Israel Matzav

It ought to be disproportionate

In the "other column" in today's Washington Post, Eugene Robinson complains about Israel's "disproportionate" response to Hezbullah's rocket attacks:

Of course Israel has the right to defend itself against Hezbollah's rocket attacks. But how can this utterly disproportionate, seemingly indiscriminate carnage be anything but counterproductive?

Destroying the Beirut airport, blasting communications towers into oblivion and cleansing southern Lebanon of its civilian population are not measures the world will see as an attack on Hezbollah terrorists. The Israeli campaign is so intense and widespread that it is creating more terrorists than it kills. Proportionate military action might have enhanced Israel's security, but video footage of grandmothers weeping amid the rubble of their homes and bloodied children lying in hospital beds won't make Israel more secure. Hezbollah's stature in the Arab world is growing, and its patrons in Damascus and Tehran must be smugly satisfied.

Of course, Robinson doesn't deign to tell us what a "proportionate" response might be. Should Israel limit itself to shooting deadly but inaccurate rockets with the same respective ranges as the Katyusha, Fajr-3, Fajr-5, C-802 and Zelzal, as the case may be, from the same cities hit by them? Should we keep a scorecard saying, "you killed two of ours, so now we will kill two of yours"? Perhaps, Robinson looks at a "disproportionate" response as being like Mr. Justice (Potter) Stewart's famous definition of "obscenity": "I know it when I see it." In other words, one could very well respond to Robinson's article by throwing the gauntlet back and saying "give me a response that you would consider proportionate."

I'm going to go a step further than that. I'm going to concede that Israel's response is disproportionate. Given that a google search of "Israel, Lebanon, disproportionate" just returned 4,680,000 hits, I don't think I'm conceding much. But I'm going to argue that despite the fact that it is disproportionate, Israel's response is correct, because it ought to be disproportionate.

Let's go back for a minute to how this all started. In an unprovoked attack, Hezbullah breached Israel's border with Lebanon (which has been recognized by the entire international community), murdered three Israeli soldiers and kidnapped two others. When Israel attempted to take offensive action to retrieve the kidnapped soldiers, Hezbullah began to indiscriminately rain Katyusha rockets on Israel's cities in an effort to terrorize and kill as many civilians as possible. If Hezbullah had in its possession the kind of precision-guided missiles that Israel has manufactured and developed (in cooperation with the United States), does anyone doubt that they would also be using those to target civilians rather than infrastructure?

The real issue is: what are Hezbullah's goals? On that score, I think there is little doubt: Hezbullah wishes to 'drive the Jews into the sea' - to bring about the demise of the State of Israel. Israel has to respond to those goals, not just to the Hezbullah action taken. The only response that is appropriate to an existential threat is a disproportionate response - one that will make the other side either disappear or crawl back into its cave and find something else to do with its time.

How have other countries responded to similar challenges in the past? During World War II, in the Atlantic theater, the axis powers wished to subjugate all of civilization to the 'superior Aryan race'. The war's end came about because allied carpet-bombing of cities like Dresden caused disproportionate civilian casualties and convinced ordinary Germans that they had no chance of winning the war. That left their leadership the choice of conceding or facing a coup. In the Pacific theater, the Japanese wished to establish dominance over the entire Pacific rim. The US administration correctly calculated that a ground invasion of Japan would cost the lives of thousands of US servicemen. So it responded disproportionately: it dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those bombs cost thousands of Japanese lives, but they saved thousands of other lives. On the whole, the disproportionate response was appropriate. (The last time I wrote this, someone pointed out in the comment section that the Union did the same thing to the Confederacy in the United States Civil War - the Union army brought the war home to the Southern plantation owners who were financing it. The burning of Atlanta - and the accompanying civilian casualties - helped bring about the end of the war).

On a smaller scale, after 9/11, the Bush administration understood that Islamic terrorism orchestrated by al-Qaeda was a threat to the American and western way of life. The President decided that the best way to remove the threat was to remove al-Qaeda's base of operations. If the Taliban government of Afghanistan would not remove al-Qaeda from their midst, they were part of the problem rather than being part of the solution. So the President went after the Taliban and removed them from power.

There's an obvious difference between Israel's situation and the other situations I have cited. But if anything, it is a difference that militates even more in favor of a disproportionate response: the United States is thousands of miles from Afghanistan. The al-Qaeda attack on the United States was not launched from Afghanistan but from airports in Boston and Washington. The United States is thousands of miles from Europe and Japan. In all of World War II, there was no attack on the continental United States, and only one attack on Hawaii.

We in Israel are in much closer proximity to our terrorist threats. Even here, in the relative safety of Jerusalem, we are less than 100 miles away from the front lines. It is much easier for the terrorists to continue to hit us again and again - if we let them - than it is for al-Qaeda to hit the United States or than it was for Nazi Germany or Hirohito's Japan to hit the United States. When the person who is trying to hit you is staring you in the face, you have to hit him even harder to scare him away. If you flinch, he can look into your eyes and see your weakness.

The final question that needs to be dealt with is why Lebanon and why Lebanon's infrastructure. I have made a good case for targetting Hezbullah's leaders and installations, which means that I have made a case for hitting South Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut. But why the airport, why the Beirut - Damascus Highway, why Sidon and Tyre, why Lebanon's infrastructure, and why is it appropriate for Israel to regard Lebanese civilians who get in the way as "collateral damage." For that matter, why Lebanon and not Hezbullah's patrons in Syria and Iran. To answer that question, we have to return to the American response to 9/11.

On September 20, 2001, President Bush addressed a joint session of Congress and explained why he was holding Afghanistan's Taliban leadership responsible for the 9/11 attacks:

The leadership of al Qaeda has great influence in Afghanistan and supports the Taliban regime in controlling most of that country. In Afghanistan we see al Qaeda's vision for the world. Afghanistan's people have been brutalized, many are starving and many have fled.

...

The United States respects the people of Afghanistan -- after all, we are currently its largest source of humanitarian aid -- but we condemn the Taliban regime.

It is not only repressing its own people, it is threatening people everywhere by sponsoring and sheltering and supplying terrorists.

By aiding and abetting murder, the Taliban regime is committing murder. And tonight the United States of America makes the following demands on the Taliban:

Deliver to United States authorities all of the leaders of al Qaeda who hide in your land.

... Close immediately and permanently every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. And hand over every terrorist and every person and their support structure to appropriate authorities.

Give the United States full access to terrorist training camps, so we can make sure they are no longer operating.

These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion. The Taliban must act and act immediately. They will hand over the terrorists or they will share in their fate.

President Bush established the principle that a government that cooperates with terrorists is responsible for the terrorism that originates from its territory, and will share the terrorists' fate. The people who support that government place themselves at risk for 'collateral damage.' Hezbullah is a part of the Lebanese government. It has seats in the legislature and two ministers in the cabinet. Is the Lebanese government any less responsible for not standing up to Hezbullah than the Taliban government was for not standing up to al-Qaeda? Is it any less legitimate for Israel to destroy Lebanon's infrastructure - which is used by Hezbullah with the Lebanese government's consent - than it was for the United States to destroy Afghanistan's infrastructure, which was used by al-Qaeda with the Afghan government's consent? If you think I'm wrong, take the President's speech and substitute Lebanon for Afghanistan and Taliban, and Hezbullah for al-Qaeda:

The leadership of Hezbullah has great influence in Lebanon and supports the Lebanese regime in controlling most of that country. In Lebanon we see Hezbullah's vision for the world. Lebanon's people have been brutalized, many are starving and many have fled.

...

The United States respects the people of Lebanon -- after all, we are currently its largest source of humanitarian aid -- but we condemn the Lebanese regime.

It is not only repressing its own people, it is threatening people everywhere by sponsoring and sheltering and supplying terrorists.

By aiding and abetting murder, the Lebanese regime is committing murder. And tonight the United States of America makes the following demands on the Lebanese government:

Deliver to United States authorities all of the leaders of Hezbullah who hide in your land.

... Close immediately and permanently every terrorist training camp in Lebanon. And hand over every terrorist and every person and their support structure to appropriate authorities.

Give the United States full access to terrorist training camps, so we can make sure they are no longer operating.

These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion. The Lebanese government must act and act immediately. They will hand over the terrorists or they will share in their fate.

Sounds pretty close to accurate, doesn't it?

Despite the fact that Hezbullah is supported by Syria and Iran - and Israel may have to deal with that reality sooner rather than later - it is Lebanon that houses Hezbullah and its base of operations. Lebanon - whether through purposeful or feckless behavior in its dealings with Hezbullah - is more directly responsible for Hezbullah than any other country.

Israel's response to Hezbullah's actions is correctly disproportionate and focused exactly where it ought to be focused.

As you may or may not already be aware, members of the Watcher's Council hold a vote every week on what they consider to be the most link-worthy pieces of writing around... per the Watcher's instructions, I am submitting one of my own posts for consideration in the upcoming nominations process.

Here is the most recent winning council post, here is the most recent winning non-council post, here is the list of results for the latest vote, and here is the initial posting of all the nominees that were voted on.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:34 AM