Law and Morality in Israel's War with the PLO (review)

Book Reviews 117 incomplete. In sum, Katriel's book has interest and merit but lacks the depth and power of solid theoretical analysis. Rohn Eloul Committee on Judaic Studies University of Arizona law and Morality in Israel's War with the PLO, by William V. O'Brien. New York & London: Routledge, 1991. 342 pp. William O'Brien, a government professor at Georgetown University, acknowledgeably differs with the international consensus about the legality and morality in some ofIsrael's most controversial policies and actions visa -vis its Arab neighbors and those in the occupied territories. The major theme of his study is that in large part these policies are justified because of the state of war between Israel and the PlO. Although an undeclared war, the violent struggle between Israel and the Palestinians has the attributes of a major international conflict; therefore, Israel is justified in using the various tactics and strategies it has employed against the Palestinians during the war in lebanon and in fighting the Intifada. Without using these methods, many ofwhich have been condemned by the United Nations as well as by Israel's closest friends such as the U.S., the country's very existence would be in jeopardy, O'Brien argues. The public at large, the media, and much of the international community including the U.S. have failed to recognize that Israel's conflict with the PlO "is not a series of violent episodes, to be judged individually, but a continuous war that varies in intensity but never stops" (p. 2). Because the Palestinians' objective has been the destruction of Israel by '''armed struggle'-which has meant mainly terrorism" (p. 3), O'Brien asserts, Israel has had no alternative but to resist by using the methods for which it has acquired so much opprobrium. He discounts such major changes in PlO policy as those during the 1970s and more recently resulting from the Intifada, in which it appeared that the mainstream of the Palestinian national movement has changed its objectives from elimination of the Jewish State to acceptance of a two-state solution, i.e., coexistence between Israel and a Palestine state. While the PlO mainstream may have changed its rhetoric, there remain a number of factions affiliated with the national movement that continue to use terrorist methods. Such attacks on Israel need not occur only on the territory of the 118 SHOFAR Fall 1992 Vol. 11, No. 1 state to warrant Israel's counter-measures, but even those outside the Middle East justify use of "anti-terrorist" strategies. The study reviews in detail the policies of Israel defense ministers from David Ben-Gurion, the first, through Ariel Sharon in 1982. The "strategy of counterforce deterrence by demonstration" targets not only the perpetrators of terrorist attacks on Israel, but the local populations among which the PlO maintains bases and the governments of territory (lebanon-1982) from which attacks occur. One chapter analyzes Israeli actions during the 1982 war in lebanon, such as the siege and bombardment of Beirut, Israel's response to the Maalot attack, and the Entebbe operation, concluding that, generallyspeaking, Israel acted with reasonable restraint, "proportionality," and "discriminate" counter attacks. Although the international community may have been critical of many such actions, O'Brien, through his interpretation of international law, disagrees. Only occasionally did local officers over-step the bounds, and then they were reprimanded, he states. The injury done to Israel's standing by the Sabra and Shatilla affair, although serious, was "somewhat mitigated by the fact that Israel did constitute the Kahan Commission, which produced afair set of judgements and recommendations that acknowledged the indirect responsibility of Israel and· its top officials and commanders for the massacres" (p. 208). The author reviews a number of the methods used by Israel in the West Bank and Gaza to repress the Intifada, including beatings, tear gas, plastic bullets, destruction of homes, curfews, and deadly force; he concludes that "properly used," they "may be justified by military/security necessity" (p. 258). Even the use of deadly force by the settlers and other civilians "in immediate self-defense may be legally permissible" (p. 259). O'Brien's differences with the international community and his overall...