I’ve been hearing arguments that the civilian casualties are due to the fact that Hamas stores rockets and whatnot in schools and office buildings.
Now, assuming that’s correct, why does that make it morally okay for Israel to bomb these targets?
I would think that in a hostage situation, you would want to do everything possible to avoid the death of the innocent civilian. If this is similar, why would you think it’s okay to risk killing innocent civilians simply to destroy weapons?
Can’t they send troops in instead to destroy them? I would think that their argument would be that this is too much of a risk for Israeli troops, but then that would mean they prefer doing the bombing to sending in troops, which would mean they value Israeli troops over innocent civilians.
“Under most understandings of the ethics of war it’s immoral. The argument Israel gives is that Hamas turned those civilian buildings into military targets, so Israel is free to strike them.
Assuming that they’re storing rockets there, however, doesn’t mean it’s okay to strike without regard to civilian casualties under the rules of jus in bello (justice in war). Here’s a decent summary of some of the rules of jus in bello:”
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/war/
1. Obey all international laws on weapons prohibition. Chemical and biological weapons, in particular, are forbidden by many treaties. Nuclear weapons aren’t so clearly prohibited but it seems fair to say a huge taboo attaches to such weapons and any use of them would be greeted with incredible hostility by the international community.
2. Discrimination and Non-Combatant Immunity. Soldiers are only entitled to use their (non-prohibited) weapons to target those who are, in Walzer’s words, “engaged in harm.” Thus, when they take aim, soldiers must discriminate between the civilian population, which is morally immune from direct and intentional attack, and those legitimate military, political and industrial targets involved in rights-violating harm. While some collateral civilian casualties are excusable, it is wrong to take deliberate aim at civilian targets. An example would be saturation bombing of residential areas. (It is worth noting that almost all wars since 1900 have featured larger civilian, than military, casualties. Perhaps this is one reason why this rule is the most frequently and stridently codified rule in all the laws of armed conflict, as international law seeks to protect unarmed civilians as best it can.)
3. Proportionality. Soldiers may only use force proportional to the end they seek. They must restrain their force to that amount appropriate to achieving their aim or target. Weapons of mass destruction, for example, are usually seen as being out of proportion to legitimate military ends.
4. Benevolent quarantine for prisoners of war (POWs). If enemy soldiers surrender and become captives, they cease being lethal threats to basic rights. They are no longer “engaged in harm.” Thus it is wrong to target them with death, starvation, rape, torture, medical experimentation, and so on. They are to be provided, as The Geneva Conventions spell out, with benevolent—not malevolent—quarantine away from battle zones and until the war ends, when they should be exchanged for one’s own POWs. Do terrorists deserve such protection, too? Great controversy surrounds the detainment and aggressive questioning of terrorist suspects held by the U.S. at jails in Cuba, Iraq and Pakistan in the name of the war on terror.
5. No Means Mala in Se. Soldiers may not use weapons or methods which are “evil in themselves.” These include: mass rape campaigns; genocide or ethnic cleansing; using poison or treachery (like disguising soldiers to look like the Red Cross); forcing captured soldiers to fight against their own side; and using weapons whose effects cannot be controlled, like biological agents.
6. No reprisals. A reprisal is when country A violates jus in bello in war with country B. Country B then retaliates with its own violation of jus in bello, seeking to chasten A into obeying the rules. There are strong moral and evidentiary reasons to believe that reprisals don’t work, and they instead serve to escalate death and make the destruction of war increasingly indiscriminate. Winning well is the best revenge.
“Note especially 2, 3, and 6, and how Israel likely violates them even by their own lights.”
Parlance Province 