Israel's Dahiya Doctrine, Proportionality and the Collective Punishment of Civilians

Israel's ongoing attacks on civilian targets in Lebanon should come as no surprise to anyone given an Israeli military doctrine that was adopted back in the first decade of the 21st century.   Given Israel's substantial military superiority over its neighbours particularly Lebanon and Gaza/the West Bank, it's not terribly surprising that this strategy has been used repeatedly over the past two decades to punish threats against the nation of Israel.

 

The Dahiya Doctrine is an asymmetrical Israeli military tactic that calls for the use of deliberate, massive and disproportionate targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure with the goal of pressuring and punishing the citizens of hostile regimes.  It is named for the strategy that Israel used during the Second Lebanon War of 2006 which targeted the Dahiya quarter of Beirut, the stronghold of the Hezbollah.  Its alleged goal is to achieve deterrence and to prevent Israel entering into costly protracted wars of attrition.  The originators of the Dahiya Doctrine, Major General Gadi Eizenkot and Colonel Gabriel Siboni announced the Doctrine in 2008 and stated that Israel's specific goals for the use of the tactic were to set a "painful and memorable precedent, quick military operations serve to shorten and intensify the period of fighting and lengthen periods of calm between rounds of fighting."  By enacting the Doctrine, Israel would create an environment that would include increasing the cost of postwar recovery for the states and civilian populations that support and finance attacks on Israel. Israel's archenemies consider postwar recovery imper­ative and integral to any victory. They mobilize their financial and noncombat resources for large-scale reconstruction efforts aimed at the rapid alleviation of civilian suffering. 

  

Here is a quote from General Eisenkot:

 

"What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on… We will apply disproportionate force on it (village) and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases… This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved."

  

Since its official inception, the Doctrine has guided IDF war making in Gaza in 2008, 2012, 2014 and, in the most obvious example, the current military operations in Gaza in 2023 and 2024 which has cost the lives of over 41,000 Gazans with over half being women and children and pretty much destroyed the civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.

 

One might ask whether this doctrine is legal.  According to the Institute for Middle East Understanding, international laws prohibit the deliberate and disproportionate use of military force against civilians and their infrastructure.  

 

Here's what the International Committee of the Red Cross has to say about the principle of proportionality with my bolds:

 

"Applying the principle of proportionality is critically important for protecting civilians and critical infrastructure in situations of armed conflict, especially because civilian and military networks are highly interconnected in the information and communications technology (ICT) environment and incidental civilian harm is to be expected in most cases.

 

The principle of proportionality is a corollary of the principle of distinction and it recognizes that, in the conduct of hostilities, causing incidental harm to civilians and civilian objects is often unavoidable.  However, it places a limit on the extent of incidental civilian harm that is permissible whenever military objectives are attacked, by spelling out how the principles of humanity and necessity must be balanced in such situations.

 

The principle of proportionality is further reinforced by certain rules flowing from the principle of precautions in attack, in particular the obligation to do everything feasible to assess whether an attack may be expected to be disproportionate and to cancel or suspend an attack if it becomes apparent that it may be expected to have disproportionate effects.  Overall, an attack against a military objective can be lawful only if the principles of proportionality and precautions are respected, meaning that the incidental civilian harm must not be excessive, and the attacker must have taken all feasible precautions to avoid this harm or at least reduce it."

 

As well, Article 51 of the Geneva Convention states the following:

 

1. The civilian population and individual civilians shall enjoy general protection against dangers arising from military operations. To give effect to this protection, the following rules, which are additional to other applicable rules of international law, shall be observed in all circumstances.

 

2. The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited.

 

3. Civilians shall enjoy the protection afforded by this Section, unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities.

 

4. Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are:

 

(a) those which are not directed at a specific military objective;

(b) those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or

(c) those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol;

 

and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.

 

5. Among others, the following types of attacks are to be considered as indiscriminate:

 

(a) an attack by bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects; and

(b) an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.

 

6. Attacks against the civilian population or civilians by way of reprisals are prohibited.

 

7. The presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favour or impede military operations. The Parties to the conflict shall not direct the movement of the civilian population or individual civilians in order to attempt to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield military operations.

  

As I noted at the beginning of this posting, Israel's actions that have impacted the civilian population of Lebanon are a direct result of its implementation of its Dahiya Doctrine which has been inflicted repeatedly on the Palestinians and Lebanese for decades.  Collective and disproportionate punishment of its neighbours seems to be the norm when it comes the decisions made by Israel's military and political leadership despite the internationally acceptable limits of military actions against civilians.

 

Additional References:

 

1.) Dahiya Doctrine - Fouad Gehad Marei (2020)

 

2.) The Dahiya Doctrine, Proportionality and War Crimes - Rashid I. Khalid (2014)