By Brigitte L. Nacos
There are wars of choice and wars of necessity. Israel's military response to the deadly attacks against Israel a week ago was a war of necessity that justified actions to prevent further military intrusions in Israel’s South by Hamas and deter Hezbollah in the North from following the horrendous Hamas example.
The Hamas terrorists violated international law of war and human rights conventions that prohibit the targeting and killing of civilians or actions that likely will harm civilians.
Michael Walzer introduced the concept of “supreme emergency” in his thoughts about war. His argument is that in very rare cases, when a nation faces an existential threat, the targeting of civilians or disregarding the likely killing or injuring of civilian victims may be the only response to an existential threat. But when the supreme emergency does no longer exist, the rules of war must be followed again.
The initial Israeli bombardments directed against Hamas leaders and facilities that also killed Gazan civilians was justified under the supreme emergency doctrine.
But massive ground, air, and sea actions against Hamas do not fit into Walzer’s supreme emergency concept because at this point Israel is not threatened in an existential way. The implementation of the announced military actions would result in more civilian victims and thus be a violation of international conventions.
If Hezbollah enters the war, this would be an existential threat against Israel, a supreme emergency.
Israeli decision-makers should also consider the changing reactions in international traditional media coverage and social media content that might well affect public opinion and government policies abroad.
While the press in the West focused in the first hours and days after the surprise attack on October 7 exclusively on the brutality of the terrorist intruders and Israeli victims, their families, and all Israelis, more recently the suffering of civilians in Gaza dominated breaking news and commentaries. If massive air, sea, and ground actions cause "collateral damages," this will result in more images of Gazan victims in on- and offline media.
To be sure, Israel wants to destroy Hamas and its military capacity.
But to neutralize the leading strata of the organization and destroy its arsenal of weapons can only be achieved, when the whereabouts of Hamas leaders and their arms are known.
In that case, weaponized rockets and/or special forces can be deployed and perhaps even rescue hostages.
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