I wonder what Israel's objective will be this time? I don't think they'll reciprocate Hamas' goal of extermination.
Short of that, three other goals come to mind; maybe four. None of them are more than short-term solutions, of course. It is pointless for the Israelis to worry about PR downsides, but they probably will anyway.
- Wipe out all of Hamas' leadership and capability and withdraw. Two problems jump up from this: Knowing who's who, and the fact that to do this you have to occupy the place, which lets the locals get up close with "lone wolf" attacks.
- "Rip them a new asshole" and back off. This could be done without occupation. It could be modified by seizing a few miles of border and fortifying/mining it. Cue the chorus of "proportionality." I know proportionality is part of Catholic just war theory, but I'm not sure that it was entirely thought out.(*)
- Occupy and govern. This one has a lot of long-term pain as the Gazans do the "lone wolf" thing. The Gazans would no doubt be materially better off, but still feel themselves second-class, and they take their religion seriously; I don't think they'd all let themselves be seduced by the secularism of the Little Satan or the Great Satan.
- Occupy and expel. This has a lot of short-term pain, and really bad optics, and nobody wants the Gazans. The only place that would seem to be a plausible relocation spot is the West Bank. I doubt that Jordan would be happy with that, and it would probably just make the problem bigger down the road.
At least, I hope they have a goal. It's kind of hard to win a war without one. Just ask the USA.
(*) UPDATE: The comments pointed out that I used an interpretation of the theory rather than a reference to the theory itself--mea culpa. The statement from the Catechism is reasonable--though still subject to subjective interpretation: how heavily does one weight potential woes? Still, I should have checked the original before publishing.
6 comments:
Press consensus seems to be that the Hamas operational and political leadership has since more than a year ago been moved permanently abroad outside of Gaza. And that the surprise for this event worked because they'd done the planning in 'electronically dark' ways. Not that "hits" couldn't happen even in repressive Muslim countries, but does Israel even know where these leaders are?
Proportionality in war is the principle that you should not use more force than necessary to achieve a military objective.
https://lieber.westpoint.edu/proportionality-international-humanitarian-law-principle-rule/
That said, maybe Catholic doctrine uses it in a different way. I'm not familiar with that.
I'm not a Roman Catholic, but I've surprised various people by having the Catechism book on my shelf and it's web-version bookmarked. As philosophies go, it's remarkably comprehensive for issues affecting humans everyday, and clear to read & understand.
Just war theory comes in section 2309, and the particular spots relevant to the discussion here would be:
"2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. the gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
- there must be serious prospects of success;
- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. the power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition."
So, it seems like proportionality there would be "the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated".
That seems reasonable, on its face. I wonder what james's objection might be.
Since the article I linked to is somewhat tedious, here is a clear summary from near the end of it:
The rule of proportionality requires that the anticipated incidental loss of human life and damage to civilian objects should not be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage expected from the destruction of a military objective. The balance is composed of, on the one hand, the military advantage expected from the destruction of a military objective, and on the other hand, the incidental damage caused by the military intervention, i.e., the harm to civilians and civilian property.
Proportionality, and all this Just War Theory apparatus, is a medieval Catholic creation. As such, it is entirely compatible with siege warfare of the type Israel is engaging in here. A review of what the Church found acceptable during the Hundred Years War (or the Thirty Years War, later and worse) will be edifying. The modern means of destruction are faster, but the ancient ones work just as well and quite as horribly.
It's strange, though, to speak of 'proportionality' when the opening offense was the systematic murder of children and the elderly, war waged by intent against the innocent. The last thing you might ever want is to receive a response that was genuinely proportionate to that.
For brevity I deleted a wall of text before posting my first comment, a bunch of stuff trying to express that not fighting war to a definitive end can be worse for humanity in the long-run.
I'm noting some comments on twitter that express the point:
"If the UN had come into existence sooner, one could imagine them sweeping in to force a ceasefire and provide relief to civilians and soldiers alike in Nazi-controlled territory. Maybe we would still have a Nazi rump state around Berlin, launching rocket attacks on Brandenburg."
"This article from 1999 is a great explainer on why a conflict from 1948 is still being fought. UNRWA has been propping up the losing side for 70 years so they can continue to fight indefinitely."
I'll note that in the weeks leading up to the Russian invasion, it looked to me like the US & NATO were gearing up to have Kiev fall and then have the west encourage and supply a guerrilla war in a Russian-occupied Ukraine. I was appalled.
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