Israel's Disproportionate use of Force

[tobyk100]

Hardly anyone in the world is telling Israel to do nothing in response to the Hezbollah attacks, but many critics of Israel claim she is using a "disproportionate amount of force."

There are about 7 million Israelis, and 300 Million Arabs. Hezbollah killed 8, and kidnapped 2. If Israel were to react proportionally they would have to kill 344 Arabs, and kidnap 86.

And to anyone who says "Its only Palestinians" or "Its only Lebanese" it's the Arab world itself that claims they are one people. It was Arab protesters that chanted "Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine are one!"

If all the worlds countries want Israel to use proportionate force, then Israel better pick up the pace.

[Toolboxnj]

These cries from, generally, liberals and (Western) Europeans are rooted in altruism; that Israel and the West "owes something" or "should sacrifice to" the Arab/Muslim street. The West, they say, has created so much and we should offer and give our resources to those who, for whatever reason, cannot create.

This is moral suicide and we know this very well.

[The Wrath]

I agree that Israel's response is disproportionate. But that's how I like it, and I wouldn't take it any other way. I've always thought that Israel's national motto should be the following:

You blew up our bus? Oh, okay. We'll blow up your town.

[Ifat Glassman]

I agree that Israel's response is disproportionate. But that's how I like it, and I wouldn't take it any other way. I've always thought that Israel's national motto should be the following:"You blew up our bus? Oh, okay. We'll blow up your town."

You are looking at it in the wrong way. Our purpose is not to retaliate as a revenge, but to wipe out Hizballa for good (hopefully, entirely and completely).

The approach stated above "You blew up our bus? Oh, okay. We'll blow up your town." is silly and childish, and certainly does not represent the targets of our army. We have no intention to "wipe out their town": we use high persicion weapons and destroy specific targets. We also spread flyers from airplanes letting the Lebanonians know that Israel is going to attack any place that Hizballa are active in, in any form, and therefor they should evacuate. Our prime minister informed that we ARE NOT interested in hurtin lebanonian civilians, but only in destroying Hizballa. We also take the same approach in Gasa: our attacks have always been directed for known terrorists and supporters of terrorists, and not the population.

I think this is enough to show that we are not acting to "blow up towns" of the enemy.

[Toolboxnj]

Cox and Forkum's newest cartoon is pretty apropos

[The Wrath]

You are looking at it in the wrong way. Our purpose is not to retaliate as a revenge, but to wipe out Hizballa for good (hopefully, entirely and completely).

The approach stated above "You blew up our bus? Oh, okay. We'll blow up your town." is silly and childish, and certainly does not represent the targets of our army. We have no intention to "wipe out their town": we use high persicion weapons and destroy specific targets. We also spread flyers from airplanes letting the Lebanonians know that Israel is going to attack any place that Hizballa are active in, in any form, and therefor they should evacuate. Our prime minister informed that we ARE NOT interested in hurtin lebanonian civilians, but only in destroying Hizballa. We also take the same approach in Gasa: our attacks have always been directed for known terrorists and supporters of terrorists, and not the population.

I think this is enough to show that we are not acting to "blow up towns" of the enemy.

I know that Israel tries to avoid civilian casualties, but it still causes quite a few. The quote is an exaggeration, but it was merely intended to demonstrate that Israel has an official policy of disproportionate response. If you need an example, take the Battle of Jenin, prompted by the Netanya suicide bombing in 2002. While the media greatly trumped up the casualty count, the siege on Jenin still used exponentially more force than did the bombing in Netanya. But, hey, I'm not complaining at all. Israel is right to respond disproportionately.

[Myron Azov]

We also spread flyers from airplanes letting the Lebanonians know that Israel is going to attack any place that Hizballa are active in, in any form, and therefor they should evacuate. Our prime minister informed that we ARE NOT interested in hurtin lebanonian civilians, but only in destroying Hizballa. We also take the same approach in Gasa: our attacks have always been directed for known terrorists and supporters of terrorists, and not the population.

I think this is enough to show that we are not acting to "blow up towns" of the enemy.

Well, this is precisely the wrong strategy. Israel should not be sparing civilians but making every effort to destroy both the terrorists and the terrorist-support population. Hezbollah does not exist in a vacuum. Hezbollah is able to train, quarter and provision its troops because the people of Lebanon, Syria, Gaza and elsewhere regard these devils as heroes and extend every consideration and courtesy to them. It is therefore futile to exterminate a nest of two of Jew-haters if the society that breeds them like flies remains in place and open for business.

As Yaron Brook, Executive Director of the Ayn Rand Institute, has said, “Civilians of enemy nations are part of the [enemy] war machine." American owe their lives to U.S. leaders who were willing to kill hundreds of thousands of German and Japanese civilians. http://www.tuftsdaily.com/media/storage/pa....tuftsdaily.com

If Israel did the same, it would no longer have any enemies. And the world would hearken to Israel’s trumpet of freedom, justice and partial capitalism.

[DavidV]

You are looking at it in the wrong way. Our purpose is not to retaliate as a revenge, but to wipe out Hizballa for good (hopefully, entirely and completely).

Exactly. Any variation of a “tit for tat” approach is bound to only incite more violence, since our enemies welcome death. They may welcome the death of their neighbors more than their enemy’s because they depend on continued enmity for their supply of martyrs. The only thing that will end this conflict is destroying the source of terrorism – and that means going after Syria and Iran.

[aleph_0]

I recently read, in a philosophy journal, an article about the use of disproportionate force. The article basically argued that, in using disproportionate force you do not give your opponent the chance to win, thus forcing them to subvert and use more immoral war practices. So the dominant military organization must tie it's hands by going FAR out of its way not to target civilians and not to blah blah, liberal BS, blah blah, so that the enemy actually has a fighting chance... So in order to keep your enemy from going underground and using covert immoral tactics (which you, the dominant force, are responsible for since YOU made them do it), you have to always hold out the possibility that they could win--which you must do, basically, by sacrificing some substantial number of soldiers and citizens, so that the enemy has a feeling of progress.

...

Who else is in the mood for burning universities to the ground?

[Maarten]

Ooh, and then we can claim protection behind the disproportionate use of force thing when they prosecute us for it. I mean, the government against a few individuals is not quite a fair match!

[Ifat Glassman]

Thought you might be interested in reading about the extent of Hesbollah, and it's goals: About Hesbollah

And also about the birth of the organisation and about the history of Lebanon and how it got to the situation it is in today (having it's south occupied by Hesbollah): Lebanon History

[B. Royce]

Anyone who wishes to send the following poem to friends or relatives in Israel (or anywhere else) has my permission to do so.

Rise, Israel

Rise, Israel, rise,

Smite down thine evil foes!

Heed not the American Christians,

Who'd cotton-ball thy blows.

Rise, Israel, rise,

Smite down those evil beasts!

Let pity not dissuade thee

Till they are all deceased.

"An eye foe an eye and a tooth for a tooth",

The book of Justice said.

And those who hate the living

Earn nought but to be dead.

Rise, Israel, rise,

The moral right is thine;

Thy strongest force, its straightest course,

Will give the world a sign;---

A sign that good has power,

A sign that right can win,

And most, a sign that justice

Is what always should have been.

Rise, Israel, rise!

___________________________________

Brian Faulkner

[blackdiamond]

Well, this is precisely the wrong strategy. Israel should not be sparing civilians but making every effort to destroy both the terrorists and the terrorist-support population.

Just curious: how long into the future do you believe what you are suggesting will be politically possible?

I can imagine this announcement on the Israeli government web site: ISRAEL IS MAKING EVERY EFFORT TO DESTROY THE CIVILIANS OF THE ENEMY STATE. THERE WERE SOME WOMEN AND LITTLE CHILDREN WHO WERE TRYING TO ESCAPE THE CITY YESTERDAY IN A BUS, BUT THANK GOD OUR SOLDIERS SAW THEM AND KILLED ALL 63! THEY ALSO FOUND A GROUP OF CHRISTIANS IN SYRIA WHO HAVE BEEN FIGHTING THEIR GOVERNMENT, BUT THEY ALSO MADE EVERY EFFORT TO KILL ALL OF THEM BECAUSE THEY ARE PART OF THE SAME EVIL SOCIETY.

Now, i'm not even saying you are wrong: i'm just wondering if this idea will be politically practicable in the next few thousands of years. I think roads will be privatised and taxes will be voluntary before what you are suggesting is even discussed at any serious political level!

(By the way, in terms of the question for this thread, i am all for 'disproportionate' force by Israel.)

EDIT: After more thought, i think you are wrong! Particularly where you say they should make EVERY EFFORT to destroy the rest of the population, irregardless. You cannot just assume that everyone in a particular society supports their terrorist government; there could be some who are opposed to them. I agree that you should *not* MAKE EVERY EFFORT to try to save these (at cost to you), but to move from that to MAKING EVERY EFFORT to kill anyone and everyone is quite a big step - in the wrong direction, i think.

Edited July 18, 2006 by blackdiamond

[Myron Azov]

Just curious: how long into the future do you believe what you are suggesting will be politically possible?

EDIT: After more thought, i think you are wrong! Particularly where you say they should make EVERY EFFORT to destroy the rest of the population, irregardless. You cannot just assume that everyone in a particular society supports their terrorist government; there could be some who are opposed to them. I agree that you should *not* MAKE EVERY EFFORT to try to save these (at cost to you), but to move from that to MAKING EVERY EFFORT to kill anyone and everyone is quite a big step - in the wrong direction, i think.

To begin with, I would never use a word like "irregardless."

To answer your question, let us consider the Allied bombing of Germany and Japan in World War II. One does not have to prove that every single man, woman and child in those Axis countries supported their government in order to make a case for the bombing of population centers. To quote again from Yaron Brook, Executive Director of the Ayn Rand Institute, “Civilians of enemy nations are part of the [enemy] war machine." Not only do civilians contribute to the enemy’s war effort through their labor in weapons-related industries, their productivity in any field of employment creates wealth and supplies the tax base that makes their government powerful.

Should the United States and Britain have made certain that every person in Dresden, Hamburg, Berlin, Tokyo and Hiroshima was evacuated before dropping bombs on those cities? If so, the war would have lasted much longer, and many more of the good guys would have been lost before it ended. Mass death in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the attack on evil is no virtue.

[aleph_0]

So targeting women and children, as terrorists attacking America and Israel do, is not an immoral war practice? It is only wrong because they are doing it out of aggression and not out of self-defense? That is, were the Vietcong to have done it to us, it would not have been wrong?

[~Sophia~]

Mass death in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the attack on evil is no virtue.

Your views are distrubing. To me your thinking is pure collectivism at it's the most ugly.

Definition (from Ayn Rand Lexicon) - Collectivism - means the subjugation of the individual rights to a group - whether to a race, class, or state. It holds that, in human affairs, the collective...the nation...is the unit of reality and the standard of value. On this view, the individual has reality only as a part of a group...

I have made this point before but I will repeat: Morality and justice relate to individuals, not to collective entities like the state.

[Myron Azov]

Your views are distrubing. To me your thinking is pure collectivism at it's the most ugly.

Definition (from Ayn Rand Lexicon) - Collectivism - means the subjugation of the individual rights to a group - whether to a race, class, or state. It holds that, in human affairs, the collective...the nation...is the unit of reality and the standard of value. On this view, the individual has reality only as a part of a group...

I have made this point before but I will repeat: Morality and justice relate to individuals, not to collective entities like the state.

Collectivism is the social system we'll be enjoying if our leaders abandon their responsibility and don't stand up to the foreign thugs who threaten our semi-capitalistic society. As for me, the highest value is my own life. Accordingly, I do not intend to surrender my right of self-defense for fear of harming the hair on the head of some servile comrade who never took the time to question the legitimacy of his ruler.

"Nobody has to put up with aggression and surrender his right of self-defense for fear of hurting somebody else, guilty or innocent. When someone comes at you with a gun, if you have one ounce of self-esteem, you will answer him by force, never mind who he is or who is behind him. If he is out to destroy you, that is what you owe to the sanctity of your own life." --Ayn Rand http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=New...cle&id=5138

aleph_0 wrote:

So targeting women and children, as terrorists attacking America and Israel do, is not an immoral war practice? It is only wrong because they are doing it out of aggression and not out of self-defense? That is, were the Vietcong to have done it to us, it would not have been wrong?

It is wrong for Hezbollah and the Vietcong to drop bombs on us because they are the bad guys. They want a society that would make the world of Anthem look like a church picnic. We, on the other hand, are the good guys. We are the upholders of Man, Reason, Capitalism and Dollars Backed By Gold. If we lose this battle there is no telling what horrible dark ages the world will descend into. We need to answer the enemy "by force, never mind who he is or who is behind him."

[DavidOdden]

It is wrong for Hezbollah and the Vietcong to drop bombs on us because they are the bad guys.

If you're going to make such arguments, you should focus on reality. When did the Vietcong drop bombs on us?

[Myron Azov]

If you're going to make such arguments, you should focus on reality. When did the Vietcong drop bombs on us?

To cite just one incident: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dong_Xoai and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortar_%28weapon%29

[Ifat Glassman]

...

"Nobody has to put up with aggression and surrender his right of self-defense for fear of hurting somebody else, guilty or innocent. When someone comes at you with a gun, if you have one ounce of self-esteem, you will answer him by force, never mind who he is or who is behind him. If he is out to destroy you, that is what you owe to the sanctity of your own life." --Ayn Rand

"never mind who is behind him" does not equal who stands before him. You seem not only to not see that difference, but also to suggest shooting those around, just in case the attacker will decide to use them as a shield.

As for Lebanon: Their country is based on the same values of productivity as ours. Most of the citisens want a peaceful existence with Israel. Lebanon's problems begun because it was generouse enough to open it's gates to palestinian refugees, not knowing that this would later cause to it's lost of freedom, a civil war, and to a government composed of Hisbollah members (Lebanon is a democracy).

Israel makes a very clear distinction between Lebanese and Hesbollah members, and hopes to have a fruitful commercial relationships with the Lebanese in the future.

The way our army is conducting this war is the most fair way I can think of, and I am proud to be a citisen of this country. We give warnings to the citisens to evacuate and use high percision weapons to destroty Hesbollah and all it's resources to the ground. We also dont hasitate to attack property of the Lebanon official army (like Radars) or to bombard trucks that carried covered equipment (against the instructions Israel gave to the Lebanese). Civilians did get killed in the destruction of that truck, and in other incidents but it was 100% justified, though a misfortunate inccident.

These Lebanese are not evil and they do not support the Hisbollah. They have students like me who are becoming engineers, and experts in other fields, and have a cultural life (a culture of life and not of destruction), and I see more value in them alive than dead. Regardless of the value I see in them, the decision wether or not to attack them has to relly on whether or not they innitiated the use of force against Israel. Since the answer is negative, killing them would be unjustified.

What value do you see in killing them? The Hesbollah is getting their funding from Iran and Syria and not from the Lebanese.

[~Sophia~]

No one on this forum is advocating for you to surrender your right to self defence. I can't take anything you say seriously when you do not consider your audience and make such exadurations.

There is a huge difference between unavoidable war casualities and the mass killing you are advocating.

You do not see individuals - you only see the collective and you are judging them as a collective.

[DavidOdden]

To cite just one incident: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dong_Xoai and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortar_%28weapon%29

May I assume that you're British? Otherwise, your statement is misleading.

[Myron Azov]

No one on this forum is advocating for you to surrender your right to self defence. I can't take anything you say seriously when you do not consider your audience and make such exadurations.

First, I appreciate your recognition of my right to self-defense. Presumably, then, you will raise no objections when I call on the President of my country to launch pre-emptive attacks on Iran and North Korea in order to deprive those terrorist states of the means to destroy me. Further, I trust that you will not demur when I urge that our most powerful weapons, nuclear warheads, be placed at the discretion of our military commanders to use if necessary to secure the success of our mission.

There is a huge difference between unavoidable war casualities and the mass killing you are advocating.

To make a distinction between "unavoidable war casualties" and "mass killing" does not exclude the possibility that they can in certain circumstances be one and the same. Clearly, they were the same in our bombing of Germany and Japan in World War II. The mass killing of civilians was a necessary and unavoidable step towards defeat of the fascist powers. And such tactics are called for today. As Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, has written, victory over the terrorists requires “devastating military action against enemy regimes—to oust their leaders and prominent supporters, to make examples of certain regimes or cities in order to win the surrender of others, and to inflict suffering on complicit civilian populations, who enable terrorist-supporting regimes to remain in power.” http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4581

That’s right. Inflict suffering on complicit civilian populations.

You do not see individuals - you only see the collective and you are judging them as a collective.

Not at all. Kim Jong Il is an individual and so are the wretched souls that he lives among. I would like nothing better than for Kim to take a long ocean voyage so that we could drop a missile on him with minimal collateral damage. But if he won’t leave the security of his slave state, we have every right to drop bombs in his congested capital if that’s what it takes to gain victory. And the responsibility for any “innocents” killed would be Kim’s alone. As Dr. Leonard Peikoff has written, “A proper war in self-defense is one fought without self-crippling restrictions placed on our commanders in the field. It must be fought with the most effective weapons we possess (a few weeks ago, Rumsfeld refused, correctly, to rule out nuclear weapons). And it must be fought in a manner that secures victory as quickly as possible and with the fewest U.S. casualties, regardless of the countless innocents caught in the line of fire.” http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=2635

That’s right. Regardless of the countless innocents caught in the line of fire.

[Myron Azov]

May I assume that you're British? Otherwise, your statement is misleading.

Not in the least. My American Heritage Dictionary defines "bomb" as "an explosive weapon detonated by impact, proximity to an object, a timing mechanism, or other means." Further: "bombed, bombing, bombs" (verb transitive) is "to attack, damage, or destroy with or as if with bombs." A "mortar" is "a portable, muzzleloading cannon used to fire shells at low velocities, short ranges, and high trajectories." For the past 150 years or more, mortar shells have been designed to detonate by impact. Thus we can state that the Viet Cong did bomb U.S. positions in Viet Nam--at considerable cost of American lives.

[aleph_0]

It is wrong for Hezbollah and the Vietcong to drop bombs on us because they are the bad guys. They want a society that would make the world of Anthem look like a church picnic. We, on the other hand, are the good guys. We are the upholders of Man, Reason, Capitalism and Dollars Backed By Gold. If we lose this battle there is no telling what horrible dark ages the world will descend into. We need to answer the enemy "by force, never mind who he is or who is behind him."

The Vietcong never attacked us until we attacked them. So there was really nothing wrong about their attacking us. We were the bad guys in that war. So my question stands--were they to have targeted American women and children, would that have been a moral wrong?

I'm not decided one way or the other. Should we attack manufacturing, industrial, and commercial targets in a war? Would not civilians be just such targets, as they contribute to the enemy war machine? Maybe it is okay, as a tactical measure, to target civilians. I don't know.