be inconsistent to lob a single unguided missile in the direction of Haifa for purposes of intimidating or killing civilians. All terrorist acts are inconsistent with the Geneva Protocols and all of Israel’s actions are against legitimate military objectives.

The proper definition of “disproportionate” is bolded.

Art. 52. General Protection of civilian objects

1. Civilian objects shall not be the object of attack or of reprisals. Civilian objects are all objects which are not military objectives as defined in paragraph 2.

2. Attacks shall be limited strictly to military objectives. In so far as objects are concerned, military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.

…

Chapter IV. Precautionary measures

Art. 57. Precautions in attack

1. In the conduct of military operations, constant care shall be taken to spare the civilian population, civilians and civilian objects.

2. With respect to attacks, the following precautions shall be taken: (a) those who plan or decide upon an attack shall: (i) do everything feasible to verify that the objectives to be attacked are neither civilians nor civilian objects and are not subject to special protection but are military objectives within the meaning of paragraph 2 of Article 52 and that it is not prohibited by the provisions of this Protocol to attack them; (ii) take all feasible precautions in the choice of means and methods of attack with a view to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss or civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects; (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;

(b) an attack shall be cancelled or suspended if it becomes apparent that the objective is not a military one or is subject to special protection or that the attack 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;

(c) effective advance warning shall be given of attacks which may affect the civilian population, unless circumstances do not permit.

3. When a choice is possible between several military objectives for obtaining a similar military advantage, the objective to be selected shall be that the attack on which may be expected to cause the least danger to civilian lives and to civilian objects.

4. In the conduct of military operations at sea or in the air, each Party to the conflict shall, in conformity with its rights and duties under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, take all reasonable precautions to avoid losses of civilian lives and damage to civilian objects.

5. No provision of this article may be construed as authorizing any attacks against the civilian population, civilians or civilian objects.

Art. 58. Precautions against the effects of attacks

The Parties to the conflict shall, to the maximum extent feasible:

(a) without prejudice to Article 49 of the Fourth Convention, endeavour to remove the civilian population, individual civilians and civilian objects under their control from the vicinity of military objectives; (b) avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas; (c) take the other necessary precautions to protect the civilian population, individual civilians and civilian objects under their control against the dangers resulting from military operations.

As I explained above, the civilian cost of strikes against Hamas and Hezbollah is by their design and necessitated by their insistence maintaining their military assets in areas densely populated by civilians. That is also a war crime.

The civilian losses on both sides are tragic, and the civilian losses on both sides are the fault of the terrorists.