Maverick Philosopher

Hi mAc,

What? The IDF obviously has to defend the Israeli citizenry, so some use of force is clearly necessary. Israel needs to use all the force necessary to smash Hezbollah and Hamas. Of course, this will result in unintended collateral damage, and in plain English, the death of Lebanese noncombatants. But these Lebanese bear some responsibility for the fact that Hezbollah is part of the gov't. They either voted for them, or didn't vote against them.

"What would you say to the argument that this is only going to be counterproductive and further embroil Israel in conflict?" One of the crucial points here is that nothing Israel does makes any difference to the terrorists. Their stated aim is the complete destruction of Israel. Israel has made numerous conessions. They have withdrawn from Gaza and from Lebanon. What response do they get? More attacks! The Arabs perceive any reasonable behavior such as concessions and withdrawals as weakness. Perceived weakness incites them to ever more violence.

Your imagined interlocutor (not you) is spouting defeatist nonsense. It is as if people had said, "Any attempt to stop Hitler will only cause more violence and more people to become Nazis."

What libs and lefties never do is give a concrete, workable, alternative. As I see it, there is no alternative to realizing that we are in a GWOT, WWIV, that it must be won and that this involves resolute resistance to Islamic terrorism and the toppling of the gov'ts of its state sponsors, e.g., Iran.

If you disagree, give me your alternative.

What's even more appalling is that the terrorist groups deliberately increase the collateral damage by hiding behind their own civilians in order to provoke more outcry against Israel. This whole culture of violence has taught them to value their own lives as little as the lives of the Isrealis. I feel sorry for those growing up in a culture and ideology that uses and abuses life this way.

But the fact that libs defend this culture...what excuse is there for defending people's 'rights to their own beliefs' when those beliefs are killing them and those around them?

I see it more like the man who came to the door to rob the house is a drug addict. He is slowly killing himself, abusing his family and trying to kill you too. You have the right and the responsiblity to shoot him, but hopefully you do it with a sigh of regret and pity.

For some (presumably leftist) counterpoint, read this. From the obviously true statement

One of the crucial points here is that nothing Israel does makes any difference to the terrorists.

it does not, for me, follow that it is fruitful to bomb Lebanon the way Israel does.

In addition, I am not so sure about your comparison, Bill, with a thug breaking in one's house: in the situation in the Middle-East, when looking at its history since 1948, there are no such easy distinctions anymore in who is the aggressor and who is the defender. (With this I do not mean to defend violence on either side!) The situation has become such, that, as you mention, it does not really matter anymore what Israel (or the Palestinians!) are doing, both sides just are not ready to try and solve this mess any other way than with force.

Thanks Franklin, for expanding the comparison so that it makes more sense, at least to me: indeed Israel and the Palestinians are surrounded by and filled with mailmen, a fact that complicates matters exceedingly. It is not just about one agressor faced with a defender.

I see the mailman not just as a 'collateral' victim but also as another party who is involved in a given situation. The metaphor of the mailman shows that certain actions of a defender can have wider consequences than just for the aggressor. I believe Israel should also take these into account.

Great post, Bill. What I find disturbing is the amount of second-guessing (some of it from conservatives) of Israel's strategy, even when no one can claim that Israel is doing anything remotely like committing atrocities in Lebanon. It seems that when it comes to Israel, if I don't think I'd prosecute the response that way, then there must be some deep, dark, unpleasant motives actuating Israel. Israel doesn't _really_ want to get rid of Hezbollah, because if she did she wouldn't bomb this bridge or that road. Or else, some imply, Israeli strategists are just dumb.

In fact, these are the two theories that have emerged in the (probably relatively moderate) EM thread: The first, the anti-Israel conspiracy theory, is that Israel really secretly wants Hizbollah to remain and just wants at all costs not to have a stable, peaceful Lebanon. This is because the latter would be an Arab democracy and would ruin Israel's attempts at stereotype-making. The second theory is that Israel, out of frustration, is just doing more or less irrelevant, destructive things that harm Lebanon but not Hezbollah (these being sharply distinct, of course) and that aren't in her own interests at all.

So now "excessive force" means "force directed at some target that I don't think is strategically best for the goal of getting rid of Hezbollah." Would conservatives try to nit-pick U.S. strategy under similar circumstances? It seems that the idea of holding Israel to high humanitarian standards now means critiquing their every military move. Frankly, it gives me the creeps. It's as if cynicism about Israel's motives is de rigeur not only on the Left but also in some camps on the Right. And it sure sounds to me from news reports like Israel is bombing plenty of relevant targets.

Thomas, I don't buy it. To use 'collateral damage' in the way you do is to debase the phrase. And the "sensitivity" of the region is largely the fault of the Islamic terrorists. I make no bones about saying this, though doubtless you'll disagree. If bad guys in a "politically sensitive" area start bombing the dickens out of their next-door neighbors, it's angeringly ridiculous to use the "sensitivity" of the region as an argument for the neighbors' sitting around and doing nothing.

The *Palestinians* taking "collateral damage" consequences into account??? Right. Good luck hoping for it. The Palestinians aren't some other legitimate side in a sad, sad war, both sides of which are a little inconsiderate! Those are the chaps that deliberately blow up civilians with suicide bombers, remember? Moral equivalency arguments and implicatory phrases are very...annoying.

And yes, there is a clear distinction between aggressor and defender. The enemies of Israel have refused to recognize her right to exist from the outset until now and are pursuing her destruction intentionally and explicitly. Israel is attempting to do no such thing. We should bother to keep such things straight instead of just vaguely talking about how complicated everything is.

Tim, Celinda, FS,

I'm glad to have you all on my side.

Thomas writes,

I am not so sure about your comparison, Bill, with a thug breaking in one's house: in the situation in the Middle-East, when looking at its history since 1948, there are no such easy distinctions anymore in who is the aggressor and who is the defender. . . . The situation has become such, that, as you mention, it does not really matter anymore what Israel (or the Palestinians!) are doing, both sides just are not ready to try and solve this mess any other way than with force.

When I said that it does not matter what Israel does, my point was that Israel's enemies oppose the very existence of Israel. Thus their hostility is not a function of specific acts of the 'Zionist entity' as they call it, but a function of its very existence, or at least its very existence in the Middle East. (One sol'n would be to move the 'Zionist entity' to the middle of Nevada [VBG]) But note: The Israelis do not oppose the very existence of a Palestinian state; what they oppose are the terrorist acts that some Palestinian Arabs commit against Israelis. There is a crucial difference here.
Don't forget Ehud Barak's generous offer at Camp David in 2000.

There is also a problem with going back to the events of 1948. For why stop there? A good part (the main part?) of the rationale for the founding of the state of Israel in '48 was the Holocaust. Now the Palestinian Arabs don't consider that to be relevant. Right? So why should anyone consider relevant what happened in '48, '67, or '73? Let's stick to the present. There was a particular act of unprovoked agression that occurred about a week ago. And it came from Hezbollah.

Thanks for your comment.

Lydia,

Thanks for joining the discussion. I am flattered to have the 'dynamic duo' of Lydia and Tim commenting on my humble blog.

You mention conservative second-guessing. Can you name some names?

Lydia is referring to Enchiridion Miltis and this post in particular. Joseph Sobran's site is here.

Terminological question. Aren't Israelis also Palestinians inasmuch as Israel is in Palestine? Isn't the correct term for Palestinians 'Palestinian Arabs'?

Bill, the terminology is a sticky wicket. I was using it in its contemporary sense. Of course, to an Englishman of 1900, "Palestine" meant the whole shebang, including _especially_ what we now mean by "Israel," and that terminology had been in place for many centuries.

But if you're going to use "Palestine" in that more ancient sense, then "Palestinian Arab" won't do for the group I meant to refer to as "Palestinians" in the contemporary sense. That's because that latter group are not Israeli citizens, whereas there are some Arabs living in the area of "Palestine" in that broader, older sense (which includes Israel proper) who _are_ citizens of the state of Israel. So there are "Palestinian Arabs" in the sense I take you to mean who aren't "Palestinians" in the contemporary sense.

I take the contemporary sense of the term to refer to those who are not citizens of Israel who identify themselves as somehow "belonging to" the "occupied territories" of the West Bank or of Gaza, which was of course one of those disputed territories until the unilateral withdrawal of Israel just recently. These would be either descendants of what were called the "refugees" after, e.g., the 6-Day war, or they would be newly imported people who claim to identify with those refugee descendants and who (unfortunately) have come to make trouble. How many of these latter there are I don't know. It seems that they have plenty of home-grown baddies there, sad to say.

Presumably the ancestors of these people were originally citizens of (e.g.) Jordan or Egypt. Why they weren't received and permanently relocated in their own countries of Jordan and Egypt as refugees way back when and the territories gained simply ceded to Israel (which gained them while responding to aggression from those countries) is one of those questions that I fear has a cynical answer.

I do know that the word "missionary" is virtually a dirty word in Turkey, despite its being supposedly such an "open" Muslim country. And as you say, missionary activity is illegal. As reported in a story linked from

www.thereligionofpeace.com

"honor suicides" are on the rise in Turkey. Turkey is trying to crack down on "honor killings"--murders of girls and women by their male relatives for various ostensible offenses to family honor. So the families are taking to locking such girls up with a gun, rat poison, etc., and telling them they have to commit suicide. Charming places, these Muslim nations.

About "proportionality" in your main post: I don't know if you knew, but it was just last year that Italy ditched (hopefully decisively) a law requiring "proportionality" in personal self-defense. Evidently this meant that you could not defend yourself from a knife attack by, e.g., using a gun. The European concept of "proportionality" in action!

And one more bit of trivia: One of the people that Hezbollah is demanding be released is a terrorist who beat a four-year-old girl to death with a gun. He's in an Israeli prison. Isn't this a _great_ argument for Israel to ditch its liberal policy on the death penalty? This guy wouldn't be around for them to try to negotiate about if he were pushing up daisies!

Lydia,

It's a hell of mess. The current bombing by Israel appears to be preparatory to a ground invasion. But how will the IDF find the Hezbollah fighters when they blend back into the civilian population?

What do you propose, Lydia? I think we agree that Hezbollah must be wiped out. There can be no negotiation with terrorists. But how wipe them out without inflicting massive civilian casualties? Therein lies the rub.

Hi Bill,

In reply to your request to Lydia a few posts back, an example of a prominent conservative who argues that Israel's response is unjust is Stephen Bainbridge. He makes his case in his latest TCS column.

See here: http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=071806E

Take Care

(By the way, Bill, I am curious about your time in Turkey. I have an aunt living in Israel so I have seen Israel and its surroundings, but I wonder how you experienced Turkish society.)

mAc: good point, I'm afraid you are right. As a matter of fact, for me this makes Bill's comparison understandable: when you are being attacked by someone who doesn't want anything but kill you, you're not going to talk them out of it. In recent history, then, in this view, Israel has defended its existence successfully - nothing more. In this manner they indeed are mere defenders, with the terrorists as mere agressors.

Still I am sensitive to Franklin's early comment on this subject. Can Israel fight the terrorists while at the same time avoiding mailmen (in the broad sense of the word)?

mAc,

Thanks for bringing up the O'Reilly point. I too saw that segment. Mr. O can be criticized for being sometimes anti-intellectual and lacking in nuance, but sometimes what is needed is moral clarity.

Israel is in a unique position since no other country's right to exist is questioned. But that is precisely what Israel's enemies deny: her right to exist. This changes everything, and is a reason why demands such as the one Kofi Annan made just this morning that Israel eschew 'excessive' force are absurd.

Does anyone question Iran's right to exist, or her right to be an Islamic state? No. And note that demanding regime-change in Iran -- something they are in dire need of -- is not the same as demannding that they be blown off the map.

But there would, IMO, be _less_ collective punishment and collateral damage in the plan I've espoused. Yes, refugees, but refugees put squarely onto the shoulders of their own country, which brought on the trouble. As it would be if the U.S. tried out of the blue to conquer Mexico (why would we want to, right?), lost a slice of New Mexico along the border, and had to relocate the consequently displaced Americans. We'd at least recognize our responsibility to do so.

The phrase "land-grab" would of course be used. But usually the conquest of territory is _expected_ in war and indeed is nearly of the essence of war. (Think of the game of Go.) It would be a "grab" if Israel just said, "Heck, we could use some land. Let's go take it from Jordan [or Lebanon, etc.]" But of course that's the last thing they'd do. They needed these wars like a hole in the head and didn't want to start them. But their enemies started right from the beginning lobbing ordinance right over the borders at the kibbutzim and saying, "Ha, what are you gonna do about it?" Considering that Israel is about the size of Southwest Michigan, it's in a sense all border. If the other guys want to pick a fight--as they have all along--it seems to me that conquering relatively small amounts of land in response and using it to secure one's existence as a country is perfectly just. But unfortunately the world won't recognize this. With her hands tied as they always have been, it's a wonder Israel has survived this long.

But Israel won't try to do what I'm proposing because they know full well that even President Bush isn't hawkish enough to support it, just though it be and more or less pro-Israel though he is. I wonder if any president of the U.S. has been.

I note that the Lebanese minister of defense has now declared that the Lebanese army will fight with Hizbollah if large numbers of Israeli ground forces move into southern Lebanon. So much for _that_ big distinction! If the Lebanese government had any good will and merely lacked power, they would at least get out of the way and let Israel do what they can't. But of course it turns out that they _like_ Hizbollah and won't let anyone else deal with them either, so all this "poor, poor Lebanon" stuff is a bunch of...baloney.