Hamas & the Rule of Distinction

“One can readily see,” writes George Washington professor Amitai Etzioni, perhaps most famous now for his “communitarian” writings, “why people hate to face a choice that has only two very devastating outcomes: Either allow terrorists to act with impunity by mixing in with the civilian population, or be forced to bomb homes from which terrorists launch their rockets.” Warning that Hezbollah has far more rockets hidden in homes and similar places in Lebanon than Hamas had in Gaza, which Israel will someday have to deal with, he writes:

This highlights the importance of achieving moral clarity on the issue at hand. It should be based on the understanding that the rule of distinction, which is the most important rule of armed conflict, applies to all combatants. The rule calls on the military to do its best to separate out civilians from combatants and to spare the latter.

It should be understood that terrorists who operate out of dense urban areas violate this moral and legal rule. To protect civilians, all combatants must separate themselves from the general population by wearing some kind of identifying markers, putting indicators on their vehicles and locating themselves away from civilians. Otherwise they are the ones who violate the rule of distinction — and the prime reason that civilians are hurt.

This doesn’t reduce the moral pressures upon Israel to do what it can to spare civilians victimized by their own barbarous government, but it does make the obvious point that blame has to be assigned to those who use their people this way. It’s not a point recognized by many in the West, who seem to believe that Israel is killing civilians recklessly and for its own wicked purposes.

Though one can argue about the nation’s actions — Israelis themselves certainly do —  this reading of its motives is preposterous. And one offered from the luxury of safety. If the government of Canada were firing missiles at Cleveland from neighborhoods in Toronto, and the people who say this about Israel lived in Cleveland, they would suddenly find the distinction  between combatants who try to protect and those who endanger civilians a very important, and a moral and rational, distinction to make.