But just who is a “civilian” in the age of terrorism, when militants don’t wear uniforms, don’t belong to regular armies and easily blend into civilian populations? ~Alan Dershowitz, The Los Angeles Times

The cynicism of some people still manages to stun me even after all these years of following politics.  Dershowitz’s purpose with this article is to seize on the blurry category of guerrilla fighter, who is sometimes a civilian or who uses the civilian population for cover, as a reason for effectively obliterating the distinction between noncombatant and combatant and to justify attacks in the current campaign that have failed to maintain this principle of discrimination.  The principle of discrimination is an essential one in the waging of a just war.  Dershowitz’s cynical attempt to overthrow it by means of sophistry is a moral obscenity, and his attempt should be universally shouted down.  And so should this other statement:

Hezbollah and Hamas militants, on the other hand, are difficult to distinguish from those “civilians” who recruit, finance, harbor and facilitate their terrorism. Nor can women and children always be counted as civilians, as some organizations do. Terrorists increasingly use women and teenagers to play important roles in their attacks.

Actually, all of these people are not “civilians” but really are civilians, even if they are cooperating with terrorist groups.  They do not cease to be civilians, because they are still not members of any military organisation.  But, more importantly, if they are not combatants they cannot be harmed in time of war.  How they are being “used” in terrorist attacks makes all the difference–the women and children asleep in Qana, for example, were not being “used” for terrorist attacks, but were noncombatants who were slaughtered by a bomb.  Dershowitz wants to blur this distinction between noncombatant and combatant and finally collapse it.