" If Israel demonstrates a willingness to be unconcerned with collateral damage"
Are they, in fact, indifferent? News that 50,000 people evacuated from the north yesterday, through a humanitarian corridor established and defended by the IDF, and this article posted yesterday at the BBC -- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67327079 -- which recounts extraordinary efforts by the IDF to call up residents of targeted buildings and guiding them to safety, makes me uncertain that "indifference" is how the IDF sees it.
I think the IDF strategy is exactly what they say: calculated to dismantle Hamas. When they can avoid collateral damage, they do so. When they believe that their interpretation of the laws of war and international humanitarian law means they are permitted to strike a target despite collateral damage, they do so. When they think the target isn't worth the collateral damage, they wave off (which the IDF has recently emphasized by releasing a video of an airstrike being called off).
I think the only reason that the casualties are so high now compared to past conflicts is that Israel has never entered Gaza with the intention of destroying Hamas. It was always "mowing the grass" before, to greater or lesser degree, but this is more like setting the lawn on fire.
Dan’s argument is less than convincing. Israel’s objective is to dismantle, destroy Hamas. The unstated implication of Dan’s argument is that Israel is going beyond what it needs to do that. That there’s residual between what Israel needs to do to destroy Hamas and Israel’s goal of “restoring their deterrent capabilities.” Where’s the evidence that Israel is doing something extra for deterrence purposes?
Here’s a simpler explanation of what’s going on: to destroy Hamas Israel has decided it has to interpret proportionality in a very loose fashion.
A target that they would not have hit in the era of "mowing the grass" now has more importance in the time of "destroy Hamas", which weighs more in favor of striking the target despite the possible increase in civilian death and collateral damage. So, yeah, the proportionality "equation" has shifted pretty strongly, and they're acting accordingly.
When enough blood libel is swirling around that Israel is intentionally targeting civilians, even reasonable people may get tainted with that thinking. Hard to square that claim with the millions of texts and calls to get Palestinian civilians to leave Gaza city, the risk the IDF took to open an evacuation route under Hamas fire, and reported stories like this:
I agree with what other commenters have said, and also note that the "rules of war" don't have a great track record when invaders and terrorists ignore them. It puts would-be lawful respondents in the position of either not following the rules of law (that their opponents have already broken) or failing to eliminate the threat (by following the rules of war).
It seems Israel will try to minimize civilian casualties when it can, but will not let that factor interfere with the overriding objective of destroying Hamas. I can't fault them for that calculation.
Netanyahu, and his RW criminals, did allow this to happen, and even caused it to happen - not only in their immediate pre-October 7 iniquities, but in the decades leading up to it, by propping up Hamas in order to undermine civilian Palestinian leadership. Netanyahu and the Israeli Right are criminals through and through, and I only hope, after this war, they are thoroughly discredited, ousted, and imprisoned.
Netanyahu’s political career is done, he will not complete the theoretical four years in government due to early elections after a no-confidence vote, and as a result will face his bribery trial.
Israel's stated goal--and practical necessity--is to eradicate Hamas, and I cannot fathom Israel permitting a jihadist successor to gain any traction within the Strip. What deterrent capability is needed against an adversary you anticipate will not exist next year?
What about them? This article was specifically about Israel's deterrence strategy towards Hamas and other quasi-domestic Palestinian groups, which is different from its strategy towards foreign adversaries like Iran and Hezbollah where Israel's stomach for collateral damage has never been particularly relevant.
Perceptive, especially in framing this from Israel's grand strategy and the hit it took on 10/7, as well as its assessment of the realistic limits of what Israel can hope to achieve.
The post included a (brief) description of the horrors of the 10/7 attacks; however, I find ithe analysis misses, or at least could benefit from centering, the importance of the attack to Israel's present motivations.
The instant operation is not simply a response to an attack that occurred; Hamas took and is still detaining the hostages from it. In other words, the crime, abuse, and insult of the attacks is not in the past to be retaliated for but ongoing - to be stopped, or at least to demonstrate to the perpetrators (almost taunting Israel in their audacity to be making demands for mercy and for care for their children while still holding those of their enemy) that they cannot do that to them (Israelis) and their families, and must stop and submit or be destroyed.
This obviously affects the assessment of what level of civilian casualties is acceptable and proportionate. Israel is not choosing to go into Gaza or target the locales it has hit, as is the case when it is assessing how to respond/avenge an attack. It has been, and is still being, drawn into Gaza by Hamas continuing its affront and crimes there, by bringing its hostages back there. Israel has to pursue them - it's not a DA choosing what punishment to deliver but front-line law enforcement engaged in a police chase - back to the perpetrators home neighborhood, but rightfully pursued there despite the risks given they still have their hostages and brought them there, and must be pursued.
Right. If one accepts that eradicating Hamas is a legitimate military objective (and after Oct. 7, I don't how any civilized person could conclude otherwise), and also acknowledges, as Drezner sorta does, that Hamas has intentionally made it impossible to achieve that objective without massive collateral damage, the entire logic of proportionality starts to break down.
It cannot be the case that Hamas is allowed to wholly immunize itself from reprisal by amassing enough human shields, so . . . where does that leave us?
Is Israel’s targeting actually that loose? Looser than say the US air war against Syria? Is anyone in say the US military saying that is the case?
They are dropping a lot of ordnance and per bomb aren’t killing very many people, even if we take the Hamas numbers at face value and ignore that they aren’t counting combatants separately.
The law of war generally forbids targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure and demands that collateral damage be proportionate to the military target. When an adversary does not wear uniforms and explicitly hides behind civilians and civilian infrastructure then the law of war generally allows the law-abiding side a great deal of wiggle room so long as there is still a military purpose for the targeting, ie a realistic belief a combatant is being targeted under a hospital or a “refugee” “camp”.
In other words, the law of war isn’t supposed to be easily exploitable by bad actors because that would incentivize not following it. A lot of people seem willfully ignorant of this so that they can accuse Israel of war crimes as if they were carpet bombing indiscriminately.
That dissenter state department memo is idiotic. Those complaining about collective punish are idiotic. Israel has invaded foreign soil to eradicate an enemy that de facto and possibly de jure controls it and gave and gives quite a lot of warning for evacuations.
The situation is terrible in so many ways but Israel has every right to eradicate Hamas by invading. How wise that will turn out to be given other options and how to handle things after combat (mostly) ends are hellish problems, but it’s also arguable Israel made a large mistake by leaving Gaza in 2005 and letting Hamas survive in 2014.
Prof Drezner is still in the same mental rut many progressives are stuck in, one that expects that if they imagine hard enough and repeat the magical incantation “Hamas isn’t the Palestinians” then Hamas will simply evaporate to fit their preferred reality. Magical thinking may soothe the mind of someone living in the US, but it’s still delusional.
Israel is a couple of miles from Gaza city, still, and Hamas are waiting in their tunnels. Since the ground operation started the number of casualties who aren’t Hamas has plummeted, unless you buy the Hamas-run “health ministry” (mainly another human shield for their bunkers) story that every casualty is a civilian. Israel is taking over Hamas redoubts and exposing tunnel piers, stuffing them with explosives. The number of rockets fired from Gaza city has dropped significantly (still firing from Rafah, but much lesser threat). The IDF has opened under fire a secured evacuation route for Palestinian civilians, so they can stop serving Hamas as human shields. Tens of thousands are leaving Gaza city that way, further reducing the risk of civilian casualties.
The only norm Israel seems to violate is the expectation by progressives in the US and assorted antisemitic scum around the world that Israel cannot be allowed to retaliate to an outrageous atrocity like a massacre by Palestinian death squads.
Who cares exactly? They will be leading an army of dead Hamas terrorists, at which point even if these leaders are temporarily still alive elsewhere, they lack the force to commit further terrorism at the scale of shooting ten thousand rockets into Israeli cities and infiltrating Israeli villages with Palestinian murderers and rapists.
You have reading comprehension problems, so I'll be as clear as I can. Israel is targeting the terrorists of Hamas, the ones that committed a massacre of 1200 Israeli civilians, remember? The ones that massacred all those Palestinian civilians at Al Ahli hospital, remember? As much as it's regrettable that Palestinian civilians have lost their lives, Israel cannot stop without killing most of the Hamas terrorists. Many of those civilians are killed by Hamas themselves, like at Al Ahli.
You care about Hamas surviving - at least you're honest that you're pro Hamas and helping them continue with their goals of massacring and ethnically cleansing all the Jews "from the river to the sea" is what matters to you the most. Jews don't count, I get you, but you should be at least honest with yourself - Hamas massacred Israeli Arabs and Palestinian workers in their cross-border attack. They murder Palestinian civilians with hundreds of rocket misfires. And they keep the ones still alive in an open air jail - a totalitarian regime as repressive as North Korea and as genocidal as ISIS. You aren't doing them any good with your 'caring' to help Hamas sruvive.
" If Israel demonstrates a willingness to be unconcerned with collateral damage"
Are they, in fact, indifferent? News that 50,000 people evacuated from the north yesterday, through a humanitarian corridor established and defended by the IDF, and this article posted yesterday at the BBC -- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67327079 -- which recounts extraordinary efforts by the IDF to call up residents of targeted buildings and guiding them to safety, makes me uncertain that "indifference" is how the IDF sees it.
I think the IDF strategy is exactly what they say: calculated to dismantle Hamas. When they can avoid collateral damage, they do so. When they believe that their interpretation of the laws of war and international humanitarian law means they are permitted to strike a target despite collateral damage, they do so. When they think the target isn't worth the collateral damage, they wave off (which the IDF has recently emphasized by releasing a video of an airstrike being called off).
I think the only reason that the casualties are so high now compared to past conflicts is that Israel has never entered Gaza with the intention of destroying Hamas. It was always "mowing the grass" before, to greater or lesser degree, but this is more like setting the lawn on fire.
Dan’s argument is less than convincing. Israel’s objective is to dismantle, destroy Hamas. The unstated implication of Dan’s argument is that Israel is going beyond what it needs to do that. That there’s residual between what Israel needs to do to destroy Hamas and Israel’s goal of “restoring their deterrent capabilities.” Where’s the evidence that Israel is doing something extra for deterrence purposes?
Here’s a simpler explanation of what’s going on: to destroy Hamas Israel has decided it has to interpret proportionality in a very loose fashion.
A target that they would not have hit in the era of "mowing the grass" now has more importance in the time of "destroy Hamas", which weighs more in favor of striking the target despite the possible increase in civilian death and collateral damage. So, yeah, the proportionality "equation" has shifted pretty strongly, and they're acting accordingly.
When enough blood libel is swirling around that Israel is intentionally targeting civilians, even reasonable people may get tainted with that thinking. Hard to square that claim with the millions of texts and calls to get Palestinian civilians to leave Gaza city, the risk the IDF took to open an evacuation route under Hamas fire, and reported stories like this:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/gaza-man-israeli-agents-spent-hours-on-phone-with-me-to-evacuate-targeted-buildings/amp/
I agree with what other commenters have said, and also note that the "rules of war" don't have a great track record when invaders and terrorists ignore them. It puts would-be lawful respondents in the position of either not following the rules of law (that their opponents have already broken) or failing to eliminate the threat (by following the rules of war).
It seems Israel will try to minimize civilian casualties when it can, but will not let that factor interfere with the overriding objective of destroying Hamas. I can't fault them for that calculation.
Netanyahu, and his RW criminals, did allow this to happen, and even caused it to happen - not only in their immediate pre-October 7 iniquities, but in the decades leading up to it, by propping up Hamas in order to undermine civilian Palestinian leadership. Netanyahu and the Israeli Right are criminals through and through, and I only hope, after this war, they are thoroughly discredited, ousted, and imprisoned.
Whatever Netanyahu is, he is not the cause of barbaric terror. That’s an attempt at terrorwashing by you as well as an assault on facts.
Netanyahu’s political career is done, he will not complete the theoretical four years in government due to early elections after a no-confidence vote, and as a result will face his bribery trial.
I feel that calling a 75 year old city a “refugee camp” is loaded and misleading. Israel was largely a tent city 75 years ago.
Israel's stated goal--and practical necessity--is to eradicate Hamas, and I cannot fathom Israel permitting a jihadist successor to gain any traction within the Strip. What deterrent capability is needed against an adversary you anticipate will not exist next year?
Have you forgotten about Hezbollah? Iran writ large?
What about them? This article was specifically about Israel's deterrence strategy towards Hamas and other quasi-domestic Palestinian groups, which is different from its strategy towards foreign adversaries like Iran and Hezbollah where Israel's stomach for collateral damage has never been particularly relevant.
I may have misunderstood your original comment but the need for deterrence does not end at the Gaza border. That’s the “what about them”.
Perceptive, especially in framing this from Israel's grand strategy and the hit it took on 10/7, as well as its assessment of the realistic limits of what Israel can hope to achieve.
The post included a (brief) description of the horrors of the 10/7 attacks; however, I find ithe analysis misses, or at least could benefit from centering, the importance of the attack to Israel's present motivations.
The instant operation is not simply a response to an attack that occurred; Hamas took and is still detaining the hostages from it. In other words, the crime, abuse, and insult of the attacks is not in the past to be retaliated for but ongoing - to be stopped, or at least to demonstrate to the perpetrators (almost taunting Israel in their audacity to be making demands for mercy and for care for their children while still holding those of their enemy) that they cannot do that to them (Israelis) and their families, and must stop and submit or be destroyed.
This obviously affects the assessment of what level of civilian casualties is acceptable and proportionate. Israel is not choosing to go into Gaza or target the locales it has hit, as is the case when it is assessing how to respond/avenge an attack. It has been, and is still being, drawn into Gaza by Hamas continuing its affront and crimes there, by bringing its hostages back there. Israel has to pursue them - it's not a DA choosing what punishment to deliver but front-line law enforcement engaged in a police chase - back to the perpetrators home neighborhood, but rightfully pursued there despite the risks given they still have their hostages and brought them there, and must be pursued.
Right. If one accepts that eradicating Hamas is a legitimate military objective (and after Oct. 7, I don't how any civilized person could conclude otherwise), and also acknowledges, as Drezner sorta does, that Hamas has intentionally made it impossible to achieve that objective without massive collateral damage, the entire logic of proportionality starts to break down.
It cannot be the case that Hamas is allowed to wholly immunize itself from reprisal by amassing enough human shields, so . . . where does that leave us?
Is Israel’s targeting actually that loose? Looser than say the US air war against Syria? Is anyone in say the US military saying that is the case?
They are dropping a lot of ordnance and per bomb aren’t killing very many people, even if we take the Hamas numbers at face value and ignore that they aren’t counting combatants separately.
The law of war generally forbids targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure and demands that collateral damage be proportionate to the military target. When an adversary does not wear uniforms and explicitly hides behind civilians and civilian infrastructure then the law of war generally allows the law-abiding side a great deal of wiggle room so long as there is still a military purpose for the targeting, ie a realistic belief a combatant is being targeted under a hospital or a “refugee” “camp”.
In other words, the law of war isn’t supposed to be easily exploitable by bad actors because that would incentivize not following it. A lot of people seem willfully ignorant of this so that they can accuse Israel of war crimes as if they were carpet bombing indiscriminately.
That dissenter state department memo is idiotic. Those complaining about collective punish are idiotic. Israel has invaded foreign soil to eradicate an enemy that de facto and possibly de jure controls it and gave and gives quite a lot of warning for evacuations.
The situation is terrible in so many ways but Israel has every right to eradicate Hamas by invading. How wise that will turn out to be given other options and how to handle things after combat (mostly) ends are hellish problems, but it’s also arguable Israel made a large mistake by leaving Gaza in 2005 and letting Hamas survive in 2014.
Grand Strategy???
I think both sides are being run by their lizard brains.
Nothing grand about it.
Grand Strategy???
I think both sides are being run by their lizard brains.
Nothing grand about it.
Prof Drezner is still in the same mental rut many progressives are stuck in, one that expects that if they imagine hard enough and repeat the magical incantation “Hamas isn’t the Palestinians” then Hamas will simply evaporate to fit their preferred reality. Magical thinking may soothe the mind of someone living in the US, but it’s still delusional.
Israel is a couple of miles from Gaza city, still, and Hamas are waiting in their tunnels. Since the ground operation started the number of casualties who aren’t Hamas has plummeted, unless you buy the Hamas-run “health ministry” (mainly another human shield for their bunkers) story that every casualty is a civilian. Israel is taking over Hamas redoubts and exposing tunnel piers, stuffing them with explosives. The number of rockets fired from Gaza city has dropped significantly (still firing from Rafah, but much lesser threat). The IDF has opened under fire a secured evacuation route for Palestinian civilians, so they can stop serving Hamas as human shields. Tens of thousands are leaving Gaza city that way, further reducing the risk of civilian casualties.
The only norm Israel seems to violate is the expectation by progressives in the US and assorted antisemitic scum around the world that Israel cannot be allowed to retaliate to an outrageous atrocity like a massacre by Palestinian death squads.
Do you really think the true leaders of Hamas are still in Gaza?
Who cares exactly? They will be leading an army of dead Hamas terrorists, at which point even if these leaders are temporarily still alive elsewhere, they lack the force to commit further terrorism at the scale of shooting ten thousand rockets into Israeli cities and infiltrating Israeli villages with Palestinian murderers and rapists.
So just slaughter an entire people?
Who cares? I DO.
You have reading comprehension problems, so I'll be as clear as I can. Israel is targeting the terrorists of Hamas, the ones that committed a massacre of 1200 Israeli civilians, remember? The ones that massacred all those Palestinian civilians at Al Ahli hospital, remember? As much as it's regrettable that Palestinian civilians have lost their lives, Israel cannot stop without killing most of the Hamas terrorists. Many of those civilians are killed by Hamas themselves, like at Al Ahli.
You care about Hamas surviving - at least you're honest that you're pro Hamas and helping them continue with their goals of massacring and ethnically cleansing all the Jews "from the river to the sea" is what matters to you the most. Jews don't count, I get you, but you should be at least honest with yourself - Hamas massacred Israeli Arabs and Palestinian workers in their cross-border attack. They murder Palestinian civilians with hundreds of rocket misfires. And they keep the ones still alive in an open air jail - a totalitarian regime as repressive as North Korea and as genocidal as ISIS. You aren't doing them any good with your 'caring' to help Hamas sruvive.