Gaza: Is Israel fighting a just war?

Grasping the ethics of the crisis requires us to understand properly the concept of proportionality

by Jeff McMahan / August 5, 2014 / Leave a comment

Israeli soliders: “If Israel were to abandon the aim of controlling territories to which it has no right, those who fire rockets into Israel would lose what sway they have.” © Israel Defense Forces

Introduction: setting the terms of the debate

Thus far in the war in Gaza, more than 1800 Palestinians have been killed, most of them apparently civilians. Sixty three Israeli soldiers, two Israeli civilians, and one foreign worker in Israel have also been killed. The great disparity between the casualties on the two sides raises the question of whether Israeli military action has been disproportionate. This question remains important even if the war is now coming to an end. I will argue that Israel’s action has indeed been disproportionate, though this will require an explanation of what proportionality is, as it is a notion that is widely misunderstood.

Despite the bombings of two Palestinian schools that the UN had designated civilian sanctuaries, I will assume that Israeli forces have not been attacking civilians intentionally. What I will argue is that the killing of Palestinian civilians as a foreseeable but unintended side effect of defensive military action has been disproportionate in relation to the aim of protecting Israeli civilians and soldiers from attacks by Palestinian fighters.

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Comments

JONATHAN_BURG
August 7, 2014 at 13:39
The article misdirects "proportionality", which refers to the legal principles governing achieving military objectives - not political ones,. A military objective such as targeting a terrorist leader or removal of a launch site, international law is pretty clear - with some distinctions on requirements for signatories to the '49 geneva conventions and the '70s additional geneva protocols, the balance is whether the loss of life is excessive to the military objective. Unfortunately the world has legalised the "omelette" justification for strikes. However the even if it's "legal", the hard question should be, when is restraint or action ethically mandated? When can a 'military objective' be set aside or overriden because it's secondary to the non-military goals or contexts?
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Jeff McMahan is a professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford. He is the author of “The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life” and “Killing in War.”