This series is about Israel’s policies in Gaza. I think they’re so unconscionable that I can’t believe they’re up for debate even among Jews — and yet they are. Instead of criticising Israel, I invite you to explore the basis and consequences of a pro-Israel’s-policy view. I’m not naive about changing minds but gotta try. This is for you if you: (1) support Israel’s policies in Gaza and the West Bank (2) consider Palestinians and Israelis to be equally human, their lives equally valuable and (3) don’t consider Jews to be a superior race.
Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4|Part 5|Part 6|Part 7|Part 8|Part 9
Once upon a time lived a very bad man called Immanuel Kant. He aimed to create a moral system based on objective reason which I think has had a profoundly bad effect on the world. Kant’s moral system revolves around a supposedly-reasonable, universal maxim, and is designed to maximise morality, which he defines as something that comes from the motive of duty. That’s right, if your intent in an action is something other than duty, your action has no moral value. It is your intentions that matter; certainly not the result. Intent is magic.
Now I’m not arguing for pure utilitarianism here. But I really really hope something strikes you as seriously wrong with the above morality. If you need more context, just consider Kant on two things. The first is that Kant was not only racist but played an active role in the codification of racism within Western Enlightenment. Which should at least make us question the reliability of his “moral method”. The second is that he explicitly argued that it’s always wrong to lie, even if you’re lying to a would-be murderer about where hir victim is. Because it’s really really important to have moral motivations and when something is wrong, it’s WRONG. It would be irrational and sentimental to start considering pesky things like consequences.
This has played out particularly horribly during the latest bombing of Gaza where Israel had argued (as it had in most recent conflicts) that it’s the intent that counts. Because allegedly Israel doesn’t intend to cause civilian casualties (and takes “steps” like 30 second warnings before knocking), it is morally justified in the bombings. To focus on the consequences (ie. that pretty much all civilian casualties were Palestinian) is therefore misdirection.
I would think even the most ardent pro-Israel person wouldn’t have the chutzpah to think that (say) a Palestinian 7 members of whose family were killed would/should give a flying fuck about Israel’s stated intention — as expounded by a PR spokesperson. In order to make the moral argument you therefore have to not only say that this was ok but to argue that the victim is the one who is to blame for being so morally misguided. Which is exactly what I’ve seen being done a lot of the time. It leads to blood-curdling sentence fragments like “the civilian casualties in Gaza have been horrible, BUT…”
I’m not saying intent should carry no weight in morals — it does and should, to an extent. But to treat it as a get-out-of-utilitarian-consequences-free card is abhorrent. It’s not different to the smug smile of the man (and it is a man) in Kant’s example who did not lie to the murderer and therefore did the right thing, because he did not intend for the murderer to catch up with his victim. To buy the argument here is to also accept it in the case of the Sri Lankan Army.
The other problem with intent is how do you prove it? What I’ve seen more of in arguments is the attribution of positive intent to Israelis and negative intent to Palestinians — but that has more to do with preconceptions than anything. For every terrible opinion/intention attributed to Hamas, there’s someone in active Israeli politics with similar opinions about the Palestinians PLUS a much greater influence over the use of actual weapons that have killed countless civilians. What matters more than intent is the actual policies and the extent to which they show evidence of targeting civilians or not. And without the pre-conception that Israel is Just, I think they fall apart pretty easily. If you think targeting a policeman’s household because he’s a member of Hamas is an essential part of stopping Hamas firing rockets into Israel if you’re ok with giving the family a very quick warning and then bombing the house — there’s a lot more than Israel’s supposed intent in not killing civilians going on.
Onto self-defence. If a member of Hamas, or any other group, is sneaking across the “border” into a household in Israel with a lethal weapon (as has definitely happened), to me it’s clearly legitimate self-defence for the household members to use lethal force if necessary. It doesn’t matter that the person thinks they have a very good reason for doing it. But then it’s the height of chutzpah to argue that a civilian in Gaza would not have the same moral right to do the same on seeing an IDF soldier in a ground invasion of Gaza. The only real argument is if you simply considered Palestinians evil in which case please consult target audience description at the top of this post.
Another phrase which should be setting off red flags but isn’t when talking about who is justified in what is “innocent civilians”. I was listening to an episode of the Global Dispatches Podcast (I can’t find which one) which mentioned the insidious nature of the phrase. In international conflict, the rhetoric about protecting “civilian” life has been gradually replaced with rhetoric about protecting “innocent civilians”. If you look at the two terms side by side the implication is clear. Some civilians are guilty (because for instance they support the combatants) and hence fair game to target.
Naturally this has been an important phrase in this conflict. Given the rhetoric about how the Palestinians are to blame for everything, it’s not surprising that many Israelis see the set of “innocent civilians” that they’re meant to be trying not to kill as non-existent. There are even op-eds saying this explicitly. By that logic it’s undeniable that there are no innocent civilians in Israel either, since the vast majority of the population have supported policies that have resulted in so many civilian deaths in Gaza. Once again, even if you have horrible opinions, the penalty for this should not be death, not for Israelis, not for Palestinians, not anyone.
Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Part 4|Part 5|Part 6|Part 7|More to come
Yep, comments are closed. There are plenty of other venues to respond that don’t involve me paying to host pro-IDF rhetoric. I must be a coward and an enemy of Freeze PeachTM. What am I afraid of???
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