I’ve essentially shot my wad on proportionality and don’t plan on beating a dead horse. I think that those who continue to confuse the idiotic idea of responding with no more force than your attacker employs with proportionality of actions to objectives and the suitability and effectiveness of actions to their presumed goals are now being willfully obtuse.
If you continue to have no doubts whatever that Israel’s actions are justified, that their objectives are appropriate to the problems that they face, and that their actions are effective means toward their goals, I have some questions.
First, what are Israel’s objectives in the current hostilities? I don’t mean the highly general answer of “survival”. What do you think they’re trying to achieve? How do you know that? Are the means they’re employing justified and suitable to that end? How do you know that? What are those means?
Especially in the light Israel’s recent actions I don’t see have anyone can be too certain of what Israel is trying to achieve. If you don’t know what they’re trying to achieve, I don’t see how one can be certain that their conduct in pursuit of those objectives is justified. Other than unreasoned and reflexive support, of course. Remember: Israel need to continue to live in that neighborhood.
See also this post from Don Sensing.
You’ve just perfectly described my concerns about this matter. Israel has just handed Hezb’allah & company a pretty decisive victory, and they did it by dismissing the importance of proportionality. Killing hundreds of civilians and displacing thousands more in an effort that has not come close to succeeding isn’t just immoral – it’s also stupid and shortsighted.
Dave, we reached the same question, that is, what is Israel’s goal? It’s difficult to discern for several reasons- the biggest one being that I’m not an Israeli or Middle East expert (like most of us). Given that Israel has declined to broaden the war’s scope, it appears that they may be trying to create a buffer zone between Israel and Lebanon- a DMZ, if you will, where Hez can’t sit undisturbed and lob rockets. I’m puzzled by this, however, because I don’t understand how this goal can be achieved absent occupying the area, something that Israel tried and failed at years ago. Since there’s no UN or EU military force willing to undertake this task, I question whether this was, in fact, Israel’s goal. If its goal was to take out or severely weaken Hez, it may have temporarily achieved it but it also emboldened Hez and Israel’s blood-lust enemies and handed them a political victory. I reject the “show of force” goal, since Israel has already established that it’s a formidable military power that is wiling to fight. Those seem like the most obvious goals.
I agree that one cannot judge the proportionality or morality of the actions without understanding Israel’s goals. I can’t conclude, as Tom has, that the actions were immoral. If the goals were realistically unachievable or undefined, then, perhaps, they qualify as politically stupid or shortsighted. As with many things in the ME, we’ll have to wait for future events to unfold.