LET US BEGIN BY LOOKING AT TWO RELATED IMAGES.
What is the difference between a Hamas rocket – for that is what a mortar really is – and an Israeli rocket fired from a plane (helicopter or jet)?
Hamas’ mortars are similar to the Katusha’s fired at communities in Israel’s north in the 60s and 70s. They were similar, albeit of shorter range, than the nazi’s V-bombs aimed at England. They lacked any specific targeting capability; what they hit depended on where they (mortars, Katushas, and V-bombs) lost speed and fell to earth.
Israel’s air-to-ground rockets incorporate highly accurate targeting computers. (The U.S. uses similar technology.) These computer-guided missiles can hit a single building that could be next door to a hospital, causing little, if any, damage to the hospital.
Will there be “collateral” damage? Will non-combatants be endangered? Possibly.
However, in the case of Hamas, if the terrorists can be believed, ALL Gazans support Hamas and are prepared to die for the organization . . . as they proved by mobbing the border fence with Israel, knowing some would die for their misguided efforts.
(Even then, Israeli snipers tried to target only known Hamas “solders.” Had Israel wanted to massacre those Gazans massing at the fence it would have been both easy and bloody beyond measure – and the world would have reason to condemn Israel.)
Mortars vs. smart missiles
A little background on the mortar image at the beginning of this effort.1
Terrorist fired more than 27 mortars at communities in southern Israel on Tuesday morning (5/28/18) in what appeared to be the largest single barrage fired since Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014.
Palestinian sources said earlier that Hamas and Islamic Jihad have evacuated posts throughout Gaza, fearing an Israeli strike. (Ed. Leaving civilians in harms way.)
Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the salvo, saying it was in response to the death of three operatives in IDF shelling on Sunday.
"This is a blessed retaliation. Our people's blood is not cheap," Islamic Jihad spokesman Daoud Shihab said.
A resident of Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha sustained minor injuries and one of the mortars landed near a kindergarten in the Eshkol Regional Council shortly before it opened. Anxious residents said the community narrowly escaped a tragedy.
Tensions on the Israel-Gaza Strip border have been steadily rising since Hamas, the terrorist group that controls the coastal enclave, launched a border riot campaign on March 30 in protest of a decadelong blockade on Gaza.
Israel and Egypt imposed the blockade after Hamas seized control of the Strip from its rival faction, Fatah, in 2007 in a military coup.
Former Defense Minister Amir Peretz (Zionist Union) said, "This morning's mortar barrage represents a security escalation the likes of which we have not seen since Operation Protective Edge. The IDF must react forcibly, even more than before. Regardless of whether this was Hamas or Islamic Jihad – Hamas is the sovereign in Gaza and it must be held accountable."
Peretz, a Moroccan, is the "father" of the Iron Shield anti-missile system.
About a “proportional response”
In a blog on the Times of Israel site, Robby Berman2 contends that people faulting Israel for failing to use “proportional” response to an attack is “crazy.”. He cites as an example the following:
If someone starts stabbing strangers on the street with a switch blade would it be immoral for a policeman to come armed with a gun to stop him and to use it if necessary? Must the cop come with equal force by brandishing only a knife? If a burly brute begins to beat people to a pulp is only one police officer allowed to try to take him down or can 5 cops jump on him?
Repeat after me: Proportional does not mean equal.
Perhaps crazy-talk critics recommend we turn off our Iron Dome missile defense system to allow more Israelis to die to even up the score? To them I say perhaps not.
Before anyone rants about “police brutality in the U.S.,” yes, there are some cops that abuse their authority, but my first born is a cop who does not abuse his authority. I’ve known a few cops who never should have been cops.
Howard Schweber, in a blog on HuffPost3 seems to have well-researched his material before publishing it. Unfortunately, careful reading shows his bias.
Schweber writes that
There are at least three distinct ways of thinking about proportionality; the test of “unnecessary” collateral damage; the test of imaginable future harm the risk of which might be reduced; and the Article 51(5) test that balances anticipated military gains against civilian cost and imposes what might be called a principle of precision in the design of military operations. Each of these tests is applied in two distinct ways: jus ad bellum, the justification for initiating military action which essentially becomes a test of what triggers a right of self-defense; and jus in bello, the test of proportionality applied to the choice of means employed in a military operation.
The blog, while trying to appear neutral vis-a-vis the Israel-Hamas conflict (can war be declared on a non-nation?), the bottom line is that Israel repeatedly is the “bad guy” while Hamas simply is retaliating for Israel’s latest attack.
In discussions of the proportionality of means, Israel and its supporters often argue that there is a clear distinction: Hamas’ rockets, no less than its earlier suicide bombers, deliberately target civilians, while Israel causes civilian deaths only as a secondary consequence of its pursuit of other, military aims. The argument is partly irrelevant; predictable civilian deaths, if excessive (applying any of the several measures of excessiveness) are a basis for finding a violation of proportionality. Beyond that observation, however, neither element of the distinction that Israel draws holds up very well. Hamas’ rocket attacks employ Qassam and, more recently, recently, Grad rockets. While it is demonstrably true that these are weapons that can hit Ashkelon and Beer Sheva, they are not precision GPS or laser-guided munitions, they are basically “point-and-fire” weapons, which is why so many of them used to land in empty fields. Lately both the technology and the skill (gained through practice) have improved so that now rockets launched from Gaza have a good chance of hitting a target the size of a city. This demonstrates an “intent” to cause civilian casualties in a general sense, but perhaps not in the particular sense that is demonstrated by a suicide bomber standing in the entrance to a crowded nightclub.
What, one must ask, are “excessive predictable civilian deaths?” These are the deaths of Gazans hiding in (UN) schools and hospitals used by Hamas as missile launching sites for attacks on Israeli civilians?
How many civilian deaths – Israeli or Muslim – constitute as “excessive.” Are the deaths from a bomb in a nightclub in Israel “excessive?” Are the deaths of – by Hamas’ own admission – 50 of its “solders” crowing the Israel-Gaza border fence “excessive?” (Had the IDF simply opened fire on the people crowing the barrier, how many would have died? Had the IDF used non-lethal means to push Gazans back – e.g., fire hoses – how many Israelis would have been killed by Hamas bullets? Would that be an “excessive” number?
Was Dresden “proportional” to the nazis’ attacks on English civilian centers?
Were Hiroshima and Nagasaki “proportional” to Pearl Harbor and the Bataan Death March?
Did either Dresden or the bombs shorten the war?
“Proportionality” may, in the end, depend on an individual’s political point of view,
Sources
1. Israel HaYom (http://tinyurl.com/yamxgph9)
2. Times of Israel (http://tinyurl.com/y8h3f8gx)
3. HuffPost (http://tinyurl.com/y7r5akzc )
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