Does the presence of the IDF's HQ in Tel Aviv endanger the city's population?

[azurnoir]

Under international law, is it legitimate to attack a target in an urban area?

Dinstein: “Article 58 of the first Protocol, from 1977, which supplements the Geneva Conventions of 1949, stipulates that parties to a conflict should ‘avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas.’ No one disputes that this article reflects customary international law, which is binding on the entire international community, although the State of Israel is not a party to the Protocol.”

Is the enemy permitted to attack without limit?

“The rule permitting an attack on military targets is subject to the principle of proportionality. That is, it is forbidden to attack a military target if the anticipated collateral damage to civilians or civilian objects is excessive relative to the anticipated military advantage. However, the military advantage anticipated from a successful attack against the Defense Ministry and General Staff facilities is so great that collateral damage to civilians, even if on a broad scale, will not generally be considered a violation of the principle of proportionality. Hence the inner logic of the provision of Article 58.”

http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/does-the-presence-of-the-idf-s-hq-in-tel-aviv-endanger-the-city-s-population.premium-1.435042

[aranthus]

1. Does the fact that the Pentagon is near DC endanger DC?

Yes, it does to an extent. You'll recall that the Pentagon was attacked on 9-11. What if that plane had instead crashed into Georgetown or Alexancria? The truth is that most national military headquarters are near or in the national capital. Are those headquarters legitimate military targets? Of course they are. does that mean that it's permissible to nuke a city just to get the headquarters? That doesn't fly. Proportionality still applies.

[azurnoir]

2. Near is not quite in and DC is in fact a political city where the White House, Capital Building,

and many monuments are located, it really does not ring a civilian city bell like say NYC or Minneapolis, or Tel Aviv do.

Now comes a question of proportionality, just who decides what is "proportional" if one bombs a city of say 1500 hundred people and kills 300 of them in order to get a military base located there is that proportional or if a city of 150,000 is bombed for the same reasons and 30,000 are killed are they both 'proportional' or is one considered so because only 300 people were killed but the other not because it was 30,000 even though in both cases it was 20% of the population dead

[Mosby]

3. 1600 Defense Pentagon, Washington, DC 20301-1600

The pentagon is in dc.

[azurnoir]

4. thanks for the address correction I was going on the word of the prior poster n/t

[aranthus]

7. I stand corrected.

I always thought it was in Alexandria. I interned in D.C. for months, travelled throuugh the Pentagon station every day to work, and never knew. Thanks for the correction.

[Igel]

8. No.

Proportionality is with respect to the military advantage gained. Killing population isn't a military advantage.

Whether you have the Pentagon in a village of 1500 and kill 300 or a city of 1.5 million and kill 300,000 doesn't matter, in principle. If you destroy the Pentagon and in so doing will save 3 lives, then it's not "proportional" to destroy even just the entire village. If you will save 100k lives, sure--take out the village of 1500, the gains are worth it. But don't take out the city, 1.5 million dead to save 100k isn't worth it. If you will save 30 million lives and there's no other way of doing it, destroy the city and don't blink at destroying the village.

You should still take due precautions to minimize collateral damage. And I haven't heard of a generally accepted idea of what "proportional" means. Is it lives saved: lives lost of 1:1? 2:1? 20:1? 0.5:1? Dunno.

[shaayecanaan]

11. That's not what proportionality means...

You're committing the oft-made mistake of conflating proportionality with discrimination. According to the Hague convention on the rules of war, for an attack to be just it must be both proportionate and discriminate.

Proportionality essentially means that if you are attacked with bows and arrows it would be disproportionate to respond with nuclear weapons. Discrimination requires an attacker to take pains to distinguish between civilian and military targets.

[Ruby the Liberal]

14. I am not aware of any country that doesn't recognize

Tel Aviv as the political capital of Israel. Many have consulates in Jerusalem, but Tel Aviv is where all the Embassies are located.

[azurnoir]

15. however is it actually the capital of Israel? I seem to remember a bit of outrage

over the Guardian saying it was, and besides as we're told here the Tel Aviv area is thought of as one of the best Gay vacation spots there is, so perhaps politics is not what first comes to mind when hearing Tel Aviv

[Ruby the Liberal]

16. Hey - good to see you too!

Glad to finally have some time to catch up on this group.

Right now, the only country that says Tel Aviv is not the recognized "Capital" (political center) of Israel, is Israel. Even with the Knesset being in the outskirts of J'salem, the Embassies are not.

[holdencaufield]

5. "avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas"

Funny (but not ha-ha funny) that people never seem to bring this up when Palestinians erect rocket launchers in population centres or store weapons in schools and mosques or use a hospital as a military HQ.

[Violet_Crumble]

6. People bring that up all the time.

Not sure why yr under the impression it's not brought up...

[Igel]

9. The problem is that often densely populated areas spring up around military objectives.

Sad fact of life. If there's something of military interest it's likely to involve jobs. You tend to want to live not far from your job, so wham, there's a population there.

Of course, with the advent of weapons that destroy more and more territory "within or near" keeps changing its meaning. The Pentagon was fairly isolated when built. Now that we have nukes, well, it's not so isolated.

[holdencaufield]

10. "densely populated areas spring up around military objectives"

Tell that to the guys building the Death Star

[eyl]

13. This is less of a factor in Israel's case,

Because distances are shorter.

What's more of a factor is that many Israeli bases were established on the sites (and using the structures) of Mandate-era British police stations/army bases. As such, they tended to be near population centers.

There have been several initiatives to move bases out of population centers (for example, most of the training bases in the "super-base" in Zrifin are supposed to move to the Negev) both to get them away from population center and because they're sitting on very valuable real estate.

[BudT]

12. A very important topic IMO

Warfare has changed considerably since the rules about proportionality and discrimination were codified. Much of that change was caused by the fact that modern states like the US or Britain (and Israel so far) have the power to defend themselves from almost any conventional attack and destroy any conventional army and regime that tries it. And so ad hoc non-state entities are created to wage war and avoid the rules by not being a "state" that has a stake in its international reputation that must be protected (and can be prosecuted).

This is a serious problem for example, when Hamas has offshoot militant groups that fire rockets into civilian areas in Israel. Those offshoots came under the Hamas umbrella - unofficially of course - after Hamas was voted into power and wanted to retain "some" legitimacy and credibility among its supporters in the West.

But some of the comments about proportionality and discrimination in this thread sound as if those are the only factors that enter into the legality or ethics of warfare. Humanitarian laws of conflict always begin with the principle of aggression (non-defensive war) as being the greatest crime against humanity. The reason is that if no-one commits aggression (starts a war) then there is no need for defense and there will be no need to decide if any military action was proportional or discriminate.

Here's a link to a paper that is one of the best treatments of these complex questions I have read - for anyone who wants to get past bashing either Israel or the Palestinians and actually think about the difficult ideas underlying modern conflict and warfare.

http://jcpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/proportionality.pdf

Another website I found where these questions are thoughtfully debated is at:

http://ihl.ihlresearch.org/index.cfm

Added: I'd add that if one steps back from the conflict and asks why the Pal leadership pretends to want its own state but turns down every reasonable offer - this is part of the reason. As a state it will have much less ability to allow attacks from its "sovereign territory" than as a people under occupation. There's been a great deal of pressure put on Abbas to accept statehood. And even Hamas has decided (for now anyway) to say that they will accept a state for the Palestinians but that in no way will they stop their struggle to eliminate Israel and make it part of that state - as the next "stage". I think the problems between the PA and Hamas - aside from who gets to control the international aid and bank accounts - are over how to retain immunity from international bodies like the UN while they continue to attack the Jews in Israel. Right now they both have a pretty sweet deal. Why change it?