Frank J. Menetrez has replied to my challenge to his argument on ethics, intentions and the IDF on Norman Finkelstein's website. You can read what he has to say here. While we both seem to be in the same camp in many ways, I still find his views on this question distinctly dodgy. I sent this in reply:

I think the disagreement between Menetrez and myself centres partly on the difference between the “real world” and the examples contrived here for the purpose of illustrating moral principles. The idea that IDF commanders can fully and accurately foresee which missiles, and how many, will go astray in the targeting of a particular military base is, of course, not tenable in the real world; nonetheless, if we allow in the hypothetical example that the consequences of the bombing can be, and are, fully foreseen as we have, the example stands.

One further example Menetrez uses – the dropping of a nuclear bomb on the military base – may be used as an effective illustration. We can imagine, for example, the bombing of the same base with progressively lower-yield bombs, until we have a situation in which the blast radius encompasses, say, the entire base and half the school. Compare this with a situation in which bombers using conventional weapons have, for logistical reasons, to attack from the north, with the school to the south of the base, with the consequent bombing patterns resulting in a high level of “collateral damge”, to coin an ugly phrase, in the school – a consequence the commanders fully predict. Again, quibbling aside there is surely very little, if any, moral distinction that can reasonably be made between the two cases. Menetrez objects that, if the base is the target, the commander may make his weapons more accurate, and aim them with a view to avoiding civilian casualties. Maybe so, but in that instance he will then be “foreseeing” a different number of casualties to before, based on the changes he makes. Thus we will be dealing with an entirely different situation, and an unequal comparison. The question, however, remains whether, all else being equal (including numbers of civilians and military killed), there is a serious moral distinction between the two acts (deliberate attack on the school and deliberate attack on the base with inevitable civilian casualties). I maintain that there is not.

In the hypothetical World Trade Centre case Menetrez constructs, describing the resultant killing of civilians as “foreseen but unintended” would be, to my mind, a lot more accurate than considering them “intended” – Menetrez here seems to be making the mistake of conflating the intended consequences of the means of killing (killing the officials/military personnel) with the foreseen but unintended ones (mass killing of civilians). If the hijackers’ aim was indeed to kill military/governmental personnel only, it would have made no difference to them or their plans if every one of the civilians in the towers had access to a hang-glider or jet-pack which had allowed them to make their escape (though they of course knew they probably wouldn’t); whereas if their aim was to kill every civilian in the towers, it most certainly would. In the proposed example, the hijackers are not exactly intending to kill these civilians, they simply foresee that this will be the resultant consequence of their actions, and are indifferent to their deaths – as indifferent as the IDF commander killing children as a consequence of his attack on a neighbouring military base.

I agree that every attacker intends her means – but in the case of the hypothetical attacks the school and the base, “means” in both cases equals a course of action expected to exact a heavy civilian death toll. If the neighbouring base, for example, had to be completely obliterated, with such a heavy bombardment that 70% of the school would inevitably be taken with it (and the IDF commanders knew it), the moral distinction between that course of action and an attack on the school itself – perhaps one deliberately destroying the front 70% where the soldiers were known to be entering – would again be miniscule, if we could find any meaningful distinction at all. Again, with all due respect to Mr Menetrez, and having yet to investigate the moral philosophers he cites, the “intended”/”foreseen but unintended” distinction just does not seem to hold any water.

Nonetheless, as we both seem to agree, the level and nature of Israeli violence against the Palestinians is unjustifiable by any reasonable moral system. It is this, perhaps, which needs to be stressed more than anything else.

Tim Holmes