From Michael Yon

Huge Protests in West Bank Over Israeli Offensive in Gaza

"The Toll in Gaza and Israel, Day by Day

The daily tally of rocket attacks, airstrikes and deaths in the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Latest totals updated July 25
3,209
targets in Gaza
struck by Israel
800
Palestinian deaths
2,153
rockets launched at Israel from Gaza
36
Israeli deaths"

Oh, but that's not "proportional". /sarc

GO ISRAEL! 

Too bad Israel is so damned civilized.  I'd like to see them turn Gaza into a parking lot!

Doctrine Of Proportionality Explained

Since the most recent round of hostilities between Hamas and Israel a lot of pixels have been plastered on monitors. This is the best I've found yet:

"Proportionality in international law is not about equality of death or civilian suffering, or even about [equality of] firepower. Proportionality weighs the necessity of a military action against suffering that the action might cause to enemy civilians in the vicinity.

“Under international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute, the death of civilians during an armed conflict, no matter how grave and regrettable does not constitute a war crime…. even when it is known that some civilian deaths or injuries will occur. A crime occurs if there is an intentional attack directed against civilians (principle of distinction) or an attack is launched on a military objective in the knowledge that the incidental civilian injuries would be clearly excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage (principle of proportionality).” — Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Chief Prosecutor, International Criminal Court."- "“The greater the military advantage anticipated, the larger the amount of collateral damage — often civilian casualties — which will be “justified” and “necessary.”"

[---]

"Even among Israel’s friends – and some Israelis – a “yes, but…” response is common. “Yes” Hamas started it; “Yes” Hamas puts military infrastructure in civilian neighborhoods; “Yes” Israel is entitled to self-defense, “Yes” the Israelis warn Palestinians. “But” more than 240 Palestinians have been killed to date and only one Israeli has died directly from rocket fire.

Isn’t that the definition of “disproportionate?” No. It isn’t."

[---]

"Proportionality in international law is not about equality of death or civilian suffering, or even about firepower returned being equal in sophistication or lethality to firepower received. Proportionality weighs the military necessity of an action against the suffering that the action might cause to enemy civilians in the vicinity. A review of expert opinion – none of which was written in relation to Israel – helps to clarify."

[---]

"The principle of proportionality is embedded in almost every national legal system and underlies the international legal order. Its function in domestic law is to relate means to ends… In the conduct of war, when a party commits a lawful attack against a military objective, the principle of proportionality also comes into play whenever there is collateral damage, that is, civilian casualties or damage to a non-military objective… attacks are prohibited if they cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, or damage to civilian objects that is excessive in relation to the anticipated concrete and direct military advantage of the attack. This creates a permanent obligation for military commanders to consider the results of the attack compared to the advantage anticipated."

Exactly as Israel does when it aborts missions after finding civilians used as human shields on rooftops.

Proportionality Explained, Again

I've written on this before, myself. But here's an excellent article about the doctrine of proportionality in war.

"The notion that a lopsided casualty ratio between the IDF and Hezbollah or Hamas militants is sufficient evidence of some moral failing on the part of the IDF so radically departs from any recognizable understanding of the requirements of proportionality and so evidences a lack of moral seriousness that one cannot help but wonder whether something even more pernicious was involved."

 [---]

"Although the jus in bello principle of proportionality has to do almost entirely with the foreseen but unintended harm to noncombatants, there is one exception — although even that exception does not give Israel’s critics a leg to stand on. Scholarly discussions of proportionality often mention the avoidance of gratuitous harm"

[---]

"...the law of war requires that gratuitous harm against enemy combatants be avoided. This principle, explains Cohen, rests on the fundamental premise that “it is not the destruction of enemy forces, but the imposition of the nation’s will on the enemy that is the ultimate goal in warfare, and this can sometimes be accomplished by neutralizing enemy forces without destroying them.”"

[---]

"Why didn’t Annan and the other critics who claimed that Israel’s actions were not proportionate explicitly condemn with at least as much vigor Hezbollah’s systematic endangerment of civilians? Or do Annan and company believe that the hostage-shield tactics of terrorists and insurgents are required by “military necessity”? Walzer is right to suggest that before discussing issues of proportionality we should ask questions about responsibility; the matter of just who put noncombatants at risk in the first place is logically and morally prior to questions of proportionality."

[---]

"...when Hamas or Hezbollah fighters choose to fire rockets from heavily populated areas, when they deliberately choose to make a response to their rocket attacks morally difficult by hiding among civilians, or seek to ensure that a response will be condemned throughout the world, or decide to use civilians as human shields, “the primary responsibility for [civilian] deaths then falls on the Hezbollah or Hamas militants who were using them.”"

[---]

"This challenge to the laws of war on behalf of irregulars connects back to the issue of proportionality. The same argument that “military necessity” permits irregulars to eschew uniforms can be extended to operational behavior; perhaps it also allows irregulars to use babies and noncombatants as shields. By this topsy-turvy reasoning, a non-state actor would escape moral censure even though he completely disregards the principle of discrimination, but a military force that abides by the principle of discrimination both in refusing to target civilians and in refusing to use civilians as hostage shields would be subject to censure because its collateral damage is deemed disproportional. As Cohen remarked two decades ago,

'It is one of the striking oddities of contemporary politics and values that military necessity, so indignantly and unanimously rejected when it is brought in to justify the behavior of regular troops, should be so timidly readmitted through the back door when it is guerrillas who have come to call.'"

[---]

"...even if many of the victims were civilians, ... When non-state fighters and militants hide among civilians, they may well bear a greater responsibility for civilian deaths.”

[---]

"“the crucial means for limiting the scope of warfare is to draw a sharp line between combatants and noncombatants.”"

[---]

"...terrorism is “a concerted effort to blur this distinction so as to turn civilians into legitimate targets.”"

[---]

"Israel or any other country’s opposition to terrorist tactics can be vindicated by not engaging in terrorism. It can be vindicated by condemning without equivocation those who do. It can be vindicated by not using civilians as shields."

[---]

"Israel’s military actions in Gaza were preceded by “widely distributed warning leaflets, more than 150,000 warning phone calls to terrorists’ neighbors, and nonlethal warning fire — unprecedented efforts in every respect.”"

[---]

"...it is radical, indeed morally perverse, to claim that an army that strives to forewarn civilians fails, like terrorists hiding behind civilians, to behave morally."

[---]

"Walzer “encourages and enhances terrorism” in a practical sense by insisting that moral state actors assume new operational obligations to protect civilians, by providing a greater incentive for terrorists and insurgents to hide among civilians, and by even providing an incentive for terrorist sympathizers to offer themselves up as hostage shields."

[---]

"...those who willingly offer themselves to terrorists and insurgents as human shields, remains exactly where the traditional doctrine of double effect locates it: Never attack them directly. Never attack them as means to get at the enemy. And limit the unintended harm likely to fall upon them to that which is proportional to the just tactical and strategic objective. For the law of war to seek more than this is to incentivize what Paul Ramsey called the “wickedness” of using noncombatants as shields — and even the wickedness of terrorism itself."

ht: Sigmund, Carl and Alfred

Let's Revisit...

...this, shall we, leftards?

Given that Israel has put up with this nonsense since the very beginning of its existence and has yet to solve it, I would say they have not used the principle of proportionality.

"If the enemy is the aggressor, and you are defending your rights, especially your right to live, and live free from terror, then the aggressor has simply forfeited any right to life. The number of the aggressors it is legitimate to kill is whatever number of fatalities will permanently eliminate their threat, not just temporarily halt their current assault, but also their capability to resume their aggression at a future time of their choosing. And the more fanatical they are, the more of them it will prove unavoidable to eliminate, possibly every single one."

[---]

"Recall how King Hussein dealt with the PLO threat in Jordan in September 1970. Five to ten thousand PLO terrorists were killed, while the rest were expelled to Beirut, until Israeli intervention in 1982 sent them to Tunisia."

Which, I might add, with only a few exceptional incidents, has effectively solved Jordan's terrorist problem.

"The scale of force needed to defend freedom in any context depends solely on that available to those threatening freedom, not on the wishes of the media, NGOs, or politicians.

And while some 60,000 civilians in UK cities were slaughtered by Nazi bombers in WW II, the Allied aerial counter-offensive to eliminate that evil threat cost 600,000 German lives, a ratio of 10 to 1.  Dis-proportionate?

Some 600,000 German civilians were lost due to Allied bombings alone in World Wear II, nearly 1% of their pre-war population. A very large minority had voted for Hitler, as has also happened with the Palestinian Arabs and their neo-Nazi Hamas. The total German dead were 10.82%, which equals 154,592 Gaza Arabs.

The much lower Japanese 3.61% rate dead gives 51,578 for Gaza. By any standard, Gaza Arabs have suffered little, so far.

Notice, however, that both Japan and Germany suffered enough to never want a repeat their aggression."

That's right, leftards. Even with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the loss of life in Japan pales by comparison.

"But what moral or military or historical logic suggests Israel's response to Hamas' year-after-year bombing of Sderot Israel is “disproportionate”? Some 50% of Sderot's population of 25,000 have been wounded and traumatized, and half the population has left."

"A Just War is to eliminate a deadly threat. Hamas, a proxy of Iran , is such a threat. The “proportionate” casualties they take are whatever it takes to conquer them thoroughly, and to put an end to their capacity to attack Israel."

Consider also that Israel's enemies stretch far beyond Gaza's borders (and one of them is developing an atomic bomb) and her principle ally, the United States of America, the only one capable of mounting a sufficient force to defeat them, has turned its back and is now no longer interested in defending even its own interests. In fact, America's deliberate signal of weakness, indeed, the deliberate kowtowing of the entire Western world to Islamofascism, undoubtedly has contributed to what is now unfolding in the Eastern Mediterranean. Consider also, that even Egypt has a blockade against Gaza.

What is Israel supposed to do? Lie down and die? Would a rerun of Masada, 2000 years later, be enough for you? Are you that anxious to restore the bloody reign of the Caliphate and its age old dream of conquering the world? Could you really live with yourselves if you stood by and encouraged, aided and abetted the elimination of 37% of the world's Jewry? Hey.  Why not go for the gold, and wipe out Canada's and France's Jews, too.  You'll have achieved more than Hitler did. Imagine that!

Is it any wonder that the sane people in the world frequently use the word Nazi to describe you?