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Samizdata quote of the day Israel is killing a lot more people in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah position which are located intentionally within populated towns and villages, than Hezbollah are killing in Israel targetting literally anyone with their random rocket attacks fired blindly into towns and cities… but Hezbollah’s poor ‘score’ is not for lack of trying.
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They say a picture can be worth a thousand words.
Right on.
Except the graphic doesn’t match the current situation. No way can Hezbollah be described as soldiers of Palestine, however they choose to present themselves as such.
Being hostile to Israel (and nominally pro-Palestinian) is a standard trope of almost all Arab politicians, from secular nationalist tyrant to religious militia leader, or somewhere in between. It is like being “environmentalist” in the west. But you wouldn’t assume the BNP and the Green Party were interchangeable because both profess immoderate fondness for organic farming.
The rhetorical conflation, by people on all sides, of Palestinian nationalism with millennarian religious cults with cheaply distracting Muslim populations from politics at home, pretty much guarantees no resolution of any portion of the problem.
Guy – I have seen that graphic before, however one soldier was described as “Israel”; the other “Arab”. That’s less accurate than the banner posted here, because many Palestinian muslim extremists actually do use children as human shields as a matter of course.
Although I agree; the banner would be more pertinent if the word “Hezbollah” replaced “Palestine”.
Perfect!
Guy,
Absolutely spot-on. There is a reason the Palestinian “situation” riles muslims at aglobal rate in a way Northern Ireland didn’t rile Catholics across the planet.
Palestine is a catch-all (and has been for decades) for every type of Arab or Muslim leader to lay blame for all the ills of the Umma at. Until they start considering the Israel-Palestine thing to be what it is – a minor local difficulty – rather than part of a global Zionist masterplan there is no hope for the middle-east.
My biggest fear is that the occupied territories do not form a practicable state. The Islamists are not going to settle for that, even if they are given Jerusalem.
This will just go on and on… I wonder if the original Zionist movement 100yrs ago would’ve dropped their plans if they’d known the hassle that they would have been setting themselves up for. That’s not anti-Israeli, just a sad counterfactual.
I might be about to stir up some controversy here but I feel there is sound logic to my position.
Attributed to a Yamin Zakaria:
Actually I agree with him in the general sense that there are no innocent civilians. Similar sentiments have been attributed to Curtis Le May about the Japanese and, if he didn’t express it so blatently, Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris must certainly have thought it about the Germans. In every sense they were right. The entire adult population of Japan and Germany were economically active in support of the war effort, or sustaining the economy that helped fuel the war effort, and a healthy robust economy is every bit as important as the military effort itself for sustaining a war.
Hence in a war, every economic contribution to a nation at war is a worthwhile target in that war. That is the main lesson of the 20th century. The First World War only came to an end when one of the economies failed before the others did. That was fortunate as the militaries had no other strategy but attrition until one of the armies became too small to be effective. In that case the economic support of the militaries was the weakest link, and consequently makes it justifiably, and even morally, a valid target.
The Second World War was the first time that there was the means to attack the civilian population and the heart of the industrial and economic heartland of an enemy. The effect of “strategic bombing” was, I believe, downplayed by many post war historians, but I believe it played a central role in weakening the Japanese and Germans by virtue of its sustained nature on economically active civilians and the economy in general and their inability to reciprocate effectively.
For the Israelis there is no merit in trying to avoid civilian casualties amongst the Arabs they are fighting.. Some civilian casualties are inevitable, especially since the combatants hide amongst them. Thus, since there will always be civilian casualties enough to generate “anger” and “hatred” and bad PR there is no PR risk in killing a few more, in fact killing a lot more will start making the civilians themselves decline to act as human shields and get well out of the way when any Hamas or Hizballah combatant sets up his rockets or unshoulders his firearm. Lots of civilian casualties will make the Palestinians and Lebanese supporters of Hizballah realise that Hamas and Hizballah are incapable of protecting them and only put them at risk. Up to now they are only protected by Israeli reticence in kill civilians en-masse.
The other lesson of the 20th century is that there are only 2 “insurgent” wars that were ever won by the occupying conventional forces. (The jury is still out on Iraq and Afghanistan so I am not counting them). They are the Anglo Boer War and the Malayan Insurgency. Note that both were won by the British, at a time when they less worried about the bad PR of harming civilians. (The Americans have been wedded to the “hearts and minds” philosophy which history has shown to be useless tactically and dubious strategically. The aftermath of the Second World War shows that you can kiss and make up after you have crushed them totally, but you must crush them first) The Boer War was only won by relentless application of a scorched earth policy and deliberate elimination of the civilian logistic and economic support network (the farms) and carting the entire population into concentration camps. These methods are inevitably criticised for their lack of humanness but they were, even in retrospect, military necessities.
I think the Israelis should take the terrorist philosophy as expressed by Yamin Zakaria and others and use it against them. To wit, that there are no innocent civilians and declare that they are all enemy forces, whether combatant or part of the economic and logistic support for the combatants. They should revisit the lessons of the Boer War and the Malayan War and see what it takes to win an asymmetric war in which there are no innocent civilians. The civilians are part of the war effort. Treat them as such!
War makes demons out of the best of men. But are we willing to accept the moral responsibility for these terrible acts?
Steven’s post reminds me again of my previous comment on terrorism: it’s a viable tactic, nothing less and nothing more. The key question is: what ideals is the act of terror in question subservient to?
Imagine if the world was ruled by a tyranny ala 1984, and the oppressors aided and abetted knowingly by a ‘civilian’ populace that believes in their warped ideals. Would attacks against those civilians be justified, if it meant weakening their infrastructure and hence their ability to oppress?
In my mind, yes, they are. That is the dilemma facing us now. Are we willing to go the distance to win the war, if the cost is our souls, stained and bloodied as they are?
Steven says:
For the Israelis there is no merit in trying to avoid civilian casualties amongst the Arabs they are fighting.
This is incorrect. Amoung the arabs in Lebanon are 30,000 Australian citizens, as well as many other arab civilians who belong to countries allied with Israel. Targeting these civilians would only strain the alliance between Israel and teh adopted homeland of the targetted civilians.
Secondly, Hezballah does not get most of its support from the Lebanese economy. It is financed and equipped by Syria and Iran, and operated out of Lebanon because the Lebanese government is not in a position to stand up to Syria (until recently they were occupied), and operation from a third country gives Syria and Iran implausable deniability.
I always thought that the Malayan uprising/Emergency were won by properly implementing Hearts and Minds in those areas. Britain carried out an effective helicopter-centric jungle campaign + H&M that the Americans could not manage a decade later in Vietnam (but the Australians and NZ’ers did IIRC).
It may be easy for me to say, but when are the Lebanese civillians (the oft-cited innocents caught in the crossfire) going to take the necessary steps to evict the armed militias from their midst (incidentally, these gunmen are also civillians, for the purposes of body counts).
As long as they cannot or, more likely, will not do so, how do they expect their situation to change?
Warfare is not really my field, but I think the discussion here is honing in on the issues quite well.
Two thoughts.
Firstly, attacking the military is definitely less reprehensible that attacking the citizenry; this, however, does not take account of effectivenss in winning, only the long-term PR effect. The long-term PR effect is much more important when it is not total war. In total war, the issue is survival (ie winning no matter what).
Secondly, and of perhaps more immediate relevance, we should consider not only the perceived aiming point of each particular artillery/rocket attack, but also the type of munition used. In particular, there should be differentiation between anti-personnel munitions and those more suited for destroying weapons and infrastructure.
Best regards
@ Steve: you seem to argue that being loosely involved with a country’s economy makes you a guilty participant of acts of aggression perpetrated from this country. There is no reason why this argument should stop at national borders: trade with a country is generally held to be economically beneficial for both countries involved. Hence your argument logically extends to anyone who has traded with a nation at war … and anyone who has traded with anyone who has traded with anyone who has traded with a nation at war … or, to put it concisely: to anyone.
The real problem in principle seems to be to me that you conflate a moral criterion (guilt or innocence) with a pragmatic one (being a strategically useful target). The real problem in practice is of course that theoretical moral judgements can be made much more accurately in theory than missiles can be fired in practice.
I agree that Israel has a right to defend itself, that in the present messy situation they will have to attack civilian areas where Hezbollah is known to be based and that they may have to take out strategic targets such as airports. This is quite different though from saying that anyone and anything moving in Lebanon is a morally legitimate target. Israel seems to share this view at least to some extent –why else would they bother even warning civilians?
Best thing posted on here in many a moon. Completely accurate and devastating in cartoon.
Nice one rantingkraut. That earns you a bookmark, chez moi.
Steven Groeneveld, if he has/gets a blog, can have one too.
Please keep it up chaps (and chapesses, just in case you have a problem with him, as per The Sunday Telegraph; website currently down).
Best regards
Stephen’s argument – that civilians are “guilty” – is actually Osama’ Bin Laden’s justification for the attacks on America.
In fact Osama has more logic, as all parties in the US support Israel which is considered to be terrorist in the region, and the US is therefore the “paymaster” behind Israel’s terror, just as the neocons complain that Iran is Hezbollah’s paymaster.
In lebannon, however, the shi’ite revolutionaries are not supported – for obvious reasons – by the (pro Western and Westernized) Christians, the moderate Islamic Druze, or the Sunnis, and presumably not all Shi-ite; and nor can these groups fight against hezbollah which is more powerful than the Lebanese army. However that army should most certainly oppose the occupation of it’s democratic country by the Israeli’s.
( As for the non-targetting of civilians – the targetting of Westernized and Chrisitian parts of Beirut shows the Israelis are just taking potshots at all targets).
Remarkable how this site becomes a pro-statist pro-neocon wankfest once the Israeli’s do anything, or the US goes to war. I thought it a libertarian site? The libertarian sites in the US are opposed to the Iraq war and Israeli adventurism. The US is uncritizable on this website, the relationship something like head boy Blair and Bush – a proper libertarian website wold oppose this war, the Iraq war, and have a few articles on the UK citizens deported to the US, or the US arrest of a British citizen for the crime of allowing people to play poker – a game of skill – online.
Nigel-To the islamists, this IS a total war. They want their religious views to rule supreme, and everybody else can die for all they care. And their moderate leaders currently still seem stuck in their apathy, and if they’re not on our side, then they’re at least complicit in enabling the islamists to have the support, however unwittingly, of 1 billion muslims around the world.
It’s already about survival, but we insist in keeping the kid gloves on. The patience of the West may run out, and then we may regret not being harsher in the beginning…
The Wobbly Guy wrote:
Whether that is the Islamist view or your words for their view, somehow I think that “total war” is just a smidgeon different.
And you know I think that, so please retreat from this (hopefully temporary) trolling.
Best regards
Nick M said “…the occupied territories do not form a practicable state….”
Exactly, I think this was the plan all along when the Egyptians, Syrians, et. al. told Arabs to leave Isreal so that the Jews could be driven into the sea. After getting their Arab butts kicked, they refused the entreaties of the refugees to settle in the “host” countries, thereby creating the Palestinians. These psuedo-states are by their nature, destabilizing entities as now is the south of Lebanon. In Israel’s case, they didn’t let them vote in Israeli elections, so the Palestinians could not do the mischief that Hez has done in Lebanon.
By the way, there is an article in today’s (July 23) Lebanon Star, an interview with Nasrallah in which he states that Sinaora and Michel Aoun do his bidding, so in effect, conjecture on another thread has been borne out that the goverment of Lebanon is complicit in the Hez depredations in North Israel these past years.
Uain,
This is fundamentally the point. It has always struck me that the obvious solution is that in exchange for a peace treaty the West Bank goes back to Jordan and the Gaza Strip to Egypt. Unfortunately this doesn’t seem to be on anybody’s negotiating table. Odd, because it is the only rational solution (a bifurcated Pali mini-state is a complete non-starter).
The obvious answer to this oddity is that neither Egypt or Jordan want their territory back. Both countries are fairly rational players in the Mid-east game and therefore neither want to have to assimilate a large collection of suicide bombing nut-jobs.
This analysis also explains something else which seems a little odd. The lack of substantive Arab support for the Palestinians has allowed a power vacuum which our very best pals in Iran have filled ably. Why else would a Shia theocracy help out Sunnis?
I have been wondering for a couple of days if the West and Israel could exploit this situation in order to get a wider Sunni/Shia conflict to do our work for us.
“The obvious answer to this oddity is that neither Egypt or Jordan want their territory back.”
Of course, it is worth remembering that between 1948 and 1967 there was no international movement condemning the “occupation” of the West Bank and Gaza by Jordan and Egypt. But there was a concerted effort to remove the Jewish state from the area it then filled.
It is currently believed (not least by the US and UK governments) that an independent Palestinian state in the so-called occupied areas would solve this issue. Pragmatists like myself believe that, as per the words and deeds of the Palestinian militias, this is delusional, and the next fight would be for the remaining Israeli land.
Steven – interesting post, but I have to comment on this:
The Second World War was the first time that there was the means to attack the civilian population and the heart of the industrial and economic heartland of an enemy.
This is a common perception, but it’s entirely untrue. Wars have always targetted the civilian population, and they have always suffered very badly. If anything, advances in transport in the 20thC have reduced the burden on civilians, as armies in foreign lands can bring food and supplies from home, rather than taking it from those they occupied.
The main burden on civilian population was food. Armies prior to about 1860 could not transport food effectively, and they simply ate the crops and livestock of the places they went through. The resulting starvation caused many deaths, and in some cases destroyed so much that farmland reverted back to wilderness. But wholesale deliberate slaughter was also common, such as the Harrying of the North after William I’s campaign in England. A history of the 100 years war will show that the deliberate targetting of civilians is nothing new.
See my comments in “Taking sides” post below. No sense repeating it here.
And that is your argument? Why exactly? How is it ok for Hezbollah to be allowed to attack Israel’s cities from Lebanon? Unless you have some magical way of stopping that then all I can assume is you have no coherent argument to make.
Spot on Nick M!
I recall that the de-Palestinian-ization of Jordan during Black Septenber (1970) resulted in their expulsion to Lebanon and the West Bank. I suspect the Jordanians figure it a good trade to leave the Pals to their West Bank hell hole in return for their exit from Jordan. Didn’t Gaza once belong to Egypt?
The baby carriage image appeared at a recent rally at the Israeli embassy in Moscow (third pic, site is in Russian).
Link via Veronica Khokhlova
Uain,
Well we’re singing from the same hymn sheet at least. Thanks for your comments. Yes the Gaza strip was once part of Egypt and the Jordanian “expulsion” of the Palistinians killed vastly more Palistinians than Israel has ever done. This, of course, is rarely mentioned because obviously the whole mid-east plight is the fault of Zionist-Crusaders.
Except it isn’t. The undoubtably appalling conditions in which a couple of million Palis live is essentially down to the totally reprehensible Arab states in the mid-east.
Those states are scum and need to be taken out with the trash. It is the shame of the USA, the UK, NATO and many other countries that we have made alliances with the likes of Saudi Arabia.
These are tactical alliances. For the time being we can buy oil at favourable rates from the Saudis and they’re buying up to 74 Typhoons. Great in the short term, but does anyone look beyond that?
The Palis are pawns exploited by their Arab “friends”. While the Israel-Pali conflict continues the Arabs can blame the Zionists for everything. There hasn’t been a resolution to this conflict because that would require Arab governments to take responsibility for the appalling mess they have made of domestic affairs.
The Palis are pawns exploited by their Arab “friends”. While the Israel-Pali conflict continues the Arabs can blame the Zionists for everything. There hasn’t been a resolution to this conflict because that would require Arab governments to take responsibility for the appalling mess they have made of domestic affairs.
True. How many Germans were expelled from the Sudetenland, East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia in 1945? It must have been millions. 60 years later they are not still living in refugee camps are they? Do they send suicide bombers into Breslau to reclaim their lost territories?
Think of the money spent on arms in the Middle East since 1948. A fraction of that spent on the displaced Palestinians could have set them all up for life. Clearly, a peaceful solution to this problem is of no interest to the people with influence.
I fail to see how the Islamic onslaught against Israel is anything less than total war on their part. Their only goal is the complete extermination of the Israelis and any tactic that works is allowed. Nothing is off limits. The only reason they may never get beyond the present border with Israel is that it’s so difficult to push those baby carriages in front of you and shoot accurately at the same time.
A stab at the definition of Total War.
Best regards
“We will have peace with the Arabs. when they will love their children. more than they hate us”. – Golda Meir
So the Islamists are incapable of fighting total war? If a non-state actor were to fight a total war, how would it look any different from what the Islamic world is fighting today against Israel? They use religious and racial propaganda, total involvement of civilians and deadly revenge against anyone within their power who doesn’t go along with those tactics, in order to mobilize every last Muslim. They are using the total weight of their resources, pathetic though they may be, with no limits or scruples. That’s total war.
How many Germans were expelled from the Sudetenland, East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia in 1945?
Or Jews from Arab countries? Yet somehow that Palestinians are kept as refugees in these camps, or towns as they would be called anywhere else in the world, unable to assimilate into their new homes by the various arab governments is all the fault of the one country in the entire region that gives a shit about it’s own citizens. The Islamists keep picking fights with Israel because they do not want it to exist. I am not going to shed any tears for them because they keep losing.
Nigel, re a bookmark, I don’t blog at the moment, but do have a look at my better half’s efforts w.r.t. homeschooling (where it is illegal) and our resistance to an extremely statist view on education. (gfoh.blogspot.com)
Back to the topic at hand, it is interesting that this article by Ralph Kinney Bennet at tech central station touches some of the very points brought up here. The last paragraph echoes Wobbly Guys point:
Guy,
The rhetorical conflation, by people on all sides, of Palestinian nationalism with millennarian religious cults with cheaply distracting Muslim populations from politics at home, pretty much guarantees no resolution of any portion of the problem.
A difference which makes no difference is no difference.
I wonder how the conditions at those Pali refugee camps compare to those at the Guantanamo detention facility.
A good posting and an accurate picture.