From: Jewish World Review July 20, 2006
Arithmetic of Pain
By ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ
Jewish World Review
There is no democracy in the world that should tolerate missiles
being fired at its cities without taking every reasonable step to stop
the attacks. The big question raised by Israel's military actions in
Lebanon is what is "reasonable." The answer, according to the laws of
war, is that it is reasonable to attack military targets, so long as
every effort is made to reduce civilian casualties. If the objectives
cannot be achieved without some civilian casualties, these must be
"proportional" to the civilian casualties that would be prevented by
the military action.
This is all well and good for democratic nations that deliberately
locate their military bases away from civilian population centers.
Israel has its air force, nuclear facilities and large army bases in
locations as remote as anything can be in that country. It is possible
for an enemy to attack Israeli military targets without inflicting
"collateral damage" on its civilian population. Hezbollah and Hamas, by
contrast, deliberately operate military wings out of densely populated
areas. They launch antipersonnel missiles with ball-bearing shrapnel,
designed by Syria and Iran to maximize civilian casualties, and then
hide from retaliation by living among civilians. If Israel decides not
to go after them for fear of harming civilians, the terrorists win by
continuing to have free rein in attacking civilians with rockets. If
Israel does attack, and causes civilian casualties, the terrorists win
a propaganda victory: The international community pounces on Israel for
its "disproportionate" response. This chorus of condemnation actually
encourages the terrorists to operate from civilian areas.
While Israel does everything reasonable to minimize civilian
casualties — not always with success — Hezbollah and Hamas want to
maximize civilian casualties on both sides. Islamic terrorists, a
diplomat commented years ago, "have mastered the harsh arithmetic of
pain. . . . Palestinian casualties play in their favor and Israeli
casualties play in their favor." These are groups that send children to
die as suicide bombers, sometimes without the child knowing that he is
being sacrificed. Two years ago, an 11-year-old was paid to take a
parcel through Israeli security. Unbeknownst to him, it contained a
bomb that was to be detonated remotely. (Fortunately the plot was
foiled.)
This misuse of civilians as shields and swords requires a
reassessment of the laws of war. The distinction between combatants and
civilians — easy when combatants were uniformed members of armies that
fought on battlefields distant from civilian centers — is more
difficult in the present context. Now, there is a continuum of
"civilianality": Near the most civilian end of this continuum are the
pure innocents — babies, hostages and others completely uninvolved; at
the more combatant end are civilians who willingly harbor terrorists,
provide material resources and serve as human shields; in the middle
are those who support the terrorists politically, or spiritually.
The laws of war and the rules of morality must adapt to these
realities. An analogy to domestic criminal law is instructive: A bank
robber who takes a teller hostage and fires at police from behind his
human shield is guilty of murder if they, in an effort to stop the
robber from shooting, accidentally kill the hostage. The same should be
true of terrorists who use civilians as shields from behind whom they
fire their rockets. The terrorists must be held legally and morally
responsible for the deaths of the civilians, even if the direct
physical cause was an Israeli rocket aimed at those targeting Israeli
citizens. LEBANON - A TERRORIST SAFE HAVEN
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