Israel’s War Against Gazans: A Response to Lucas
1 Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 4JF, UK
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Received: 2 Nov 2025 / Published: 11 Nov 2025
Abstract
This article defends the claims of an earlier article (“Proportionality and Necessity in Israel’s Invasion of Gaza, 2023–2024”) against objections advanced by Simon Lucas in “Proportionality and Necessity in Israel’s Invasion of Gaza: A Reply to McMahan.” It defends earlier arguments and develops new arguments to show that Israel’s war in Gaza between October 7, 2023, and late October 2025 has egregiously violated two moral principles that govern both the resort to war and continuation of war. These principles require that war be proportionate and necessary. Among the claims defended here are that Lucas’s collectivist conception of war and his appeals to principles of reciprocity are deeply implausible.
Keywords: Gaza War 2023–25; just war theory; ethics of war; proportionality; requirement of necessity; collectivism; reciprocity in war; Simon Lucas
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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution
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CITE
McMahan, J. Israel’s War Against Gazans: A Response to Lucas. Controversial_Ideas 2025, 5, 8.
McMahan J. Israel’s War Against Gazans: A Response to Lucas. Journal of Controversial Ideas. 2025; 5(3):8.
McMahan, Jeff. 2025. "Israel’s War Against Gazans: A Response to Lucas." Controversial_Ideas 5, no. 3: 8.
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