Proportionality without an alternative: When the law is left alone

The principle of proportionality is one of the pillars of International Humanitarian Law. It is not in question. What is in question is what happens when this principle is demanded without offering a real alternative to military action.

In the case of Israel, proportionality does not operate as a bridge toward an exit. It operates as a permanent constraint, imposed in a conflict with no possibility of withdrawal, no substitution of security, and no credible external guarantor.

The law presupposes something that does not exist here: that limiting force buys time, that time opens a political pathway, and that this pathway reduces the threat.

None of this occurs when the adversary does not seek negotiation, when it openly declares the extermination of the opponent, and when the international system neither disarms, nor contains, nor substitutes.

Demanding proportionality in this context is not legally incorrect. But it is politically incomplete and morally asymmetric.

A state is asked to act as if it could withdraw, when it cannot. It is required to exercise extreme self-restraint, without redistributing risk, without offering equivalent security, without an honorable exit.

This does not turn proportionality into an error. It turns it into a solitary demand.

And here something uncomfortable must be said: International Law was not designed to resolve existential conflicts without a security architecture. It was designed to limit harm while other mechanisms — political, strategic, collective — do their part.

When those mechanisms do not exist, the law does not fail, but it stands alone.

This critique does not justify violations, does not legitimize collective punishment, and does not relativize civilian protection.

What it does instead is something different: it points out that demanding limits without offering exits is not neutrality, it is the transfer of moral and strategic burden onto a single actor.

Proportionality remains non-negotiable. But it cannot continue to function as a substitute for a non-existent international strategy.

Otherwise, it ceases to be a shared civilizational limit and becomes an infinite obligation imposed on one who cannot withdraw.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)