// essays //
Fall 2006
Proportion Distortion: Semantics and the War in Lebanon
Dov Friedman
A prominent trend regarding Israel's military campaign against Hezbollah is near unanimous agreement that Hezbollah's actions justified a military response, coupled with widespread divergence of opinion regarding whether Israel should be criticized for the methods of the campaign and its duration. Diplomats introduced the word "proportionality" into this debate, and it quickly became the war's buzzword, picked up by pundits and other analysts for in-depth discussion.
Though it may seem pedantic to define proportionate, let's do so to provide a frame of reference. Webster's defines proportionate as "properly related in size, degree, or other measurable characteristics." Literally speaking, a proportionate response to an attack is strictly a matter of numbers—the number of dead on one side measured against the number of dead on the opposing side; the number of civilian homes damaged by one side versus the number damaged by the other; or the dollar value of economic damage imposed by one side versus the economic penalty imposed by the other.
Is this what people really mean when they discuss whether or not Israel's response to Hezbollah aggression was proportionate? Are we to believe that people support a style of war in which one country waits for its adversary to attack and kill before proceeding to kill the exact same number on the other side? Of course not. Political discourse often co-opts words and uses them in ways that do not agree with their original meanings.
To identify the various ways in which 'proportionality' is understood, it's useful to examine the way it is used by four prominent figures who have written on the issue. Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post delves into proportionality through the lens of image or external perception. Although he uses the word 'disproportionate' to describe Israel's campaign, he conflates his assessment of the actual extent of damage with an analysis of media images, and places his emphasis on public perception of the damage and civilian death. Another Post columnist, Charles Krauthammer, focuses on moral proportionality. Krauthammer argues that the proportionality of Israel's actions should be evaluated in light of the fact that Hezbollah provoked the conflict, and in light of what he considers Israel's moral superiority. According to "just war" theorist Michael Walzer, the severity of war actions should be proportionate to the severity of the enemy's threat. Finally, for Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, the question of proportionality is the same as asking, "What are our legal limits and obligations in this war?" Dershowitz's response attempts to grapple with two concerns at once: the threat that Jihadism presents to democracies such as Israel and the United States, and the need to conduct war in a manner that is legal and moral. Thus, Dershowitz is the only writer of the four who does more than criticize: he presents a blueprint for military conduct.
In his article "Yes, It's Disproportionate," Robinson writes that Israel's campaign in southern Lebanon "can only be seen as collective punishment" and asks, "How can this utterly disproportionate, seemingly indiscriminate carnage be anything but counterproductive?" Robinson does not explain how he uses the word 'disproportionate,' but he illustrates the fact that it is disproportionate by referring to "video footage of grandmothers weeping amid the rubble of their homes and bloodied children lying in hospital beds." Moreover, Robinson speculates that this campaign is "creating more terrorists than it kills." He explains that public perception of disproportionate damage to the enemy fosters more support for the enemy and entrenches it. There is an obvious problem with this argument. Robinson conflates the issues of proportionality and public perception, and thus clouds his argument. In other words, he implies that proportionality is only a meaningful term if it explains how the public perceives the scale of attacks from the two sides. According to Robinson, because Israel can inflict, and has inflicted significantly more damage, its actions are perceived as, and thus must be, disproportionate. Therefore, while he claims to discuss proportionality, his analysis focuses largely on a different factor in the war: the public relations battle.
Two days after Robinson's column was published, Krauthammer published a column on the same op-ed page entitled "'Disproportionate' In What Moral Universe?" Krauthammer first rhetorically asks whether any other country that is attacked unprovoked—and in a manner designed specifically to inflict maximum civilian damage—is then summarily criticized when it tries to destroy the attacker. He writes that "to hear the world pass judgment on the Israel-Hezbollah war as it unfolds is to live in an Orwellian moral universe. With a few significant exceptions...the world...has completely lost its moral bearings." Krauthammer contends that "wanton" attacks from an aggressor justify fighting until the threat is completely disabled. He then points to what he considers the true disproportion in the war: the "radical moral asymmetry" between Hezbollah and Israel. According to Krauthammer, Israel has the moral high ground both as the defensive party in the immediate conflict and as a democracy fighting against a jihadist faction in a broader war between democracy and Islamic militants.
Krauthammer's argument would give Israel tremendous latitude to defend itself, but it shares the same weakness as Robinson's—it is based on a general, qualitative assessment of the conflict, and lacks any consideration of the specific challenges that Israel's army encounters in Lebanon. Why is the civilian death toll in Lebanon so high? Is the economic impact of the Israel's aerial bombardment necessary in order for Israel to accomplish strategic objectives? Krauthammer merely echoes current conservative rhetoric: we must recognize evil and we must hold nothing back in our attempt to uproot it. Even if this simplistic worldview is largely correct, it can only serve to guide the policies of a country willing to pursue foreign policy without the support of other countries, and without the support of many of its citizens, who demand a more nuanced analysis that does not simply condemn entire countries or movements as evil. Furthermore, even if Krauthammer's analysis can serve as post facto justification for the "morally superior" Israeli army, it provides little guidance for how the Israeli military establishment should think about collateral damage when conducting a war. Israeli strategic objectives might be best served by flattening Beirut, but as long as Israel concerns itself with the impact of its actions on enemy civilians, it will need more detailed moral guidance about how to act without unnecessarily hurting or endangering civilians.
Michael Walzer understands proportionality as a measure that is only meaningful in relation to the nature of the enemy's threat. This means that a simple disparity in the number of dead on each side does not constitute disproportionate response. Rather, proportionality can only be gauged in relation to the stated goals of the enemy and its ability to accomplish those goals. Thus, since Hezbollah openly calls for the destruction of Israel and can launch rockets to inflict significant damage and large numbers of casualties, proportionality must be determined based on that reality. One cannot argue that since Hezbollah has not been successful in its campaign, Israel cannot respond with wide scale attacks. As Walzer writes, "it doesn't matter that, so far, the Gazan [and Hezbollah] rockets have done minimal damage; the intention every time one is fired is to hit a home or a school, and, sooner or later, that intention will be realized."
Walzer also addresses some details of the current conflict, and he notes that in the war with Hezbollah civilian casualties are inevitable because Hezbollah embeds itself among civilians. Walzer posits that a military scenario in which soldiers have to fight militants in a heavily civilian area would challenge even a philosopher's dialectical skills. How are soldiers to grapple with the fact that civilians are being exploited by terrorists as shields, yet these very civilians are often complicit with, or even eager to aid Hezbollah? Walzer writes:
Israeli soldiers are not required to have dialectical skills, but, on the one hand, they are expected to do everything they can to prevent civilian deaths, and, on the other hand, they are expected to fight against an enemy that hides behind civilians. So (to quote a famous line from Trotsky), they may not be interested in the dialectic, but the dialectic is interested in them.
Walzer here relates to the reality that Israeli soldiers face. Their moves are carefully scrutinized, and the proximity of their targets to civilians leaves miniscule margins of error. The result, Walzer writes, is that some counterattacks are called off because the risk of civilian casualties is too great. Walzer endorses the hesitancy of the Israeli army when approaching civilian areas, and thus he concludes that using human shields can be quite an effective style of warfare for the opponent. Civilized countries (and armies) must grit their collective teeth, tolerate this unpleasant reality, and continue to fight as best they can manage. It is as if he says, "Yes, the opposing army is evil and exploits its civilian population for military advantage. Tough; we have no control over this policy. They may gain militarily from this immoral policy, but that's the reality we must face." This dilemma is difficult to accept, and unfortunately, Walzer himself fails to provide an answer to the dilemma. It is in this light, recognizing that Walzer is unable (or unwilling) to offer a practical solution, that the strength and superiority of Alan Dershowitz's argument becomes especially clear.
Dershowitz questions two assumptions that underlie the dilemma Walzer presents. The first is whether civilians who abet terrorists can be absolved simply because they are 'exploited.' If they are held responsible, they may not be properly called civilians. In addition, he questions whether responsibility for the death of civilians lies primarily with the Israeli army and not with the embedded terrorists. Dershowitz begins by presenting the general consensus: the military must do everything in its power to limit civilian casualties and that in a case where there will inevitably be civilian casualties, those casualties must be "proportionate" to the casualties that would be prevented by military action. Though Dershowitz acknowledges this principle, he questions whether these rules of war should apply to rogue military entities that have no moral rules of engagement. Hezbollah and other terrorist groups exploit civilians to their own advantage. In effect, Hezbollah benefits militarily from Israeli casualties and politically from Palestinian casualties. Thus, Dershowitz argues, we must recognize that "misuse of civilians as shields and swords requires a reassessment of the laws of war." What does Dershowitz propose? He writes.
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.
To explain his position even more clearly, Dershowitz provides an analogy of a bank robber who fires at police from behind a human shield. If that human shield is killed, the robber is responsible for the death and can be charged accordingly.
Dershowitz's suggestion is a plausible and effective way to deal with the threat of Islamic terrorism. Terrorist organizations have discovered that their strategy of blurring the distinction between civilian and militant is working. By following Dershowitz's proposal, we can force them to recognize this distinction by arguing that civilians who aid terrorists share a measure of guilt. In the face of a sharp distinction, civilians will potentially reconsider allying themselves with terrorists, and terrorists will be more accountable for the civilian death they cause. Not only does Dershowitz shift the culpability onto the terrorists, but he also says that it is incumbent upon us to recognize that we must fundamentally alter our conception of the civilian. If we fail to do so, the threat of jihadism may become a more virulent enemy than anyone originally supposed.
Though it may seem pedantic to define proportionate, let's do so to provide a frame of reference. Webster's defines proportionate as "properly related in size, degree, or other measurable characteristics." Literally speaking, a proportionate response to an attack is strictly a matter of numbers—the number of dead on one side measured against the number of dead on the opposing side; the number of civilian homes damaged by one side versus the number damaged by the other; or the dollar value of economic damage imposed by one side versus the economic penalty imposed by the other.
Is this what people really mean when they discuss whether or not Israel's response to Hezbollah aggression was proportionate? Are we to believe that people support a style of war in which one country waits for its adversary to attack and kill before proceeding to kill the exact same number on the other side? Of course not. Political discourse often co-opts words and uses them in ways that do not agree with their original meanings.
To identify the various ways in which 'proportionality' is understood, it's useful to examine the way it is used by four prominent figures who have written on the issue. Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post delves into proportionality through the lens of image or external perception. Although he uses the word 'disproportionate' to describe Israel's campaign, he conflates his assessment of the actual extent of damage with an analysis of media images, and places his emphasis on public perception of the damage and civilian death. Another Post columnist, Charles Krauthammer, focuses on moral proportionality. Krauthammer argues that the proportionality of Israel's actions should be evaluated in light of the fact that Hezbollah provoked the conflict, and in light of what he considers Israel's moral superiority. According to "just war" theorist Michael Walzer, the severity of war actions should be proportionate to the severity of the enemy's threat. Finally, for Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, the question of proportionality is the same as asking, "What are our legal limits and obligations in this war?" Dershowitz's response attempts to grapple with two concerns at once: the threat that Jihadism presents to democracies such as Israel and the United States, and the need to conduct war in a manner that is legal and moral. Thus, Dershowitz is the only writer of the four who does more than criticize: he presents a blueprint for military conduct.
In his article "Yes, It's Disproportionate," Robinson writes that Israel's campaign in southern Lebanon "can only be seen as collective punishment" and asks, "How can this utterly disproportionate, seemingly indiscriminate carnage be anything but counterproductive?" Robinson does not explain how he uses the word 'disproportionate,' but he illustrates the fact that it is disproportionate by referring to "video footage of grandmothers weeping amid the rubble of their homes and bloodied children lying in hospital beds." Moreover, Robinson speculates that this campaign is "creating more terrorists than it kills." He explains that public perception of disproportionate damage to the enemy fosters more support for the enemy and entrenches it. There is an obvious problem with this argument. Robinson conflates the issues of proportionality and public perception, and thus clouds his argument. In other words, he implies that proportionality is only a meaningful term if it explains how the public perceives the scale of attacks from the two sides. According to Robinson, because Israel can inflict, and has inflicted significantly more damage, its actions are perceived as, and thus must be, disproportionate. Therefore, while he claims to discuss proportionality, his analysis focuses largely on a different factor in the war: the public relations battle.
Two days after Robinson's column was published, Krauthammer published a column on the same op-ed page entitled "'Disproportionate' In What Moral Universe?" Krauthammer first rhetorically asks whether any other country that is attacked unprovoked—and in a manner designed specifically to inflict maximum civilian damage—is then summarily criticized when it tries to destroy the attacker. He writes that "to hear the world pass judgment on the Israel-Hezbollah war as it unfolds is to live in an Orwellian moral universe. With a few significant exceptions...the world...has completely lost its moral bearings." Krauthammer contends that "wanton" attacks from an aggressor justify fighting until the threat is completely disabled. He then points to what he considers the true disproportion in the war: the "radical moral asymmetry" between Hezbollah and Israel. According to Krauthammer, Israel has the moral high ground both as the defensive party in the immediate conflict and as a democracy fighting against a jihadist faction in a broader war between democracy and Islamic militants.
Krauthammer's argument would give Israel tremendous latitude to defend itself, but it shares the same weakness as Robinson's—it is based on a general, qualitative assessment of the conflict, and lacks any consideration of the specific challenges that Israel's army encounters in Lebanon. Why is the civilian death toll in Lebanon so high? Is the economic impact of the Israel's aerial bombardment necessary in order for Israel to accomplish strategic objectives? Krauthammer merely echoes current conservative rhetoric: we must recognize evil and we must hold nothing back in our attempt to uproot it. Even if this simplistic worldview is largely correct, it can only serve to guide the policies of a country willing to pursue foreign policy without the support of other countries, and without the support of many of its citizens, who demand a more nuanced analysis that does not simply condemn entire countries or movements as evil. Furthermore, even if Krauthammer's analysis can serve as post facto justification for the "morally superior" Israeli army, it provides little guidance for how the Israeli military establishment should think about collateral damage when conducting a war. Israeli strategic objectives might be best served by flattening Beirut, but as long as Israel concerns itself with the impact of its actions on enemy civilians, it will need more detailed moral guidance about how to act without unnecessarily hurting or endangering civilians.
Michael Walzer understands proportionality as a measure that is only meaningful in relation to the nature of the enemy's threat. This means that a simple disparity in the number of dead on each side does not constitute disproportionate response. Rather, proportionality can only be gauged in relation to the stated goals of the enemy and its ability to accomplish those goals. Thus, since Hezbollah openly calls for the destruction of Israel and can launch rockets to inflict significant damage and large numbers of casualties, proportionality must be determined based on that reality. One cannot argue that since Hezbollah has not been successful in its campaign, Israel cannot respond with wide scale attacks. As Walzer writes, "it doesn't matter that, so far, the Gazan [and Hezbollah] rockets have done minimal damage; the intention every time one is fired is to hit a home or a school, and, sooner or later, that intention will be realized."
Walzer also addresses some details of the current conflict, and he notes that in the war with Hezbollah civilian casualties are inevitable because Hezbollah embeds itself among civilians. Walzer posits that a military scenario in which soldiers have to fight militants in a heavily civilian area would challenge even a philosopher's dialectical skills. How are soldiers to grapple with the fact that civilians are being exploited by terrorists as shields, yet these very civilians are often complicit with, or even eager to aid Hezbollah? Walzer writes:
Israeli soldiers are not required to have dialectical skills, but, on the one hand, they are expected to do everything they can to prevent civilian deaths, and, on the other hand, they are expected to fight against an enemy that hides behind civilians. So (to quote a famous line from Trotsky), they may not be interested in the dialectic, but the dialectic is interested in them.
Walzer here relates to the reality that Israeli soldiers face. Their moves are carefully scrutinized, and the proximity of their targets to civilians leaves miniscule margins of error. The result, Walzer writes, is that some counterattacks are called off because the risk of civilian casualties is too great. Walzer endorses the hesitancy of the Israeli army when approaching civilian areas, and thus he concludes that using human shields can be quite an effective style of warfare for the opponent. Civilized countries (and armies) must grit their collective teeth, tolerate this unpleasant reality, and continue to fight as best they can manage. It is as if he says, "Yes, the opposing army is evil and exploits its civilian population for military advantage. Tough; we have no control over this policy. They may gain militarily from this immoral policy, but that's the reality we must face." This dilemma is difficult to accept, and unfortunately, Walzer himself fails to provide an answer to the dilemma. It is in this light, recognizing that Walzer is unable (or unwilling) to offer a practical solution, that the strength and superiority of Alan Dershowitz's argument becomes especially clear.
Dershowitz questions two assumptions that underlie the dilemma Walzer presents. The first is whether civilians who abet terrorists can be absolved simply because they are 'exploited.' If they are held responsible, they may not be properly called civilians. In addition, he questions whether responsibility for the death of civilians lies primarily with the Israeli army and not with the embedded terrorists. Dershowitz begins by presenting the general consensus: the military must do everything in its power to limit civilian casualties and that in a case where there will inevitably be civilian casualties, those casualties must be "proportionate" to the casualties that would be prevented by military action. Though Dershowitz acknowledges this principle, he questions whether these rules of war should apply to rogue military entities that have no moral rules of engagement. Hezbollah and other terrorist groups exploit civilians to their own advantage. In effect, Hezbollah benefits militarily from Israeli casualties and politically from Palestinian casualties. Thus, Dershowitz argues, we must recognize that "misuse of civilians as shields and swords requires a reassessment of the laws of war." What does Dershowitz propose? He writes.
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.
To explain his position even more clearly, Dershowitz provides an analogy of a bank robber who fires at police from behind a human shield. If that human shield is killed, the robber is responsible for the death and can be charged accordingly.
Dershowitz's suggestion is a plausible and effective way to deal with the threat of Islamic terrorism. Terrorist organizations have discovered that their strategy of blurring the distinction between civilian and militant is working. By following Dershowitz's proposal, we can force them to recognize this distinction by arguing that civilians who aid terrorists share a measure of guilt. In the face of a sharp distinction, civilians will potentially reconsider allying themselves with terrorists, and terrorists will be more accountable for the civilian death they cause. Not only does Dershowitz shift the culpability onto the terrorists, but he also says that it is incumbent upon us to recognize that we must fundamentally alter our conception of the civilian. If we fail to do so, the threat of jihadism may become a more virulent enemy than anyone originally supposed.
// DOV FRIEDMAN (CC '09) is majoring in History. He is an editor for The Current.