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Friday, August 04, 2006

On proportionality

If there is one statement made in the world, more than any other about Israel it is that it is using "Disproportional force". It has become the new slogan for anyone talking about Israel in a critical eye, since they realize that there is really nothing else to attack Israel over. It even usually comes after the even better statement that Israel has the right to defend it self (Duh!). These statements usually come after reports (real or not) about "civilian" casualties on the other side (Lebanon or Gaza - these days), and are meant to say that if only Israel used proportional force none of these people would have died.

But what these people don't get is how much damage their statements really cause. They have created a situation that does not allow Israel to use the force it needs in order to win this war, and stop all the violence, on both sides. Needless to say that Israel is using a lot of restraint, when it attacks. Everyone agrees that Israel could have done a lot more damage to Lebanon (and Hezbollah) in the past 3 weeks if it wanted to.

But instead of going out and destroying south Lebanon, Israel has been going and working in specific areas trying to prevent Hezbollah from firing on Israel. Thanks to the huge pressure from the world and it's great statements about disproportionate force, Israel had to think 10 times about every operation and every air strike it performs. Now this in and of itself is not bad, there should be someone making sure that another country doesn't leash itself out on another country. The problem is not with the statement itself but with the way it's used. The idea of disproportionate use of force is not meant to be used as a tit for tat situation. A situation like that just leads to a war of attrition that can last for years, and that is exactly what we are seeing here.

The way to win wars is not by using tit for tat tactics, but to overwhelm the enemy with a harsh blow that causes him to surrender quickly due to the shock that blow causes. Disproportionally comes in if after that overwhelming attack, the attacker continues to fight not in order to win but in order to cause as much destruction as possible.

What is going on today in Lebanon, is going to lead us into a war of attrition with Hezbollah, backed by Syria, Iran, and the Lebanese Government. This would ensure that this war goes on for a long time, causing a lot of death and much more destruction to both sides.

What Israel should have done is gone in with a huge amount of force 2 weeks ago, and such a way that would not leave Hezbollah any choice but to either surrender or run (these groups like running when bad things start to happen to them - see PLO as the best example). Had Israel done that 2 weeks ago, and gotten Nasrallah to come crawling on his knees for a cease fire, this war would have been over and a lot less people would have been killed; again, on both sides. Even if the end result of this sort of action would have left 200 people killed in 2 days, that would still be better than the hundreds that have died (on both sides) and will continue to die.

So basically thanks to the world's attempts to "restrain" Israel, they are actually causing more death and destruction than if Israel would have used what they see as "disproportionate use of force."

Of course then one has to ask why the world is doing this - but that is for another post.

3 Comments:

At 6:09 AM, Blogger Irina Tsukerman said...

Excellent points. Someone tipped me off to an article, with legal analysis of the issue and how people have been twisting it to accuse Israel of war crimes. I've posted on my blog, so you may want to read it:

http://sicat222.blogspot.com/2006/08/proportionality-which-proportionality.html

 
At 8:52 PM, Blogger Olah Chadasha said...

Thanks for the link!
-OC

 
At 9:01 PM, Blogger Irina Tsukerman said...

No problem! : )

 

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