Israel’s War Crimes

Daniel,

I’m (as previously stated) not an expert on the laws of war—but I think I disagree with this statement.

There is also the issue of whether the war crime of “reprisals” has been committed – the carrying out of acts of violence against civilians in order to put pressure on their government to carry out some desired course of action, which is of course called “terrorism” when non-state actors do it.

Two disagreements/questions:

1) Wouldn’t reprisals, as you define them, be a tactic used in war by everyone who has fought in the last century? From Sherman’s march through Georgia and Sheridan’s destruction of the valley, through the fire-bombing of Tokyo and the blockade of Germany, to the bombing of Kosovo, getting the government to stop fighting has been a primary goal, and getting its citizens to stop supporting the fighting a significant means.

2) Isn’t the distinction between terrorists and armies specifically that one answers to a government, and one doesn’t?

My concern in the whole debate is that the laws of war were written, IMO, to ensure, as much as possible, that armies fought armies and civilians were left alone as much as possible. This requires that who is army, and who isn’t, be distinguishable at all times. Giving the protections due to soldiers to people who don’t distinguish themselves from civilians, and protecting civilians who are being used as human shields, encourages armies to mix with civilians and use human shields—which is the worst outcome.

sorry about the link

I’d say that Israel’s military reputation has stood higher than its enemies not only in terms of efficiency (unarguable) but also as regards observation of the rules of law. This is especially the case in inter-state wars, which is really the category in which the current campaign should be placed.

A problem with the present war, is that Israel seems to be applying the policing-by-army role it has adopted in the Occupied Territories. It military actions are shading into the quasi-judicial and punitive.

There is a trade off in the alternative claims for legitimacy in policing on the one hand and waging war on the other. State-action in war allows for the application of concentrated lethal force, while state-action in policing has the authority to coerce the population into detailed and active co-operation. War-authority is sharp and focussed, while police-authority is diffuse and general.

When the two concepts get mixed up, you have a sanguinary law without consensus. Those on the receiving end of military action are not treated as belligerents, but as criminals. This is a dangerous area to get into. I think Israel has strayed into this territory somewhat.

Of course, it must quickly be said that while there is strong evidence for the IDF treating civilians as potential or actual criminals, rather than as enemy non-combatants, Hizbollah are without shame rocketing Israeli civilians and treat the Israeli state itself as criminal.

1) Wouldn’t reprisals, as you define them, be a tactic used in war by everyone who has fought in the last century? From Sherman’s march through Georgia and Sheridan’s destruction of the valley, through the fire-bombing of Tokyo and the blockade of Germany, to the bombing of Kosovo, getting the government to stop fighting has been a primary goal, and getting its citizens to stop supporting the fighting a significant means.

Well, at least Georgia, the Valley, and Tokyo (as well as Dresden, etc) seem to me obvious war crimes. Yes, the war crime of reprisals has been terribly common. That doesn’t render it legitimate. (I think the bombing of Serbia during the Kosovo campaign probably crossed the line, but it wasn’t anywhere near the level of Sherman or Dresden.) Israel disavows the goal of doing what Sherman did. Daniel gives us reason to worry and doubt, but Israel at least officially accepts the illegitimacy of reprisals.

Hizbollah are without shame rocketing Israeli civilians

What takes more shame: to fire a rocket without knowing what you are going to hit, or to deliberately drop a targeted bomb in a place where you know it will kill innocent civilians?

I am not trying to imply that I’ve made up my mind because they both seem to be quite shameless. But if Hezbollah had better munitions, do you think they would still be taking potshots at houses and apartment buildings, or would they use their improved aiming capabilities to hit ‘non-civilian’ targets like bridges, radio stations, hospitals and the houses of government officials?

“if Hezbollah had better munitions, do you think they would still be taking potshots at houses and apartment buildings, or would they use their improved aiming capabilities to hit ‘non-civilian’ targets like bridges, radio stations, hospitals and the houses of government officials?”

But they do have better munitions. They’ve got suicide bombers. Those bombers tend not to be
used against bridges, homes of government officials, military vehicles, etc. They tend to target pizza parlors and public buses. Whoda thunk it?

“But if Hezbollah had better munitions, do you think they would still be taking potshots at houses and apartment buildings, or would they use their improved aiming capabilities to hit ‘non-civilian’ targets like bridges, radio stations, hospitals and the houses of government officials?”

We already know the answer to that question. Rockets aren’t their only weapon. With weapons they can target, they often target civilians.

I’m a strong supporter of Israel. But it seems pretty clear that they’re committing war crimes. Many of the targets are far removed from the fighting and seem to have no reasonable connection to it. And then there’s a question on the ‘proportionality’ issue which seems important to me: the big harm Israel seeks to stop is the firing of rockets into Israel. But Hezbollah has offered to stop firing if Israel will end its air raids. Israel’s air raids and invasion are clearly disproportionate to the initial kidnapping; it’s only the firing of the rockets that renders Israel’s war even arguably proportionate. But does Hezbollah’s offer to end the rocket attacks impact the “proportionality” question, given that it offers another, peaceful way to end the harm Israel is trying to prevent?

Neil,

I think this is an inter-state war because Israel, it seems to me, has systematically and deliberately degraded the functioning of a sovereign state. I don’t think the Lebanese Army would be unjustified in fighting back, if it could or was so inclined.

Sorry that was a bit off the narrow topic. So far as the HRW report goes, I’m a little concerned about their concept of ‘civilian’. Their main method of determining civilian status is asking the family members and neighbors if there was Hezbollah military activity in the area. I can’t imagine that family members are likely to admit that anyone killed was in Hezbollah. I would also be surprised if neighbors would feel particularly safe to turn in Hezbollah to an international report. So I’m skeptical of the findings of zero non-civilian deaths.

I’m also a little bit concerned by this aspect of the methodology:

In a small minority of cases, Human Rights Watch researchers in Lebanon could locate
witnesses only in Hezbollah-controlled camps for displaced persons in Beirut.
Hezbollah controls an estimated seventy of the 120 schools currently housing the
displaced. On such occasions, Hezbollah officials often insisted that Human Rights
Watch researchers not ask questions about the location of Hezbollah militants because
such information, wherever Hezbollah might be located, was of military value. These
conditions limited Human Rights Watch’s ability to make a legal determination regarding
whether the target in question was legitimate. In such cases, researchers sought
additional witnesses outside of Hezbollah’s control to investigate the location of
Hezbollah militants in the area at the time of the attack. If such witnesses could not be
found, Human Rights Watch dropped the case.
As noted, in the cases documented in this report, witnesses consistently told Human
Rights Watch that neither Hezbollah fighters nor other legitimate military targets were in
the area that the IDF attacked. However, Human Rights Watch did document cases in
which the IDF hit legitimate military targets, and, with limited exceptions, witnesses
were generally willing to discuss the presence and activity of Hezbollah. At the sites
visited by Human Rights Watch—Qana, Srifa, Tyre, and the southern suburbs of

Beirut—on-site investigations did not identify any signs of military activity in the area
attacked, such as trenches, destroyed rocket launchers, other military equipment, or dead
or wounded fighters.

The fact that Hezbollah doesn’t want people talking to HRW is thus established, and its control of that may well extend beyond mere camps wholly controlled by Hezbollah.

What are the characteristics of the “limited exceptions” where HRW found clear evidence of a military target and still had unwillingness of witnesses with respect to admitting that Hezbollah was there? Are the circumstances surrounding those cases generalizable to other cases?

Makes sense to me, Marc. My feeling that it’s not an inter-state war has mostly to do with the fact that the Israelis seem to consider the resistance they’re meeting to be illegitimate and not in defense of a state, describing it instead as terrorism. But I suppose that like you say, this has little to do with the legal state of affairs.

Presumably, if Hizb wanted, they could use their Katyusha’s to bombard forward Israeli military positions. Anywhere within a klik of the border, I reckon, could plausibly be defined as a legitimate target, being a clearly miltarised zone (as long as civvies were warned to clear out).

This, afterall, is how the Soviets used these ‘Stalin’s Organs’.

Bombarding Haifa is just a war-crime really.

Question: What about the land mines that Israel refused to remove, or supply a map of? And they’re planting more

Militant groups only pursue suicide bombers because they don’t see any alternative: because they don’t have the money or materiel to fight ‘conventionally’.

This assumes that every militant group’s ultimate goal is the defeat of a particular military force. That might be the case for, say, groups seeking independence for a piece of territory from a foreign/central government. But if the goal is to overrun and supplant the current population of a neighboring piece of territory—a popular motivation for war since time immemorial—then the priorities are reversed: one targets armies only because they stand in the way of slaughtering civilians.

The wanton targeting of civilians by Hezbollah and the various Palestinian groups, and the extraordinary care the Israeli forces take to spare civilians when operating against the former, make perfect sense when considered in that light.

It’s really simple: Hezbollah is the aggressor here. They started it. A free and legitimate state (meaning one with at least a free press, independent judiciary, multiple genuine political parties and complete freedom to emigrate) has an absolute right to self defense. This means the right to use all force necessary to ensure that the aggressor cannot continue its violation of the rights of the free nation’s citizens. All collateral damage resulting from the use of this force is the responsibility of the aggressor.

If the “laws of war” say differently, then the law – as is often the case – is an ass.

This post borders on the immoral in that the poster seems unable or unwilling to distinguish between a democracy that is striking back at terrorists, and terrorists who attacked a democracy and are dedicated to killing civilians. It is always worth pointing out here that U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559 demanded that Hezbollah disarm. Hezbollah refused to comply and stockpiled an estimated 10,000 missiles under the noses of the “international community” and is now busy launching them at civilians.

Okay, Daniel, let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that it’s been established that neither side in this conflict is abiding by the officially defined standards for the conduct of war. Now what? What do you propose that the “community of nations” (if indeed such a thing can even be said to exist) ought to do in response?

What the international community’s response is should not be arbitrarily chosen from a list of (otherwise fairly sound) options, but should also depend on the players involved.

For instance, I assume both Israel and Hezbollah have no deep interest in a long and bloody Israeli occupation of South Lebanon, and that this is an outcome both parties would prefer to avoid.

I assume a situation in which Israel kills civilians, and destroys Lebanese civilian infrastructure without signfificantly damaging Hezbollah’s capabilities, is an outcome Hezbollah would like and Israel would prefer to avoid.

I assume a situation in which Hezbollah ceases its rocket attacks on Israeli cities, is an outcome Israel would like to attain.

I assume that there is a threshold above which civilian deaths and damage to Lebanese civilian infrastructure will lead to international sanctions against Israel, including withdrawal of overt US support, so there is an upper limit to the intensity with which they can maintain their current campaign.

I assume that, while a similar threshold may exist with regards to Hezbollah’s infliction of civilian casualties on Israel, that Hezbollah lacks the capability to take the battle to Israel in the same fashion that Israel has the capability to take the battle to South Lebanon.

I conclude:

1. No international peacekeeping force, ad-hoc, UN, NATO or US, will take on either Hezbollah or Israel.

2. There is sufficient incentive for both Hezbollah and Israel to agree to a ceasefire in which Hezbollah stops rocket launches and Israel withdraws from South Lebanon.

3. There is insufficient incentive to speed up the implementation of such a ceasefire: at its current level the violence benefits both Hezbollah and Israel. More Lebanese civilians have to die before the international community, in this case primarily the US, decides that a threshold has been passed in which Israel must be pressured to participate in three-way negotiations.

4. All solutions will not be long term.

the poster seems unable or unwilling to distinguish between a democracy that is striking back at terrorists, and terrorists who attacked a democracy (Eamonn)

The post is about war crimes. A crime is a particular act and its status as a crime is not dependent on the status of the person who commits it. If you don’t like this principle, perhaps you ought to set up your own legal system under which people are judged differently just because of who they are, rather than anything they have done, preferably a long way away from Planet Earth.

dan…that last post was silly. Hezbollah, whatever it has in its platform, is not trying to drive Israeli civilians out of Galilee through terror rocketing. It has no hope of doing so, and it doesn’t really have any territorial ambitions in Israel, which would be absurd and unrealistic. What it’s doing is trying to use its strategic deterrent in retaliation for Israeli attacks on it.

It’s more logical to compare its use of rockets against Israel to the US threat to use nuclear weapons against the Warsaw Pact in retaliation for a conventional invasion of Western Europe. The IDF has total superiority over Hezbollah conventional forces; Hezbollah thinks one way to stop IDF attacks is to retaliate against Israeli civilians, using weapons it knows the IDF can’t stop. The US’s plans to use nukes against the Russkies were pretty much the same thing.

In regards to #36 Engels:

International Law is something all together different. For the sake of brevity, there are two types of International Laws. The laws created when nation states sign treaties and the laws enforced by nation states. If a nation state has not signed a treaty, it is not bound by the rules of the treaty. At this point the only way a non-signatory can be bound by the rules of a treaty, is if the treaty is enforced by nations who have signed.

Evidence of this “extraordinary care” please?

How about the 48-hour suspension of air force bombing of Hezbollah targets, pending investigation of a single alleged incident of an Israeli bomb hitting a civilian target? As far as I know, such a suspension for the sake of investigating a case of civilian casualties is completely unprecedented in the annals of warfare.

Have you not read the HRW report?

Frankly, I’d say HRW didn’t exactly cover themselves with glory in their investigation of the “Gaza beach incident”. I’ll wait for word from less credulous investigators before passing judgment.

Hezbollah, whatever it has in its platform, is not trying to drive Israeli civilians out of Galilee through terror rocketing. It has no hope of doing so, and it doesn’t really have any territorial ambitions in Israel, which would be absurd and unrealistic.

In other words, its official position, regular proclamations of intent, and current military actions, all demonstrate that one of their key goals is to drive Israeli civilians out of the Galilee (all of Israel, in fact). But because you don’t think they can manage it, that must not be their intent.

I’m curious—is there anything, anything at all, that Hezbollah could possibly do that might convince you that they mean what they constantly say? Or is your mind simply closed to that possibility?

Hezbollah thinks one way to stop IDF attacks is to retaliate against Israeli civilians, using weapons it knows the IDF can’t stop.

So just what was Hezbollah doing when it launched that raid into Israeli territory on July 12th, accompanied by a barrage of rockets on an Israeli border town? Attempting to deter the counterattack it expected in response? Again, is there anything—anything at all—that Hezbollah could do that might persuade you of its aggressive intentions towards Israel? Or would, say, a nuclear attack simply be more “deterrence of Israeli aggression”?

Dan wrote:
In other words, its official position, regular proclamations of intent, and current military actions, all demonstrate that one of their key goals is to drive Israeli civilians out of the Galilee (all of Israel, in fact). But because you don’t think they can manage it, that must not be their intent.

Contradictory as it may seem, I think that’s essentially correct. Hezbollah does not now, and will not have in the foreseeable future, the ability to drive Israeli civilians out of all Israel. Whatever the rank and file may think, Hezbollah leadership knows this very well.

precision weapons are not that precise—and a miscue of even ten meters can make a huge difference. This is what happened at Qana.

I think there’s a real problem here where the US and Isreal love to brag and put footage on CNN about how precise their weapons are. So now everyone in the Arab world takes them at their word and believes the weapons are, in fact really prceise. And so when they miss by 10m, everyone in the Arab world assumes they didn’t miss.

Maybe if the US and Isreal started saying “actually our bombs kinda suck, but we’re doing our best” things would be better than saying “our bombs are teh awesome!”

“So just what was Hezbollah doing when it launched that raid into Israeli territory on July 12th, accompanied by a barrage of rockets on an Israeli border town? Attempting to deter the counterattack it expected in response? Again, is there anything—anything at all—that Hezbollah could do that might persuade you of its aggressive intentions towards Israel? Or would, say, a nuclear attack simply be more “deterrence of Israeli aggression”?

Hezbollah said they has expected the usual response to the kidnapping. They were intended for bargaining. The rocket barrage occurred later. The Israelis have been planning this operation for over a year. waiting for an excuse. Also: On June 24 Israel kidnapped two men in Gaza (they also have a long history of kidnappings, in Lebanon and the occupied territories) And do you think this has absolutely nothing to do with the occupation or the refusal of Israel or the US to accept the democratic process that brought Hamas into government? Israel has crossed the Blue Line 11,000 plus times since 2000. This is all on record.
The Israelis are now destroying the god damn country.

It is in the interest of conservative zionists to argue that their enemies want to wipe them off the map. Rhetoric aside this argument is absurd. Israel has the bomb. As I said above:
The issue is the contempt of Israel for it’s neighbors, and the racism of the right of return for people like me?! that has sent families out of their homes. Why no binational state? The refusal of discussion is itself acknowledgment of the secondary status of Israeli Arabs. Why the logic of Haidar and Le Pen? Mr Simon, please explain it to me as a jew. I’m having a lot of fun recently listening to Dixiecrat arguments from supposed liberals, so why not one from a Likudnik. Explain it to me.

Hezbollah has committed war crimes but imagine if the US had driven the Native American population of the mid and southwest into Mexico where they were stuck in refugee camps for 50 years. Imagine the US bombing of Mexico City.

Oh Yes, but the Jews are a special case.
No we are not.

Can anyone demonstrate that Israeli targetting is any worse than US or UK targetting in recent conflicts?

Judging from the admittedly scrappy information we have about actions in Iraq, it seems likely that Israel is doing better than the US. (But hey, the Americans do better than the Russians.) What UK actions do you have in mind?

There is no convincing evidence that the targetting of civilians is a deliberate policy….

I think you may be targetting a straw man there. I haven’t heard anyone allege that the IAF sets out to kill civilians. But there is plenty of evidence that they take very little care to avoid killing them. The HRW report is a good place to start; note, in particular, the published comments of Israeli officials.

I do not believe [Dan Simon] actually read what I wrote.

Elliott, a glance upthread will surely convince you that he hasn’t read the HRW report either. He’s trolling, as usual. If and when his comments are deleted, it will be hard to make sense of your’s.

I haven’t heard anyone allege that the IAF sets out to kill civilians.

Hmm, I thought that was a pretty common allegation. They tell people to leave and then hit their cars on the roads as they flee. They hit an ambulance. They killed the UN observers who were sitting there in the same bunker for 20 years.

I thought that was the whole idea: to destroy some property and kill some people so that they all realize that messing with Israel is not good for them. Similar to the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999. Plus some domestic benefit for the ruling coalition.

Elliott,
I wrote that Hezbollah does not have the ability to drive Israeli civilians out of all Israel. This is not speculation. This is an empirical fact.

I’m not sure I agree. I don’t know what exactly Dan meant there, but perhaps their hope is that if a couple of million Israelis decide that it’s not worth the trouble and move back to their Zhmerinkas, the whole thing might unravel. And it’s not that far-fetched.

#51

I believe the official position is that Zionists are usurpers, invaders, occupiers etc. and that Hezbollah stands in solidarity with the Palestinian cause (good for them) but would not sabotage a peace. Nasrallah himself has said he is prepared to accept a two-state settlement between Israel and Palestine. Meanwhile Israel exists and a Palestinian state does not, still. So the consequential political question about empirically un-falsifiable beliefs is whether Israel recognizes a right of Palestinian statehood, not some other way around.

Electronic Lebanon

I wrote that Hezbollah does not have the ability to drive Israeli civilians out of all Israel. This is not speculation. This is an empirical fact.

I wrote that Hezbollah will not have this ability in the foreseeable future. This is speculation, but informed speculation, and essentially undisputed speculation.

On the contrary, Hezbollah disputes your “speculation” all the time. Constantly. Consistently.

I know this. You know this. Hezbollah leadership knows this. Think what you will of their morals, but they are perfectly capable of assesing Israel’s military capabilities.

They are, but their assessment may in fact differ markedly from yours. Is this utterly inconceivable to you?

I don’t condemn Israeli policy because I celebrate Hamas, or Hezbollah. You do the reverse; and that’s irresponsible and immoral.

The invasion was started after a small military operation which Israel has used as an excuse to send more than half a million people from their homes and to destroy the infrastructure of an already unstable country. The attack was planned over a year ago, all that was needed was an excuse.

You defend all this- everything!- by saying that we both have the right to land in Israel, more right than the families that still have the deeds, though they now live somewhere else.
And you talk to me about morality? Civility?

You’re a German demanding Lebensraum in the east.

“Israel has almost succeeded in doing what the Germans and the rest of Europe failed to do: destroy Jewish culture.”

I no longer care.

The “witnesses” were all either Hezbollah members, supporters, or under Hezbollah “protection”…

As the HRW being taken to sites that have no sign of “weapons” … well duh! Do you really think Hezbollah would take them to locations that haven’t yet been cleansed of their “military” or terror assets?

Anonymous – why do you hate inverted commas?

In a comment to a previous post Dan Kervick suggested that Israel is resigned to fighting its enemies in perpetuity and that it will die if it stops fighting.

Such a position would be understandable and as a summary of the nation’s thinking I fear it is correct. That has a bearing on the justice of the current war on Lebanon. If lasting peace broke out tomorrow Olmert might count as some sort of genius.

If, as seems more likely, this just upsets more people and kicks the problem of an aggressive neighbour a few years into the future before the process has to be repeated, it looks much less forgiveable.

Worse, it looks unwise even from a narrow Israeli interest even assuming that interest doesn’t value non-Israeli lives. Demographics and time are not on Israel’s side in its conflict with established and active enemies. Maintaining good relations with Israel is becoming more politically expensive in well behaved countries such as Egypt and until there is more peace in the middle East oil money will flow to hostile people.

I thought it received wisdom that Sharon shared such an analysis and he was meeting the challenge by imposing a peace unilaterally, hence the withdrawal from Gaza and so on. The current action makes it more likely that a change in relationship will be catastrophic. It looks like a gambler’s ruin or living by the sword and Olmert is being weak and procrastinating by failing to accept such realities.

This war shares with the war in Iraq a lack of publicly defined aim. Recovering kidnapped soldiers, degrading Hezbollah’s capacity, self-defence and so on have all been mentioned but also overtaken by events. Without such a commitment there is no accountability at home or elsewhere.

If the goal was the introduction of an international peace keeping force in some kind of buffer zone, that would surely have been easier before the war. If self defence in the short term it has backfired sectacularly. If the return of the two soldiers it has been ineffective and counterproductive and provided perverse incentives.

Without an aim, defenders of the war are buying a goat in a sack. An appeal to rights of self defence are not enough on their own.

Daniel, I’m surprised that you think Israel’s behavior in this war is significantly different from their behavior in either the recent or more distant past. They were if anything far more ruthless in the 1982 war and they’ve been pretty careless with their bombs in Lebanon both before and after 1982. Amnesty International and a Dutch general investigating for the UN both thought their previous slaughter at Qana in 1996 looked deliberate. In the current intifada they’ve killed more civilians than militants and in the fighting in the spring of 2002 Amnesty International and HRW said they were guilty of war crimes. And Israel is a Jewish state because of massive war crimes in 1948 (not that their enemies wouldn’t have committed similar crimes if they’d won).

And of course there’s Sharon’s whole career to consider. A country which is as fanatical about its purity of arms as Israel pretends to be wouldn’t have allowed Sharon to run around loose, let alone finally elected him Prime Minister.

I get equally frustrated with people who talk as though America never had any connection with torture until Bush came along. It seems to be a rule of etiquette that when criticizing a democratic country for war crimes they are currently committing, you are supposed to make the criticism more palatable by pretending that the current atrocities are incompatible with their previous glorious tradition of scrupulous adherence to the laws of war.

It occurs to me that going through a short history of Israel’s sins might be violating some CT code about not rehashing every crime committed by one side or the other when the I/P topic comes up. If so, sorry, but it seemed relevant. If someone had said that Hezbollah’s indiscriminate rocket attacks were squandering their moral credibility, I imagine we’d all scratch our heads in unison and wonder what credibility was being squandered. The same is true here. Israel drops bombs on civilians in Lebanon. This is supposed to be a break from past practice?

(ii) They underestimate Israeli military strength. This is possible. However the (lack of) results of the current campaign to date, and remarks by IDF commanders and international analysts, indicate that Hezbollah was well-prepared for the Israeli attack. This indicates, on the leadership level, Hezbollah’s ability to accurately assess the military capacity of Israel. It certainly does not indicate a structural and fundamental underestimation of Israel’s abilities relative to theirs.

Presumably Hezbollah’s leaders didn’t expect to be able to hold off the Israeli army’s initial all-out assault, once it occurred. That doesn’t mean they don’t believe that a long-term attrition strategy won’t eventually cause Israel to collapse like a “spider’s web”.

‘That doesn’t mean they don’t believe that a long-term attrition strategy won’t eventually cause Israel to collapse like a “spider’s web”.’

I suppose the example here would be the Afghanistan war. It’s certainly the closest analogy.

But one quick look at it will show that the example evaporates like, ahem, a spider’s web in the rain and wind.

1: Afghanistan was highly unusual. Most countries that lose wars of insurgency (France, the UK, the US in Vietnam) do not actually cease to exist afterwards. On the contrary, most of them actually bounce back quickly and end up being much better off after the war than before.

2: For this example to be meaningful you would have to claim that the SOLE reason for the USSR’s collapse was Afghanistan and that if Afghanistn had not happened the USSR would still be here (a remarkable proposition, and one not believed by most experts in the subject)

3: The ‘Soviet Union’ did cease to exist. But let’s get a sense of proportion here. The ‘Soviet Union’ after all, was simply a name people used for ‘Russia’. RUSSIA didn’t cease to exist. It’s like saying that because Burma has changed her name to Myanmar, that therefore Burma has ceased to exist.

Of course, the counter argument is that it doesn’t matter what ‘is’ the case it’s what Hizbollah believe to be the case. But who gives a shit? In international affairs it’s what IS the case that matters not what people believed. Bush believed that there were WMDs in Iraq. He was wrong about that. He also (apparently) believed that he could quickly transform Iraq into a peaceful democracy like Sweden. He was wrong about that, too. The US is the richest, most powerful state the world has ever seen. The US nonetheless failed to turn their rhetoric into reality. This goes doubly for a (comparatively) poor guerilla movement like Hizbollah. If Hizbollah actually believe that they can ‘defeat’ Israel (i.e. make it cease to exist) via a strategy of attrition, then best of luck to them but it ain’t EVER going to happen.

Dan Simon writes: ‘They are, but their assessment may in fact differ markedly from yours. ’

True but who gives a shit? They’re just wrong. Everyone knows it and if they think otherwise they are as deluded as Bush (no mean feat).

There is a fundamental point here. Various people went ballistic on this blog a few weeks ago (not least Oliver Kamm) because Chomsky suggested that we should look not at what people say but what they do and what they are capable of doing. Kamm seemed to think this was akin to blasphemy, Islamo-nazism and whatever. But it is certainly true. On the contrary, in my opinion, anyone who thinks differently is nuts. Various ‘Islamofascists’ may well indicate their desire to ‘obliterate’ Israel. Again, so what? I can sit here and say ‘I can fly! With my huge feathery wings!’. That statement neither makes my wings, nor the ability to fly, any more real.

Hizbollah’s statements about their aims should be ignored. Ipso facto, Israeli statements about the IDF being ‘the most moral army in the world’ should be taken about as seriously as Hitler’s similar claims about the German Army. Rhetoric doesn’t matter. Words don’t matter. Deeds, actions, facts on the ground: these matter.

Surely this at least is completely obvious to everyone?

Er…no Kevn it’s you who is losing the run of yourself. Here’s a statement which is an accurate precis of what I said.

‘Statements made by military spokesmen are irrelevant. Specific subjects about which their statements are irrelevant include, military successes, assessments as to how well their army is doing, and the morality of the army on whose behalf they are speaking. The only accurate guage of these issues is not rhetoric from either side, but the facts on the ground.’

Now that’s clearly what I was saying. Now this is what you thought I said (although I clearly neither said nor implied it):

‘The IDF is morally identical to the Wehrmacht’.

Do you see the difference?

‘Also, words do matter’. No they don’t, unless there is an overwhelming reason to think that they do. When Israel threatens to bomb Beirut this matters because I know they can and because they have done similar things in the past. When Hizbollah threatens to bomb Tel Aviv, that depends entirely on whether they have the weapons to do this. They might: they might not, I don’t know. But merely the fact that they said it by itself is irrelevant.

Likewise threats by Hizbollah etc. to ‘eliminate’ Israel (or whatever it is) don’t upset or surprise me. They don’t even interest me. It’s just words. So what? They have neither the technical or political ability to do so, and they never will, so that’s the end of the story. Their rhetoric should be of no more interest to any sane person than a schizophrenic’s claim that he is Napoleon or Jesus Christ.

Ipso facto, Israel’s claims to not be invading Lebanon (when they clearly are) and not to be destroying Lebanon (when they clearly are) and not to be targetting civilians (when they clearly are) should equally be completely ignored.

Words are nothing, actions everything.

Read Juan Cole.

Well, ragout, the whole concept of war crimes is probably ridiculous. Not that I want to throw it out, but in practice there’s no court that can enforce them against the powerful, so the rules are only applied to the defeated and to relatively low-ranking people for PR purposes. Until there is consistent enforcement, the accusation just means that under a set of rules we find just and reasonable, faction X is guilty of war crimes.

I think that Israel should follow the 4 Geneva Conventions, and Hague Convention, and other treaties they’ve signed, which of course they do. These treaties have proved to be workable means of reducing the harms of war, discouraging guerrilla activity, and achieving other good things. An example of what I mean by workable as that many countries follow the Conventions and treat prisoners of war decently not only for moral reasons, but because they want other their enemies to reciprocate, and because they want to encourage enemy soldiers to surrender.

As far as I can tell, banning “reprisals,” and demanding “proportionality,” would simply mean banning war. Was the US response to Pearl Harbor “proportional?” Was it a “reprisal?” Has there ever been a war without reprisals? While it might be nice to ban war, treaties to do that have proved unworkable.

So these alleged laws of war have done nothing at all to reduce the harms of war, and I think the constant invocation of bogus laws of war has caused some harm, by making the real laws of war seem ridiculous.

A more comprehensive view of the whole situation (via Maxspeak) here.

This I did not know:

In June 2006, Ayatollah Khamenei issued an official declaration stating that Iran agrees with the Arab countries on the issue of Palestine, meaning that it accepts the 2002 Arab League call for full normalization of relations with Israel in a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus. The timing suggests that this might have been a reprimand to his subordinate Ahmadenijad, whose inflammatory statements are given wide publicity in the West, unlike the far more important declaration by his superior Khamenei.

Whether or not they rise to the level of “war crimes”, it seems fairly evident that Israel’s responses to Hezbollah have often been reckless. Like NATO in Kosovo and Serbia, they are putting civilians at risk in an effort to minimize their exposure. But, unlike NATO, Israel’s own civilians (in a cruel twist, many of them Arabs or Muslims) are daily targets of Hezbollah’s missiles (“rockets” makes them sound like a 4th of July celebration). Here is a telling report on what Israel is facing from today’s report on the raid in Tyre.

The apartment appeared to be a family residence. A framed photograph of a woman and a child was on a bedside table, and a wardrobe was full of men’s suits. Talcum powder stood on a table. In another room, a picture of Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, was propped next to a computer — not at all unusual in this town, where his image is ubiquitous above couches and in town squares.
But Hezbollah fighters mingle smoothly with the population here, and after the fight, the apartment bore unmistakable signs that fighters had holed up in the building. The rooms were littered with rocket-propelled grenades, several launchers, a machine gun and ammunition. The Israelis had apparently fired into it, singing its walls. Blood and bullet marks scored the walls and floors…
Israeli officials said the raid focused on a Hezbollah command cell that was responsible for firing the two long-range rockets that hit the Israeli coastal town of Hadera on Friday…

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/world/middleeast/06mideast.html?

In June 2006, Ayatollah Khamenei issued an official declaration stating that Iran agrees with the Arab countries on the issue of Palestine, meaning that it accepts the 2002 Arab League call for full normalization of relations with Israel in a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus.

You neglected to mention that you’re quoting Noam Chomsky here. Or did you realize what that would do to your claim’s credibility?

Here’s what Khamenei actually said:

We have friendly and good ties with the Arab world. The most important issue in Arab society is the Palestinian cause. On this issue, we speak openly about whatever they have in their hearts. We have a very clear and transparent position on the Palestinian cause and Arab nations like this position wholeheartedly. They feel proud when we voice that position.

So there you have it: Khamenei said that the Arab world agrees with him about Palestine, and Chomsky rephrased that as Khamenei agreeing with the Arab world, adding the wholly unwarranted inference that Khamenei endorses the 2002 Arab league proposal.

Nice try, though.

For those who ignore Chomsky, here’s another source for the issue of Iran accepting the Arab League proposal, an article in The American Prospect.

“The Iranian proposal also offered a sweeping reorientation of Iranian policy toward Israel. In the past, Iran had attacked those Arab governments that had supported the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and Tehran had supported armed groups that opposed it. But the document offered “acceptance of the Arab League Beirut declaration (Saudi initiative, two-states approach).””