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Jack Ross takes on Michael Walzer: just wars or nice wars?

Jack Ross writes:

Here's the money quote from the New Republic/Dissent piece on Gaza by just-war theorist Michael Walzer:

The commentators and critics using [the word disproportionate] today, however, are not being
cautious at all; they are not making any kind of measured judgment, not
even a speculative kind. "Disproportionate" violence for them is simply
violence they don't like, or it is violence committed by people they
don't like.

The running joke in the foreign policy community about Walzer's "just war theory" is that he isn't interested in just wars but nice wars. A nice war is one that meets certain political/aesthetic criteria, in
other words a war that the left can feel good about, irrespective of
whether or not it is a just war.  Walzer is brazenly calling the kettle black here, accusing the pro-Palestinian side of confusing
justice with "niceness" on the issue of violence and proportionality. 
Of course, the nice/just dichotomy applies to Israel more then anything
else. 

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