Alan Dershowitz: Israel's Pager Attacks Legal

Harvard University Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz on Tuesday wrote in an opinion piece that Israel's use of pagers and other electronic communications devices as explosives in Lebanon is legal according to "the law of war."

In an opinion piece published by The Hill, Dershowitz defended Israel's pager attack against claims that it constitutes a war crime.

Dershowitz says the attack was "completely justified" and allowed under "the law of war," which he said "is based on two fundamental principles: first, the distinction between the targeting of combatants and civilians; second, the requirement of proportionality in attacking targets that include both."

"Becoming a combatant in this case includes joining or assisting Hezbollah, harboring its terrorists or allowing one's home or building to be used by Israel's enemies," Dershowitz wrote.

He added that "a small number of noncombatants — including children — were also killed or injured," which "is where the requirement of proportionality comes in."

Dershowitz wrote that the proportionality requirement "means that the anticipated civilian casualties must be proportional to the military value of the combatant targets."

The longtime legal professor noted that "there is no magic formula for achieving this result. The military action must simply be reasonable under the circumstances."

According to Dershowitz, previous wars have required a ratio "in the range of three or four noncombatant deaths for every combatant death," but "in Gaza, it has been closer to two noncombatants to one combatant. In the recent beeper and radio attacks, the number of civilian deaths and injuries were considerably lower than those of combatants."

Dershowitz concluded that accusations that Israel violated international law are "dangerously wrong."

"Israel should not be deterred from similar actions based on the biases of those who misuse the law as a weapon against the embattled nation-state of the Jewish people," he wrote.

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