JINSA Report #588 Proportionality

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July 24, 2006

JINSA Report #588

Proportionality

Kofi Anan, supported by the chorus, calls Israel's response to
Hezbollah's attack over the international border "disproportionate,"
meaning, it seems, that Israel killed "too many" Lebanese in proportion
to the number of Jews killed. We think he means "parity," not
"proportionality," but consider the stupidity of either in assessing
threat and response.

Hezbollah is a proxy of Iran and Syria and operates by virtue of the
failure of the Lebanese government to control its own territory. The
population of Iran, Syria and Lebanon (plus the Palestinians, who are
cheering for Nasrallah) is about 122,243,630. The population of Israel
is 6,276,882. The ratio is roughly 19.5 to one. The number of
Israeli killed thus far is 31 - proportionality requires 605.4 Arab
and/or Iranian deaths. The Lebanese government says 330 people have died.

Try a different number.

The states of the Arab League plus Iran constitute 326,291,363 people, a
ratio of 52:1. Remove for the moment Egypt, Jordan and Mauritania - the
only members of the Arab League that have relations with Israel - and
you get 252,109,172 people; a ratio of 40:1. [At one point we had
removed Iraq, thinking they had enough trouble of their own, but last
week Prime Minister al-Maliki denounced the Israeli attacks, so Iraq now
counts.] That gives you 1,829 or 1,240 deaths required to create
proportionality.

Try a different thought.

Coalition forces in Iraq uncovered approximately 400,000 bodies in mass
graves no older than 1991, coincident with the crushed Shiite uprising.
That works out to 33,333/year for the 12 years between 1991 and the
invasion of 2003. Add to that the 5,000 "excess child deaths per month"
estimated by the UN for Iraqi children during the period of sanctions,
or 60,000 children annually dying beyond what would have been considered
"normal" in a country such as Iraq. That is more than 93,000 annual
regime-related deaths in Saddam's Iraq in the last 12 years of his
dictatorship. Whatever destruction Sunni and Shiite militias plus
foreign forces supplied by Iran and Syria have brought to Iraq, there is
a long way to go to reach parity with the stability of the "good old days."

How many deaths would it take in Darfur to create proportionality with
the government of Sudan? Less than the 200,000 already dead, we suspect.
The war in the Balkans likewise cost more than 200,000 dead - mainly
civilians - proportional to what?

Enough. Body counts are terrible way to assess the justification for
military action or the success/failure thereof. Israel faces a
terrorist army seeking nothing less than the destruction of Israel and
the death of as many Israelis as possible, civilian or military. It is
clear to objective observers that Israel is doing all it can to limit
the killing of civilians - even giving up the element of surprise over
Hezbollah to warn people to flee. But the obligation of the Government
of Israel is to find and remove the threat, even when it is dispersed
within the civilians of Lebanon in an effort by Hezbollah to create
"disproportionate" Lebanese civilian casualties.

To view this JINSA Report online click on the link below.
http://www.jinsa.org/JINSAReports/3468

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