Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

Targeted killing is a lethal and irreversible counter-terrorism measure. Its use is governed by vague legal norms and controlled by security-oriented decision-making processes.

Oversight is inherently limited, as most of the relevant information is top secret. Under these circumstances, attempts to assess the legality of targeted killing operations raise challenging, and often undecided, questions, including: How much intelligence effort should be dedicated to examining the anticipated collateral damage? How many victims would constitute disproportionate collateral damage, when set against the prevention of a large scale terror attack? And, given the inherent limitations of intelligence information, how certain must one be that the targeted area is free of innocent bystanders?

While exploring these and other questions, this policy paper sheds light on the targeted killing decision-making process. It highlights some of its weaknesses, proposes concrete solutions to these problems, and advocates a restrictive targeted killing policy, one that protects civilians from the ravages of both terrorism and counter-terrorism.

Shiri Krebs is a law and international security fellow at the Stanford Center on International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and a doctoral candidate at Stanford Law School. She was formerly a research assistant at the Israel Democracy Institute.

This policy research paper was produced under the auspices of the Israel Democracy Institute’s Amnon Lipkin Shahak Program on National Security and Democracy, headed by Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer, Prof. Yuval Shany, and Admiral (retired) Ami Ayalon.

The policy paper includes a response by Amichai Cohen and Tal Mimran.