Sorry you can't bomb them, you need to balance your equation first
The insistence that Israel's response to Hezbollah must be proportional is somewhat hilarious. If in all wars we insisted that each side's response be mathetically and precisely proportional then every war in history would be a stalemate - no one would ever be allowed to win. Asymmetric response is certainly not foreign to Islamists in the Middle East. Take this conversation for example:
Dane: "I'm going to draw cartoons about your religion."
Islamist: "I'm going to kill you and your entire family and any Jews you might have in your phone book."
To be sure, that Dane was an idiot. But death for cartoons, really?
Contrary to popular wishes, I am not Jewish, but I can speculate. At some point, when you've been messed with for thousands of years no matter where you decide to live, you’re going to get pissed. After all of those years Jews finally have the stronger hand and the strong Allies (namely, the U.S.). Taken out of historical and religious context Israel’s response would be inappropriate, but reality persists. To paraphrase a recent Elie Wiesel interview, the Jews are making certain that they are never again in a position to be forced into boxcars.
The U.S. and Israel do more to avert civilian casualties and to adhere to jus ad bellum than any other country, especially one that has been attacked, in human history.
How would you respond?
Dane: "I'm going to draw cartoons about your religion."
Islamist: "I'm going to kill you and your entire family and any Jews you might have in your phone book."
To be sure, that Dane was an idiot. But death for cartoons, really?
Contrary to popular wishes, I am not Jewish, but I can speculate. At some point, when you've been messed with for thousands of years no matter where you decide to live, you’re going to get pissed. After all of those years Jews finally have the stronger hand and the strong Allies (namely, the U.S.). Taken out of historical and religious context Israel’s response would be inappropriate, but reality persists. To paraphrase a recent Elie Wiesel interview, the Jews are making certain that they are never again in a position to be forced into boxcars.
The U.S. and Israel do more to avert civilian casualties and to adhere to jus ad bellum than any other country, especially one that has been attacked, in human history.
How would you respond?
posted by Billy Joe Mills at 11:54 AM
3 Comments:
In plainest terms:
The disproportionate response isn't a bad idea because it's a mean thing of Israel to do. The disproportionate response is a terrible idea because it isn't going to help Israel win the conflict.
I understand very well that anti-Semitism is still a powerful reality in the world (and particularly in the middle east). However, the incredible tension in the region is precisely the reason Israel cannot expect a sustained bombing campaign to attain their intended goals.
There are dozens of reasons why Israel's campaign cannot work. Primarily, the realities of Fourth Generation warfare are things that traditional armed forces (such as the IDF or, for that matter, our own American armed forces) cannot treat in the same way as most of history's wars. Guerrilla warfare is commonly considered to be the most important aspect, but also lends to one of the most important aspects: the modern information age.
With modern technological advances, the effects of bombings are much more visible than in previous decades. Within hours of a bombing, we may see the very human costs with an intimacy that was never seen in World War II (or even in Vietnam). I understand fully that the US and Israel are much better equipped for precision bombing than nearly any other nation in the world. However, the standards for precision bombing are raised significantly when civilian deaths are so much more visible. Now, we've both heard criticism of media outlets who publish photos and images of the chaos - and I would argue that the publication of these images does indeed diminish support of the war - but calls to remove them from the media will remain ineffective. Even if we were able to excise such images from the public record, however, Islamic media most certainly would not. These images are a huge impediment to the battle for hearts and minds - the battle we need to win to succeed in any Middle East war.
There are certainly other elements of this conflict which make the battle for hearts and minds more difficult - facing a non-state entity on a state's grounds, dealing with decades of anti-Israel sentiment across the Middle East, etc. etc. However, all of these factors simply make it an awful idea for Israel to take anything but a cautious approach to fighting.
Also, though the US usually does go the extra mile to avert civilian casualties, we were also responsible for Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Dresden.
Jon is 100% correct. The Israelis are doing themselves no favors by killing women, children, and U.N. peacekeepers.
Their hope was that the Lebanese would blame Hezbollah for the devastation wrought on their country, but that's not what is happening. U.S. bombs are being dropped by Israel. They blame Israel and the U.S.
Israel is not helping itself, and it is definitely not helping the War on Terror.
Reply?
My original statement was blunt and not well thought out. However, it does represent my gut or instinctual reaction to the situation. I understand that nuance is often best and force is often brutish.
The truth is that I don't know what to think about the Israeli-Middle East conflict. I have never known what to think. How can we know? Almost all information, especially historical, is distorted by one of the sides. Nothing angers me more than the politicization of truth on an issue. The Armenian Genocide and Turkey especially come to mind.
However, no matter how much I read about this issue in the NY Times or WSJ, I continue to fall back on my gut. That is, I agree this to be a war for “hearts and minds” but in the meantime what is Israel to do? The war for fundamentally altering the psyches of millions of Middle Easterners will take decades until success is attainable, and I do believe success in that aspect of the war is inevitable. But what are they to do in the meantime? How long can we expect a people who have been consistently murdered and enslaved throughout history to remain passive?
Hezbollah would eventually moderate itself and safely channel its violence into political aggression. But what is Israel to do in the meantime?
This issue is the most difficult one and I can never claim to hold a definitive, or even a persuasive, opinion on it. No matter the sophistication of the argument, this particular debate always distills down to raw emotion and instinct.
Thanks for the posts.
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