What’s there to debate?

The headline and tone of this “news analysis,” Tough Military Stance Stirs Little Debate in Israel the New York Times is baffling. What is there to debate? If the doctrine is effective it’s working. The idea that an idea must be debated to be worthwhile is a prescription for paralysis.

In the year since Israel launched its devastating military offensive against Hamas in Gaza, the country’s political and military leaders have faced intense international condemnation and accusations of possible war crimes.

But Israel seems to have few qualms. Officials and experts familiar with the country’s military doctrine say that given the growing threats from Iranian-backed militant organizations both in Gaza and in Lebanon, Israel will probably find itself fighting another, similar kind of war.

Only next time, some here suggest, Israel will apply more force.

“The next round will be different, but not in the way people think,” said Giora Eiland, a retired major general and former chief of Israel’s National Security Council. “The only way to be successful is to take much harsher action.”

Such talk has raised alarm among some critics in Israel, but so far it has stirred little public debate.

Why, exactly, those critics who don’t have concern for Israeli citizen foremost in their minds, should be of concern to Israel isn’t explained by the reporter, Isabel Kershner, who acknowledges:

Both the three-week campaign in Gaza, which ended on Jan. 18, and Israel’s monthlong war in 2006 against the Shiite Hezbollah organization in Lebanon have brought relative quiet to Israel’s borders.

I would think that the article should have ended there.

Israel’s objective, according to Gabriel Siboni, a retired colonel who runs the military program at the Institute for National Security Studies, is to shorten and intensify the period of fighting and to lengthen the period between rounds.

Israel was accused of using disproportionate force in Lebanon, particularly after it flattened the Dahiya district in Beirut, a Shiite neighborhood that housed the command and control headquarters of Hezbollah. Over the month, more than a thousand Lebanese were killed.

But Israeli experts say that as long as the targets are legitimate ones, the whole point is to try to overwhelm the enemy with maximum force.

The destruction of Dahiya “sent a message to Hezbollah of the consequences” of confrontation, Mr. Siboni said.

Notice that she attributes this view simply to “Israeli experts” instead of acknowledging that this is a valid reading of international law.

Then she stacks the deck further against Israel:

The campaign in Gaza, intended to halt years of rocket fire against southern Israel, left up to 1,400 Palestinians dead, including hundreds of civilians. The human toll, as well as the extensive destruction of property, prompted a United Nations mission led by an internationally renowned judge, Richard Goldstone, to accuse Israel of deliberately attacking civilians and of violations of the international laws of war.

Israel rejected the Goldstone report as biased and fundamentally flawed. Israel says that while mistakes were made, it chose its targets on purely military merits and went to extraordinary lengths to warn civilians in Gaza to leave areas under attack.

One one side we had “Israeli experts,” now, on the other we have the “internationally renowned judge.” By now Goldstone’s flaws should be manifest. And even if Kershner couldn’t be bothered to read a whole website critiquing Goldstone, surely she could have made herself aware of Martin Kramer’s short and devastating critique of Goldstone’s credulity. She need not attribute Goldstone flaws to the Israeli government, she could see it herself, if she wanted to.

Kershner gives too much space to Israel’s self-interested and biased critics, but she does end her analysis well.

But Israeli officials and security experts contend that other Western countries are facing similar challenges in their conflicts abroad. What must change, they say, is not the Israeli military’s conduct but the interpretation and application of the laws of war by the rest of the world.

In the meantime, Mr. Siboni said, Israel’s wars “may produce more Goldstones, but that may be the price you have to pay.”

This isn’t just about Israel. It’s about the West’s ability to fight terror. An American expert, Johathan Keiler addressed this in a recent paper (.pdf):

“Disproportion” can be seen as the leading edge of an effort to delegitimatize any action by powerful western nations against weaker developing countries or nonstate actors. It is in the interest of the United States to generally reject these claims, for should they gain further acceptance, American military action and doctrines might be seriously hindered in the future, with potentially grave repercussions.

Unfortunately, it isn’t clear that Isabel Kershner got the message.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.