Gaza and America
By Anthony Gregory • Wednesday November 21, 2012 10:25 AM PDT • 29 Comments
When Hamas, a quasi-state claiming to represent the Palestinians, launches rockets that predictably kill or maim everyday Israelis, destroy property, and cause fear among civilians, it is committing terrorism. Regardless of the legitimate grievances Palestinians have, it is wrong to use deadly violence in a way that inevitably hurts the innocent. This is the moral principle toward which we should hope all humanity strives.
When the Israeli state, claiming to represent the Israelis, launches bombs at densely populated Palestinian neighborhoods, killing and injuring many civilians, this too must be condemned. The right of self-defense against aggressors does not entitle one to inflict collective punishment or even to be criminally reckless with the lives of innocent third parties. Nothing entitles one to be so reckless. We have all sorts of fundamental rights in life—not to be enslaved, not to be killed, and to pursue peacefully a living and our happiness. And the right of self-defense. But self-defense does not include the right to hurt innocent people any more than the right to feed one’s family entitles one to steal.
For many years, the U.S. government has supported foreign governments in their militarism. Americans should have a particular interest in what these governments do. It is of course a disgrace that the U.S. has backed such awful dictators as Saddam Hussein and Hosni Mubarak.
Very consistently, U.S. policy has been to support Israel financially, diplomatically, morally, and militarily. Israel uses U.S.-provided hardware to bomb Palestinian communities. America’s perceived one-sided support for Israel was one of the major grievances named by Osama bin Laden in explaining why al Qaeda attacks the United States. Israeli policy should thus be of special interest to Americans in our national foreign policy discourse.
As with the rest of American diplomacy, there is very little dissent in the mainstream on this issue. During their foreign policy presidential debate, Obama and Romney competed strenuously over who would be more unwaveringly pro-Israel. That was the extent of the debate: not what the right position is, but which one of them held that same position more firmly.
Critics of Israel are sometimes accused of singling out Israel. I’m sure some of them do. And some appear to have bad reasons for doing so. But there are good reasons to carefully scrutinize the close allies of your own government, whose policies you might have a marginal chance in changing. This becomes even more important when all conventional discourse is silent on or supportive of the status quo of mass violence that has failed to bring peace and incites terrorism. Moreover, if out of general principle, regardless of the excuse, you don’t approve of governments occupying communities where they’re not wanted, putting up checkpoints on internal main roads, choking off commerce and suppressing cultural exchange—if you don’t approve of blockades, restrictions on exports, or governmental attempts to stop private individuals from transferring small arms—you should be unhappy that your government backs these policies by proxy.
We often hear that we should defend Israel because it is a liberal democracy, at least compared to the Muslim theocracies nearby. But that shouldn’t temper our critique of the government’s policies in the occupied territories. Liberal states have often been guilty of some of the greatest crimes in foreign policy. On the eve of the American Revolution, one of the central colonial criticisms of the British Empire was that it acted hypocritically, championing human rights at home while treating foreigners with a much lower moral standard.
This is true of U.S. foreign policy in general. Americans like to believe their government defends something akin to the relative liberty we associate with America at home. Yet U.S. foreign policy has often conspicuously stood in sharp contrast with the values espoused at home. It has been characterized by firebombings, torture, massacres of villagers, and alliances with some of the most brutal states in modern history. Often, the victims’ humanity is dismissed in mainstream political discourse as if their lives don’t matter as much as our lives do.
The collectivism of war is one of the most wicked forms of tribalism in our time. Most Americans recognize that Muslim terrorists are guilty of regarding innocent people as a disposable means to an end. But they are not alone. U.S. and Israeli leaders do this too. The United States deliberately killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians through sanctions in the 1990s. Today, Israeli politicians and important public figures use crazed language calling on the government to “flatten Gaza” or “send it back to the Middle Ages.”
I’m not saying there is a simple solution for the Middle East. But it should be obvious that just as Hamas’s rocket attacks are an immoral and ineffective way to defend the Palestinians, Israel’s provocations and reactions, which tend to kills dozens of times as many people, are also immoral and counterproductive. Whether the goal is seen as self-defense or to maintain an illegitimate occupation, the Israeli government has committed human rights abuses that in practice do not serve to defend anybody. The U.S. government should not force taxpayers to finance any of this, and so long as it does, Americans ought to be particularly critical.
Tags: Middle East, Morality, War 
Israel, in the past, delivered finely targeted responses to terrorist acts (usually assassinations of the terrorists). In recent times, Hamas and other groups have infiltrated local populations and used rockets or mortars to kill Israeli civilians. There are so many people involved with these attacks that the Israelis don’t know who to retaliate against. When the attacks come from Palestinian areas, the Israelis have chosen to counterattack. The urge to strike back is understandable, but this policy is both immoral and counterproductive. Killing bystanders results in grieving persons joining Hamas or other terrorist groups. The Israelis need a new strategy.
MingoV | Nov 21, 2012 | Reply
How did the he United States deliberately killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians through sanctions in the 1990s?
Tim Jaskiewicz | Nov 21, 2012 | Reply
I think the only people to blame for there demise is thos who let rocket launchers be set up in schools, shopping centers, or any other place where hamas can get camaras to play on the hearts of stupis people.. If the local people wanted to do something put down there arms and join the ranks of those people who want peace and work off that. If someone shoots rockets into my backyard not carfeing what damage it does or who it kills would piss me off and i would do what ever i could do to hit back with everything i had.. If the people of gaza or the west bank fought as hard for peace as they do foe killing therfe will never be peace.
don | Nov 21, 2012 | Reply
Wow. That was a wonderful article.
Cameron Davis | Nov 21, 2012 | Reply
HAMAS untargeted missiles murdered 5 Israelis. Israel’s well planned, targeted missiles murdered nearly 180 Palestinians.
Ryan | Nov 22, 2012 | Reply
“I’m not saying there is a simple solution for the Middle East.” Wrong Mr. Gregory! There is a simple solution. Stop supporting the illegal state of Israel, which is sitting on stolen property, and allow it die a natural death. Which would come quickly once the billions ladled out by clueless American taxpayers came to an end.
carroll price | Nov 22, 2012 | Reply
Carroll Price is exactly right. No one asked the Jews to come and colonize Israel, an act of aggression that is nothing less than amazing coming from a people that had so recently been the victim of one of history’s most sensational acts of aggression. Just when their enemies had been annihilated, laws were passed forbidding their persecution (or even discrimination against them), and they were perfectly safe in their homes – just then they chose to go off to another continent and evict, with deadly violence, other people from their ancestral homes.
I often hear it said that the existence of Israel cannot be debated, because it is a fait accompli. Well, so is a murder. So was the Nazi invasion of France. But those deeds are not regarded as irreversible.
The Israelis are in the uncomfortable situation of inhabiting a “state” that was stolen from its rightful owners, on the say-so of the smug, racist rulers of “the West”. Morally, their position is actually less tenable that that of the Apartheid regime in South Africa. (The white South Africans had been there far longer than the Israelis, and they did not rely on terrorism to set up their state).
Whether Hamas is a “quasi-state” depends on what you think the status of the Palestinians is. Are they an independent nation? Or are they citizens of Israel? Apparently neither – although that is a state of affairs that international law forbids – purely because that suits the Israelis. One day they claim sovereignty over Gaza and the West Bank, the next they deny responsibility for the people who live there. But they never hesitate to kill them!
Tom Welsh | Nov 22, 2012 | Reply
“I’m not saying there is a simple solution for the Middle East.”
Mr. Gregory, I am going to go ahead and agree with Carroll Price on this one. Fact is, that is precisely what most Americans have been led to believe for decades about this conflict. But the TRUTH of the matter is that the solution has been right under our nose for at least the past 20 years — reinforced if you will, by the ICJ advisory findings on the construction of the (in)famous Wall in West Palestine in 2004. And that is simply for Israel to abide by the UN General Council two state resolution 43/177 calling both parties to go back to the pre-June 1967 borders...including a Palestinian East Jerusalem. EVERY year the vote is nearly unanimous with only 4-5 nations opposing it and 130/140 in favor. Guess why it gets blocked year in year out? That’s right because of the United States power of veto amongst those 4/5 nations and it won’t get through to the Security Council which would then simply rubber stamp it. Approve it and we’re done with this seemingly “eternal conflict.” Yes it really IS that easy. That said, the rest of your article is worthy of high praise in its even-handedness. Good day, Sir.
Javier Fernandez | Nov 22, 2012 | Reply
I think people need to be careful when they use the term ‘innocent’ in talking about civilian invaders of Palestine and their descendants.
Using an example where Germans are the occupiers can help us slough off the mawkish nonsense that civilian occupiers are not valid targets...
If the Wehrmacht ethnically-cleansed a region and offered subsidised settlement to a bunch of non-natives, how are those new residents (who would naturally self-select for ideological congruity with the new occupiers) NOT valid targets, since they help perpetuate the (ongoing) aggression?
Those who exploit an atrocity for their own benefit, and continue to reap the rewards of the ongoing oppression of those who were dispossessed, are NOT neutral (non)-participants. They are not ‘combatants’ in the routine sense, but they are at least as important as any truck ferrying ammunition to the front: even if the truck has an unarmed civilian driver, it is a valid target.
Kratoklastes | Nov 22, 2012 | Reply
Read Robert Wright in the Atlantic on this subject. Mr. Price is correct, I agree.
richard | Nov 22, 2012 | Reply
Surely there are innocent Israelis caught in the crossfire—children, at the absolute minimum, would qualify—and they are not fair game any more than the Palestinian children. I agree most of the injustice goes in one direction, but we are talking about individual actors, not collectives, and all individual humans have certain basic rights. There have also been examples of individual Israelis buying land from Arabs legitimately and then having their claims overturned by the Israeli government. I oppose all the state and private violence that predictably harms civilians. No amount of Israeli state aggression can justify the reckless attacks committed by Hamas.
Anthony Gregory | Nov 22, 2012 | Reply
No amount of aggression can justify the reckless attacks by Hamas- I would not be so sure. As Uri Avnery observes, when there is quiet – as there was for the first 20 years of the occupation- Israelis paid no attention. There was no need for peace talks. When there is resistance- no talks, because the other side is violent. When there is non-violent resistance, as in the past few years- again, no need for talks.
Would the world pay any attention to the misery of the Gazans if they did not fire their pitiful handful of rockets into Israel? No, of course not; not if the blockade extended to decades, or even centuries.
Did the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto have the right to resistance, as they were progressively starved by the Nazi blockade? One would think so.
Do the Gazans not have the same right to resistance? If not, what is our message to Gazans? Please starve to death quietly?
Duglarri | Nov 22, 2012 | Reply
A big impediment to understanding this type of violence is the collectivist mindset. My friend George likes to let Delmar England explain it:
The Lies of Language
One often hears, “Government initiates force,” or something similar. “Government” does not initiate force. “Government” is the initiation of force. It is each governmentalist who does the initiating of force. Positing “government” as a godhead, as an acting entity is a psychological escapism to deny the fact of individual coercive actions. Among other denials, it hides the fact that voting in a political election is an act of violence.
The language usage is literally saturated with “abstract entities” to psychologically shield the actor from self. Any agreement with and/or use of the language of disassociation is denial of real individual as the actor. It is the language of lies. Such concurrence with distorted language by word or deed serves to maintain the base philosophy and psychology of oppression.
Mark Davis | Nov 23, 2012 | Reply
When queried by Lesley Stahl, speaking of US sanctions against Iraq: “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And — and you know, is the price worth it?”
Madeleine Albright responds: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it.” http://killinghope.org/bblum6/albright.htm
Richard P | Nov 25, 2012 | Reply
Carol and Tom – “Stop supporting the illegal state of Israel, which is sitting on stolen property, and allow it die a natural death.”
The U.S. is also sitting on stolen property. Unless you’re willing to give up what you’ve been allowed through the thievery of others, don’t be so willing to give away the countries of others. Trace it back to the very beginning and both Jews and Muslims came from pretty much the same stock though proto-Canaanites, the earliest Semitic language speaking line, settled that area with regularity before any other group.
That is to say, Semitic tribes WERE there first and so it’s not technically stolen, but taken back. I am not a supporter of the Israeli state as I believe it’s more trouble than it’s worth and it can’t stand on its own, however, that doesn’t make it right to refer to it as illegitimate because of thievery.
JG | Nov 25, 2012 | Reply
We need to keep in mind the highly symbiotic relationship between the “leadership” on both sides. They need each other to justify their budgets and power and provide distractions from trade and cooperation resulting in mutual benefit that undercuts the leaders power.
Just like our military needs China’s military to justify its outrageous budget, China’s military needs our DoD to justify their power and budgets. Meanwhile, Walmart is busy undercutting the justifications for both “defense” departments wastes of resources. China can’t start a conflict that would shut off trade without massive unemployment and our DoD can’t shout off trade without creating massive shortages and economic problems.
Someone, someday may ask “what real benefits to the US have been achieved by our military in the last 50 year”? What resources have been obtained? Why is being able to buy Iraq oil at world prices, just like we could have before the war, considered a victory? Why have we spend more money that it would have taken to make this country carbon emission free and oil import free on a war whose start (911) killed fewer people and did less damage than one months mortality and economic loss on our highways?
Dallas Weaver | Nov 26, 2012 | Reply
For the modern history of property rights in Palestine, please see the following:
Halbrook, Stephen P. “The Alienation of a Homeland: How Palestine Became Israel,” Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 4 (Fall 1981), pp. 357-374.
David J. Theroux | Nov 26, 2012 | Reply
When Hamas launches rockets from residential areas – even residential buildings – what can Israel do but attack the rocket launch sites? This is a genuine qs. for A. Gregory, so I hope he will reply. It seems to me that the guilty party is Hamas for using their own population as human shields.
Neera Badhwar | Nov 26, 2012 | Reply
Covering up the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty is a sad history that is not yet fully dealt with. To gag those men who watched their fellow sailors die and suffer is a travesty that the families know of but few others. I believe successive U.S. and Israeli governments have been willing to hurt their own people to keep the business of war going. As bad as it may look for getting some sanity in U.S. policy, I believe we are moving in that direction, with a younger electorate. I believe Romney’s horrifically close relationship to Netanyahu was a prime factor in drawing votes from Jill Stein and possibly from Gary Johnson as well. For people who care for the common person, Romney was an utter nightmare, and those who pushed him seem still not to understand that.
Mary Saunders | Nov 26, 2012 | Reply
So you think the semitic tribes were there first? Well, semitic means arab-descended, so there’s a sticking point. Next, the rulers of Israel are in general Ashkenazi, whose background is more slav than semitic. Finally, having been on the ground a couple of thousand years ago is too long past to press a present claim. No practical statute of limitation would support such a claim. Israel is basically in a pickle. Yheir arguments are thin, and the countries of the west are tiring of the subsidy & forbearance.
jp straley | Nov 26, 2012 | Reply
“In any war between the civilized man and the savage man, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.” That sums up the American position, gentlemen.
Citizen Joe | Nov 27, 2012 | Reply
Why call for a return to 1967 borders? Why not call for a return to the 1948 borders, as established in the UN Partition? Prior to this (and I’m not trying to justify the UN), there was no Palestinian state, it was just part of the Ottoman Empire. In fact, the “land of Israel” or Palestine (so named by the Israel-hating Romans) has been occupied territory for millenia.
The partition did establish a Palestinian state, and called it Trans-Jordan. It is not Israel’s fault that that state has been subsumed by other, non-Palestinian Arabs.
Messianic Theonomist | Dec 11, 2012 | Reply