Early in the summer of 1914 an obscure European aristocrat, Archduke Ferdinand was shot in Sarajevo. Within a few weeks England declared war on Germany and millions died in muddy trenches. That was a disproportionate response.

On September 1, 1939 Hitler declared war on Poland because, he claimed, some Poles attacked a minor German radio station on the border. That was a disproportionate response too. Two days later, England declared war on Germany. That was also a disproportionate response.

There are three reasons why those who call any nation’s response to anything “disproportionate” are not being statesmen they are just being silly. ~Rabbi Daniel Lapin

 

Rabbi Lapin’s treatment of proportionality shares two things with that of many of the Lebanon war apologists: an appalling abuse of history and a reckless disregard for the proper meaning of the principle of proportionality as a measure of ius in bello.  Mark Shea helpfully reminds us where Catholics can find a clear statement on proportionality as a measure of just war:

the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition. (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2309)

The displacement of massive civilian populations, the wreckage of a country’s infrastructurre and deaths of hundred civilians seem to constitute producing “evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.”  Using a serious definition of proportionality, it is hard not to measure the Israeli response as disproportionate.  In case anyone feels that I or other critics have been ganging up on Israel, let me add that I think that the first Gulf war, the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 and the 2003 invasion of Iraq also produced evils and disorders graver than the real or alleged evil to be eliminated in each case (two of these were also entirely without just cause–what real damage had Yugoslavia or Iraq committed against the “community of nations” that merited attacking them?).  I do not regard these to be close calls.  As things stand now, I don’t consider the war on Lebanon to be a close call, either. 

Under a secular definition of proportionality, which is necessarily historically related to the Christian just war tradition but still distinct, the disproportionate use of force means any use of force that exceeds what is necessary for remedying the evil in question.  (The evil here is the killing and kidnapping of Israeli soldiers, not the existence of Hizbullah itself.)  Do we really find Israel’s current response, especially in its new expanded phase, to be within the boundaries set by these definitions?  It is difficult to see how it could be.    

Perhaps worse than the flip disregard for what the term means and the disrespect for the principle of justice it is meant to embody is Rabbi Lapin’s sloppy and painful use of history.  First of all, simply as a matter of fact, the heir to the Austrian throne would not have counted then or now as an “obscure aristocrat.”  Had he been merely an obscure aristocrat, the world might have been saved a lot of grief, as there would probably have been less outrage at his death.  It is interesting that Rabbi Lapin should gloss over what came next, rushing off to the Western Front, as if England’s decision to enter the war had something directly to do with the death of Archduke Ferdinand. 

Actually, the Austrian case is instructive for what a disproportionate and unjust response looks like: despite reasonably credible assurances from Belgrade that the government had no part in the Black Hand’s attack on the Archduke, Austria drew up a list of near-impossible demands in an ultimatum Vienna expected would be rejected; in spite of Belgrade’s submission to nine of the ten points (the last being a Rambouillet-style concession of fundamental sovereignty), Austria invaded and began shelling Belgrade before undertaking the complete occupation of the country, all the while claiming itself justified in avenging the attack on the Archduke.  This is not so very different from what Israel has been doing in Lebanon.  In 1914 the population of Serbia suffered gravely for the crimes of a band of terrorists that the Serbian government was willing to have brought to justice.  Now all the people of Lebanon are suffering a similar fate for actions in which most of them and their political representatives had no part. 

The WWII example is also rather bizarre–is Rabbi Lapin really invoking Hitler’s excessive and unjust response to a non-existent provocation as a fig leaf for Israel?  In this parallel, that would mean that Israel’s claim about the border attack was false and its response completely unjustified–Rabbi Lapin should choose his examples more carefully.  Will we next be treated to justifications for the bombing of Beirut based on the precedent of Luftwaffe bombardments of Warsaw?  Something is seriously awry here.  In Britains’s case, unwise though it may have been to make guarantees to a country it could not defend or aid, the declaration of war on Germany was the fulfillment of an obligation to an ally under attack from an aggressor; some would call the immediate British response to the invasion of Poland not disproportionate but non-existent (indeed, the “Phoney War” itself became the butt of jokes). 

Nonetheless, I am puzzled at why Rabbi Lapin thinks invoking the two greatest military slaughters in human history, both of which reek with excess and injustice, should put our minds at ease about disproportionate use of force in Lebanon.  This is not exactly the argument from war crimes; it is more like saying, “Everybody else got to do it, so we can, too!”  But surely by the same standards of justice by which critics are judging the Israeli offensive the belligerents in these wars would be condemned for the insane and, particularly in WWII, indiscriminate and excessive use of force. 

The government responsible for widening and escalating conflicts from border skirmishes to full-blown campaigns has got to have profoundly good reasons for everything it is doing.  Israel may have had just cause to retaliate, but the manner in which it has retaliated so clearly exceeds what was needed to remedy the damage in question (and, more damning, this is a judgement that the Israelis could have made before they started) that it is becoming a rapid embarrassment to see the lengths to which apologists for this war will go.