Terrorism: Glenn Greenwald vs. Michael Walzer

The comments on my post yesterday about Glenn Greenwald were interesting, and seemed to indicate a bit of confusion between different matters. So here's a quick lexicon of relevant terms:

Manslaughter: the unintended killing of a person. In all systems of law I've ever heard of, manslaughter is less serious than murder, even though the consequence for the victim is the same: death.

Murder. The intentional taking of an innocent life. It's the intention that makes the difference, not the result. In Right to Exist: A Moral Defense of Israel's Wars I pointed out that the Sixth of the Ten Commandments is not "thou shall not kill", as often mistranslated, but rather "thou shall not murder". Judaism recognizes that killing sometimes happens, such as in self defense or in war.

Self defense. Protecting oneself may sometimes include killing. When evaluating the act, it's not the result - the death of a person - which is important, it's the intention. Of the attacker. The court or the police may decide that killing the aggressor was justified by the intention of the (dead) aggressor.

War. This is the most common way for people to kill large numbers of other people. The mere fact of being at war tells very little about morality, since some wars avert worse things, such as genocide, others promote genocide, and many wars happen for complicated reasons which do not immediately lend themselves to moral deliberation. I have written about this at greater length here.

Terrorism. Initially, this wasn't a moral category at all. It was a tactic of random murder, intended to terrorize a society into changing its behavior in a significant manner, contrary to its will, perpetrated by an otherwise small or weak group. The phenomenon first appeared in the 19th century. Then a double twist occurred.

The first was in the 1980s. At the time the most famous terrorist group was the PLO (alongside the IRA). Lots of people were reluctant to use such a pejorative word to describe Arabs killing Jews: The Arabs had oil, they were supported by the Soviets and thus also by Western Useful Idiots, the Jews were, well, Jews. So the term was dropped, replaced by the term 'militants'. So cynical was this ploy that for years the international news of the BBC called the PLO militants, while the local news of the same BBC called the IRA terrorists. (I'm not making this up). The English language lost the word to describe the people who had once been militants, but this seemed a worthy price to pay for political correctness.

Then, after 9/11, suddenly there was an urgent need for a clearly pejorative word to describe the perpetrators of random murder committed by a small group with the intention of terrorizing an entire society. At the time I remember watching the agonizing, but it didn't take long for the American media to go back to the obvious word, 'terrorist'. Once the terrorists began exploding bombs on European trains, the word was accepted worldwide. (Interestingly, this was happening parallel to a steep decrease in Palestinian terrorism, forced by the IDF and the security barrier, so the dilemma of using the word for everyone except the Jews was blunted).

Yet there was a problem: lots of people didn't like the ensuing wars, nor the regrettable fact that Western troops were now killing Muslim civilians. So they started applying the terrorist word to them, too. There was no need, of course, since armies killing civilians as a result of the messiness of war were never previously called terrorists. Armies aren't small groups; the Western ones were not randomly killing innocents so as to terrorize them. It would have been better to use a different term, one that would do what language is supposed to do, namely describe reality with useful preciseness. But preciseness was the last thing the wielders of the term were seeking; their goal was to bludgeon the political discourse in their ideological direction.

And so we've come full circle and kept on going. Not only is the word terrorism back in vogue, it's now applied with a gusto to anyone who kills non-combatants, unless they're Islamists killing Muslims, in which case they're called insurgents. (And the Palestinians are still militants).

Glenn Greenwald's argument demonstrates how radical this is. Back in 1976, when Michael Walzer published his seminal Just And Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument With Historical Illustrations, a book still widely cited, he included a discussion of intentionally killing non-combatants in a non-belligerent country. The Allies had reason to believe the Germans were developing nuclear weapons, and at one point had to decide to sink a Norwegian ship which might have been transporting heavy water but was certainly carrying regular Norwegian civilians; the Norwegians, remember, were notionally on the Allies' side. Yet the danger of a Nazi nuclear bomb was so great it was decided to sacrifice random innocent Norwegians to prevent it. The fact that by the time Walzer wrote his book it was long since clear that there had in fact been no Nazi nuclear program to be thwarted was irrelevant, since the decision makers couldn't have known that and had reasonable reason to believe the opposite. After he works through the matter as philosophers do, Walzer justifies the decision.

Greenwald, facing a lesser case where someone killed an Iranian nuclear scientist without scratching any innocents at all, calls it terrorism.

More Wikileaks Fallout

Victor tears into Andrew Sullivan. Yes, Andrew has a gigantic readership and Victor doesn't, but even so Victor is right and Andrew is wrong. Truth isn't democratic, nor is it a popularity contest.

Meanwhile, Omri Ceren has a very funny video on YouTube. Yes, it's a bit black and white, but then, the actors he's poking fun at aren't very nuanced, either, in spite of being very powerful. Here, also, truth isn't democratic, and it doesn't necessarily reside in the halls of power.

The Arrogance of Ignorance

More from Wikileaks, via Haaretz: In November 2009 German diplomats were asking of the Americans for greater pressure on the Israelis to halt settlement activity in Jerusalem so as to bribe the Palestinians to negotiate a state for themselves (well, that's my way of putting it).

The German official is quoted in the telegram as saying that Germany believes that Netanyahu needed "to do more" to bring the Palestinians to the negotiating table. "With Palestinians in East Jerusalem getting notices from Israeli authorities that their houses will be destroyed, it would be 'suicide' for President Abbas to move under the current circumstances. Heusgen said he could not fathom why Netanyahu did not understand this," according to the telegram. (my emphasis).

Nice, isn't it. The man can't fathom, so he insists it's unfathomable, irrational, wrong, and dangerous. How typically arrogant. If the Israelis don't see the world the way we see it, they must be idiots, or worse. Never: If the Israelis see things differently from us, perhaps it might do us good to understand their perspective. Or, for that matter, the perspective of the Palestinians. Or the Iranians, North Koreans, Chinese, Salvadorians, or just about anyone in the world who may sooner or later see things differently than the way it's seen by the faraway observers who anyway have no skin in the game.

In the case of the Germans, I've been encountering this type of thought for decades: Can't you Jews see that our lessons from Nazism are that nationalism is dangerous, war is always evil and never justifiable, international law and human rights are the only tools for organizing international relations? Why don't you agree with us, you of all people? These are our lessons from the what our fathers did to yours; now that we've learned the lesson you're arguing with us about them? How can that be? What's wrong with you people?

I love it when Germans admit they can't figure us out, and then blame us for it. Though, truth be told, the Germans are not the only folks with the arrogance of ignorance syndrome.

Does Netanyahu Work for J-Street?

So far as I can tell, the Wikileaks website has been down since late afternoon. Maybe it was hit by Stuxnet. If it stays down, this will raise an interesting question. The five newspapers which have been publishing parts of the material they were given in advance, claim one reason they're doing so is that the materials are online anyway, and they're merely reporting. But what if they aren't online?

In the meantime, Haaretz reports on a document about a meeting Netanyahu had with some American diplomats right after he was elected, and long before Obama began pressuring him to desist from building in settlements:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Obama administration just two weeks after elected to Knesset that he supported the idea of a land exchange and had no desire to govern Palestinian territories, according to a diplomatic cable released by the online whistleblower WikiLeaks on Sunday.
"Netanyahu expressed support for the concept of land swaps, and emphasized that he did not want to govern the West Bank and Gaza but rather to stop attacks from being launched from there," read a February 2009 diplomatic cable describing a meeting between Netanyahu and a delegation led by Senator Benjamin Cardin.

Glenn Greenwald Defines Terrorism

Greenwald seems to be saying that killing Iranian nuclear scientists is exactly as bad as blowing up pizzerias with Israel teenagers, slaughtering Christians in Iraqi or Pakistani churches, exploding cars in markets full of Muslims, mowing down passengers in Indian British or Spanish train stations, or destroying night clubs full of Australian tourists. Not to mention toppling towers full of ordinary New Yorkers. He's an odd fellow, is Greenwald, but he has a devoted audience; I don't think there's any other way to read this missive of his.

Wikileaks and Egos

Jullian Assange is an egomaniac, that's pretty clear. He doesn't care who gets hurt, so long as his project gets exposure. By now, the issue of the media collaborating with him is also a dead horse, even if it shouldn't be.

What's depressing about the present round of Wikileaks materials (at least so far) is that large chunks of the discussion is focused on who has been proven right. Partially this may stem from the rather unexpected turn of events where Assange is pouring large amounts of information into the pubic realm which mostly sort of supports the narrative much of the media hasn't been telling. Lee Smith details this well; Andrew Sullivan has been demonstrating it through massive denial and obfuscation. What is largely lacking, unfortunately, is people actually reading the stuff, and deliberating what it means from here forward. I've seen a few of the original cables, and they're fascinating, but I've only had time for a couple quick dips. They differ from media reports in their breadth and depth. If Assange has already stolen the data and given it to the world, perhaps the world should be learning something from it, not only tussling over who's been proven right. I mean, even if no-one was right, there still might be value in now settling down to facing what's in there.

David: King. But of What?

Here's a fine, accessible description for regular folks of the archeologist controversy about Kings David, Solomon, and Western Civilization.

On Being the Father of a Soldier

Achikam, our youngest, finished his mandatory military service today, and is already firmly focused on the next chapters of life. He was inducted at the end of July 2007; coincidentally (well, actually not at all) that was the day I launched this blog, with two items about the event. If the goal of this blog was to accompany his service to the country with a support service of my own, I am now free to desist, even if I may not do so quite yet. More importantly, I am also free to breathe out and move on.

We first arrived in Israel a few weeks after the Six Day War. Obviously, I didn't know anyone who had been killed, though over time I came to know various people who had lost a son, or a fiance, or a father. Two years later some of the teenagers above me mourned a young man who had been a few years above them, and was one of the last IDF troops to be killed in the War of Attrition that no-one even remembers anymore. Maybe he'll be the last soldier to fall, they told us; in retrospect he was the first whom I "knew" and whose death happened in real time. Lots of young men were killed in the 1973 war, while I was still in high-school. I knew one personally, and three others belonged to families I knew. In the aftermath of that war it occurred to me that soon I myself would be in the IDF. Like everyone I regraded this as a duty, an honor, a challenge, a rite of passing, and an enormous adventure. There were fleeting moments of apprehension - fear would be far too strong a word - but they were fleeting. When the big day finally arrived it was more than anything a gigantic lark. Only a generation later, when our first-born Meir was inducted in 2002, did I ever pause to wonder what my parents might have felt at the time.

It was an adventure, of course, and a transformative, life-changing experience. And no, it had nothing to do with the Palestinians. In those days the IDF and the Palestinians had almost nothing to do with each other, and in my entire three year tour of duty I never interacted with a single Palestinian. I was a tank commander, and spent most of my service in the Sinai Desert, facing the Egyptians. A number of friends I made along the way were killed in training accidents, but I suppose college students sometime lose a friend to traffic accidents.

Then there was the war of 1982, which I joined on its second day as a reservist, three weeks after my wedding. A couple weeks later, when I first came home on a short leave, we spent a chunk of our precious time visiting the homes of Shlomo and Ram who had been killed; I can't remember why we didn't visit Avi's widow that time. Shlomo's father had fled Nazi Germany as a kid. Ram's maternal grandfather had been killed in Jerusalem's Old City in 1948, as had his paternal uncle. Avi's father hadn't escaped the Nazis, though he had survived them. By this age I no was no longer convinced of immortality, as youth mostly is, but nor was I really aware, truly aware, of the price of living at war.

My father died a few years later, when Meir was a toddler. I was a graduate student studying Nazism and the Shoah, and remember telling one of my professors that I now felt one couldn't truly study that history until one had experienced parenthood and bereavement. The professor, sole survivor of a clan of 40, and also a bereaved father, was very troubled by the thought, but I still think I was at least partially right.

And so it came to be that it was only when my own sons began joining the army that I recognized the fear, even though at the time (2002) more Israeli civilians were dying near their homes than IDF troops in their units.Or maybe I didn't fully recognize it, as the very first post of this blog indicates: it's the story of a brief encounter I had as Achikam went in, with the mother of another young man who was also going in:

So I expressed my wishes for the woman's son: "That he be successful". She looked at me curiously, and retorted: "Let him come back in peace. Who cares about success!?"

I hope her son came out fine. Achikam did, thank God. He has grown, in many ways, but that's his story to tell. He went to war, and came back; while he was away we went to Nitai's funeral for him. I would love to know that our children won't have to learn, as I have, that being the father can be harder than being the soldier, but I don't think that will be granted. So what's left is to hope that they all come back in peace.

Spin, Wikileaks, Propaganda

Omri Ceren has been doing a spot of googling. His point of departure is the section of the new Wikileaks revelations that the Saudis and other Arab regimes have all along been beseeching the Americans to bomb Iran's nuclear capacity. Taking that documented fact, he then goes back to see what the various pundits have been saying about the matter all along. Predictably, they were reporting on an alternate universe, one in which the Saudis and others care deeply about the Palestinians, and not so much abut the Iranians.

Andrew Sullivan, in a sign of the changing times, never misses a beat: oops! The Saudis et al have been as strident as the Israelis in their calls for an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities? Well, remember, they're only Sunni Arab autocrats -  the implication, you understand, being that they're not really to be taken seriously if you're a moral person. Of course, the case can be made that Abu Mazen, Salam Fayyad, and all of the Hamas leadership are also Sunni Arab autocrats, but I rather think Andrew wouldn't use the term in their case.

Look, we all have our agendas; some of us even admit them openly (me, I'm a Zionist, and also mostly pro-American; Julian Assange of Wikileaks is anti-American and thinks he's God). Some of us try to write mostly about things we know about. Others: less so (Andrew knows none of the languages, and has no access to decision makers or any relevant players; he lives off website links). And then there are the professional propagandists, the people who have to know they're carefully tailoring their descriptions of reality so as to create a public opinion that will agree with their agenda. The BBC, for example: Robin Shepherd documents - once again, and again, and again - that their editorial decisions cannot possibly be portrayed as an honest attempt to inform the public, and can only be understood as conscious propaganda.

Or is it conscious? Read IsraelNurse's excellent analysis of the Guardian's Harriet Sherwood's first six months in Israel. Just look at the list of places she has reported from, almost all of them Palestinian (she's the correspondent to Israel but she never reports from Israel). On the one hand, she can't possibly be doing the traveling she's doing while telling herself she's reporting on Israel; there's no way she can be as biased as she is without knowing that's what she is. Yet is this truly so? It's a question I've been pondering for decades, and have never quite convinced myself either way: when antisemites frame reality to reinforce their animosities, do they do so in bad faith (i.e do they know they're lying or framing in a deceitful manner), or are they so carried away by their detestations that they lose track, and really begin to believe in their own sincerity? This is not an easy question to answer.

Lower Case "peace" vs. Upper Case "Peace"

According to Haaretz, there are fewer IDF troops currently patrolling the West Bank than at any moment since 1987. 1987! That's 23 years, meaning that all the enlisted troops were born since then. The Berlin Wall was still standing in 1987, and Ronald Reagan was in the White House.

How did this happen? Well, so far as one can tell by following media, not archives, it's a combination of the Israelis forcefully beating the 2nd Intifada, the Palestinian weariness of violence which always hurts them more than us, the American involvement in creating functioning PA security forces, Salam Fayyad's policy to build a Palestinian State even before Israel is gone, the PA's fear of Hamas, and probably various other considerations. The important point however is that when the Palestinians tone down the violence, the Israelis return the favor. There isn't and never has been a cycle of violence.

All of which is great. Less convincing are the positions currently being re-affirmed by Fatah: The Palestinians will never accept a Jewish state in any form or formula, because it would be racist; no land swaps because Israel must disband everything it constructed over the 1967 line, including in Jerusalem; full right of return for (descendants of) Palestinian refugees of 1948. One gets the impression the Palestinians regard the Israelis as supplicants for peace, while they, holding all the good cards, are refusing.

Fatah is of course the main group in control of the PA. Once again we are reminded that Peace (upper case) is not likely to happen in our lifetimes. Still, the longer the peace (lowercase) continues, the better for everyone.

Is American Grace Good for the Jews?

The Economist has a fascinating review of the findings of a new book, Robert D. Putnam and Robert E. Campbell's American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us. According to the review, Americans are mostly religious (we already knew that), but within certain limits this unifies them rather than divides them. If you can't read the book, you really ought to read the review.

The reality described in the review is one in which Jews, mainstream Protestants and Catholics have accepted each other fully, with Evangelicals slightly on the side, Mormons more so, and others not really accepted; Muslims, predictably, come out worst. For the individual Jews of America this is great, and also an extreme and historically unprecedented abnormality. It's probably also very good for Israel. What's not clear to me is if it's good for American Jewry: in a society which totally welcomes marriages across denominational lines, indeed, celebrates them, a religion which has long defined it's perimeters through who marries whom will need radical adaptation, perhaps more than can be contained. We've had this discussion on this blog before, and the topic is unlikely to go away.


Jeffrey Goldberg recently posted a hilarious example of the degree to which Jews are part of the very fabric of American society; here also, such a story would have been inconceivable in any society worldwide before the 2nd half of the 20th century in the US, and anywhere else to this very day.

Addendum: For those of you intending to make seasonal purchases on Amazon, please consider launching your visit from links such as the above to Amazon pages. When you do so Amazon records the fact that you arrived from this blog, and pays me a small commission for each purchase you make, whether of the book I recommended or a set of garden chairs; this enables me to indulge in my favorite pastime of acquiring more books of my own at Amazon. Ah, and Happy Kwanzu, of course.

Does Beauty Pay?

Two Israeli sociologists experimented with job applications. They submitted near identical pairs of applications, some with pictures others without, some with pictures of attractive folks, others of regular types. The results were not at all what you'd expect.

Electrifying Traffic

The Economist has given space to Israeli Shai Agassi to explain how he's trying to save the world by cutting exhaust emissions of cars, fast. He says China and Israel are leading the way.

He also stands to make billions of $ if he's right, but more elbow power to him for that, if you ask me. Better innovations that move mankind forward, than hair-shirt measures like halting all air traffic or similar idiocies advocated by the Guardian and its like.

How Many Jews Are There?

Not that many. No matter how you define them, there are millions fewer now than there were in 1939, and it's not likely we'll ever get back to that number, not this century, anyway.

Sergio Della Pergola and colleagues have published their annual Jewish demographic report, which seems, at first glance, to be quite interesting, especially if you like demography.

If one counts people for whom being Jewish has any significance, the largest Jewish community is in Israel. It's also the only sizable community which is growing.

If it's on the Internet it Must be True

The top staff of the IDF division in the northern West Bank are taking Arabic lessons. Lieutenant colonels up to the brigadier. The project is run by a Druze lt.colonel, who's mother tongue is Arabic.

Israel and India are about to sign a "preferred trade agreement". (Hebrew link). Thus a whole new (sub)continent is opened wide for the BDS activists to agitate.

You've probably heard stories about how Israeli troops allow Palestinian patients to die at roadblocks. Well, so far this year 180,000 (!) Palestinians have been treated in Israeli hospitals. Where would you prefer to be a Palestinian: in Syria, Lebanon, or the Occupied West Bank?

Warren Buffet: "Israel possesses a disproportionate quantity of brains and ideas…If you look for oil in the Middle East, skip Israel. However, if you look for brains, stop in Israel."

AKUS reports on an Israeli flotilla setting out to save the poor Irish.

Mainstream Palestinians Lie About Something Important

I was talking earlier today with a friend who has spent just about every single day of professional activity these past 40-some years listening to Arab media, politics and culture; he's a well known expert. He called my attention to the story about how the Palestinians are denying any Jewish connection to the Western Wall. My friend says this is not mere fluff or ephemeralia; it's the mainstream Palestinian effort at the moment. And note that Salam Fayad, universally feted as The Moderate, is adding his voice to the chorus.

There is of course truth in the Palestinian claim that there's no proof that the Western Wall was built in Solomon's time: because it wasn't. It was built by Herod, about 900 years after Solomon. No-one ever said otherwise. In effect, the Palestinian line of reasoning says that the Jews claim their Temple stood on the mountain 3,000 years ago, but since there's no proof the current structure from 900 years later was there 3000 years ago, the whole thing is clearly a lie. Cute, isn't it. Like all good propaganda, a kernel of truth added to lots of ignorance and the eagerness of the audience to believe, and suddenly reality is turned on its head.

Ironies in Jerusalem

The Knesset passed a law yesterday that will make it hard to hand over Jerusalem or the Golan in peace negotiations. From now on, an Israeli government striving to reach a peace agreement with Syria or the Palestinians will have to gain the backing of either a super majority of MKs, or a simple majority of voters in a referendum.

I don't think this is a particular dramatic development. Should there ever be a serious Syrian proposal to make real peace with Israel in return for the Golan, it will be greeted by a majority of Israelis, both in the Knesset and the general populace. Just as there was a near-total majority that supported retreating from the entire Sinai and disbanding settlements in return for peace with Egypt, and just like there was a clear majority for getting out of southern Lebanon and then Gaza in the past decade, even for less than peace.

Jerusalem is a harder call. I have been asking myself for decades what would happen if an Israeli government were to reach a real, viable, end-of-conflict arrangement with the Palestinians, in return for giving up parts of Jerusalem we shouldn't be giving up. Would the Israeli electorate chose peace without Jerusalem over war with it? I've never been sure of the answer, and am not now, either. (My own position, as regular readers will know,is that those aren't the options anyway).

Since Ehud Olmert tried to give away the Old City of Jerusalem, in September 2009, far exceeding any democratic mandate he'd ever received from the electorate, however, I'm in favor of a law that will foil any future similar antics. Yesterday's law means that dividing Jerusalem will require a clear case be made to justify it, and the decision will be made, one way or the other, by the electorate.

Almost 20% of that electorate, by the way, are Israeli Arabs, including a growing number of East Jerusalem Palestinians who are acquiring Israeli citizenship. It's anyone's guess how they'd vote in such a referendum.

A reader asked yesterday if the Jewish Quarter of the Old City is occupied territory. The answer is tailor-made to demonstrate the silliness of the entire discussion.

The Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem has been so named since it was re-settled in 1267, following the ethnic cleansing of the Crusader kingdoms and subsequent conquests and wars which had largely emptied Jerusalem of its Jews. That's 225 years before Columbus stumbled upon America. Between 1267 and 1948 the Jewish presence there was continuous and uninterrupted. It was then interrupted in May 1948, when the Jordanians did some more ethnic cleansing, sending military-aged Jewish men to POW camps and deporting all the civilians. For the next 19 years the Old City was Judenrein, but in 1967 the Jews came back. So, following a presence of 681 years, then ethnic cleansing, the return of the Jews in 1967-68 is now regarded as illegal according to international law, or at any rate, according to one interpretation of it.

If international law was a true legal system, the sovereign would fix that bit of idiocy through legislation. But it isn't, there is no sovereign, corrective legislation isn't possible, and even the various theoretical courts that might adjudicate the matter have no moral standing: why would we accept their verdict? Have they been chosen by us to be judges? Do they share values with us to the extent we're willing to accept their deliberations?

Anyway, it just so happens that some archeologists recently made an interesting discovery in the Jewish Quarter: After destroying Jerusalem in the first century, and destroying it again in the 2nd, the 10th Roman Legion settled in for the long haul, to make certain the pesky Jews didn't return. Settling in included building a public bath for their pleasure - which was recently discovered by (pesky?) Jews who wish to build a mikve - a ritual bath - at the same spot.

Occupied territory? By whom?

A Current American Frame of Mind

Ethan Bronner has a long article about why American policy-makers are so interested in having peace between Israelis and Palestinian, even as the warring sides don't believe its possible. (At the moment they aren't warring, by the way, but that could easily change). He starts with a story about General Dayton:

Lt. Gen. Keith W. Dayton, who left Israel last month after overseeing the training of Palestinian security forces for five years, liked to tell the story of his first assignment in the Middle East. Charged with locating Iraq’s elusive weapons of mass destruction after Saddam Hussein was deposed in 2003, General Dayton found no weapons but kept coming upon something else inside Iraqi military barracks — drawings of Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem being squeezed by a serpent labeled Israel.
He was amazed to see that hundreds of miles from the Holy Land, the Arab-Israeli dispute felt so immediate and significant.
In trying to understand the unrelenting American effort to keep alive talks between Israel and the Palestinians — this last week produced the image of the Obama administration chasing the Israeli government with an enticement of more fighter jets — it is worth standing in General Dayton’s boots for a moment.
From there one can see why, in many ways, the United States feels a greater urgency and drive for the peace talks than do the Palestinians and Israelis themselves. Here, neither side believes the other is serious about real compromise and each actively cultivates a sense of historic victimhood. Washington, by contrast, deeply believes that ending this conflict is the key to unlocking its own regional strategic dilemmas.

Fair enough, I suppose. But here's a thought. Had General Dayton been able to to travel back in time to any moment between, say, 400-1800 CE, to any place in Europe with Christians, he might have been surprised to see varying local expressions of the certitude that Jews had killed Christ, they hate God and God hates them, and they're despicable and hateful. He might even have been amazed that thousands of miles from the Holy Land, not to mention centuries after the event, an argument between Jesus the Jew and some other Jews felt so immediate and significant.

My point being that there's a limit to how much Jews can bend over backwards to make their enemies like them. If Iraqis and Pakistanis insist on detesting Jews for being connected to Jerusalem, well, there's not much the Jews can do about it; devising a policy whereby the Jews revoke their essence so as to calm their enemies is not likely to recommend itself to the Jews.

This is not to say Israel shouldn't strive for a just peace with the Palestinians. It should. Just, for both sides; just, respecting both sides. If that can be done. The opinions of Iraqis and Pakistanis aren't part of the equation.

The Quandry of Human Rights During War

I think any reasonable person will agree that things that make the Islamists gleeful probably aren't good. This is clearly the idea that motivates many in the West to warn of military action that hits innocent locals in Muslim countries. It's a motivating force for European and American diplomats who wish Israelis and Palestinians would have peace, so as to remove an issue that props up Islamist extremists.

By the same token, the willingness of the British authorities to fork over 10,000,000 Pounds to some British citizens who were incarcerated in Guantanamo should be regarded as a bad thing:

Inevitably, the settlement was seen by some, including Patrick Mercer, a Conservative MP who specialises in security issues, as “giving comfort to the enemy”; Islamist websites celebrated it as a humiliating admission of guilt by the British government. But although it was unpalatable to some, intelligence sources described it as “a price worth paying” to bring the court proceedings to a halt.
In May the Court of Appeal had dismissed an attempt by the security and intelligence services to keep sensitive evidence secret in the case brought by Binyam Mohamed, Bisher Al Rawi, Jamil El Banna, Richard Belmar, Omar Deghayes and Martin Mubanga; they allege that government agencies aided and abetted their detention at Guantánamo and the abuse they suffered there. As lawyers for the six men deluged MI5 and MI6 with demands for around 500,000 documents to support their case, it became clear that an out-of-court solution had to be found.

Let's be clear: Islamist organizations made up of people who are eager to torture, behead, and slaughter anyone who's in their way irrespective of anything, and who've got a strategic goal of terrorizing Western civilization into some form of abject submission, are wielding the principles and laws of human rights so as to bolster their own position in the societies they're grounded in. They complain about how the West doesn't respect their human rights, while doing everything in their power to abolish the entire edifice of human rights, and crow with glee (see above) when the West plays by its own rules.

I'm not advocating that the West not play by its own rules. I've been profoundly convinced of the importance of human rights since reading George Orwell's Animal Farm in elementary school, and since beginning to hear about Nazism and the Holocaust at about the same time. Nor have I ever wavered.

Growing up, however, and then growing older over the years, has forced me to recognize that reality is more complicated (dare I say nuanced?) than what seemed simple in, say, the late 1960s.

Robert Bernstein, founder of Human Rights Watch, who has a head-start of a generation over me in the process of life-long learning, seems also to be still working things through. The other day he gave a speech at the University of Nebraska (Omaha) about how the organization he founded, and the intellectual tradition from which it rises may be losing their moral compass. He talked specifically about the way they report on Israel, but if you read carefully it becomes clear that much of his criticism is actually about the practice of wielding the principles of human rights as tools to criticise democratic societies:

Human Rights Watch’s mandate states that they do not take a position on war, and they are very proud of this. They continually point out that they are not an anti-war group. Iran and its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas are preaching genocide, not only of Israel but of all Jews everywhere. Genocide is one of the greatest human rights violations, and the Genocide Convention states it must be acted upon when it is first threatened. I believe that Human Rights Watch’s position is that their mandate to not take sides in a war takes precedence over the Genocide Convention at this time. It is fair to ask, “Why?” [...]

This has led me to believe that while there should certainly be oversight over democratic forces in battle, I question whether human rights organizations, unless they change their methodology and in my view, their attitudes, and are more accountable in terms of accuracy, are the right parties to do this. If they wish to continue as judges of democratic armies whose lives are at risk, they must be accountable. It would be interesting to review their past accusations of war crimes by the Israeli Army in view of the statistics that are emerging. War is a miserable business and should be avoided wherever possible, but the judgments being made by human rights organizations separating collateral damage in war from war crimes, I believe, are frequently unrealistic in asymmetric wars, and there should be some input by military authorities on what is possible. The efforts of the Israeli Defense Forces, NATO and the U.S. to avoid civilian death are consistently criticized by human rights groups as being insufficient or even non-existent. Military judgments of their own actions, particularly by Israel, are consistently accused of prejudice or lies. Yet the statistics show that civilian death by democratic uniformed armies are much, much, much lower than the 9 out of 10 civilian deaths in general conflicts. [...]

One of the principle causes of genocide is hate speech. It is common knowledge that hate speech is what is used to build-up to genocide. Human Rights Watch and others, to the best of my knowledge, will not take a position on hate speech because they believe that it interferes with free speech and is a risk that must be taken. Many free speech advocates, including myself, agree that there should be great latitude in tolerating hate speech in an open society where others can attack it. In the Arab world and Iran, there is no free speech, and the hate speech is government sponsored. Here is a typical quote – one of thousands – from Gaza. In a sermon, Ahmand Bahr, acting speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said, “Oh Allah, vanquish the Jews and their supporters. Oh Allah, vanquish the Americans and their supporters. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them all, down to the very last one.” Even on the West Bank, where Salam Fayyad is improving the economic condition and security, little has been done to stop hate speech and “martyr killers” are celebrated as heroes. Saudi Arabia’s publishing industry is spewing out textbooks for young children calling Jews “apes and pigs.” When Human Rights Watch went to Saudi Arabia to raise funds, it is doubtful that this was discussed, but they can tell us if it was. I believe this is a major issue, as the hate speech is going out into the Arab world uncontested. To those who say there is hate speech in Israel as well, it is true, but it is contested and the number of people it can affect is infinitesimal compared to the 350 million of the Arab population.

Life isn't simple, and fighting wars against monsters who don't give a fig for human rights except as an additional weapon against their foes isn't simple, either. Since that's where we're at right now - not only Israel, but also the US, Europe, India and eventually others - there needs to be more thoughtful discussion about it, and less silly sloganeering.

Postscript: Bernstein tells that Ted Sorensen has died. Now that's a name from the 1960s! He may have originally penned John Kennedy's "Ask not" inauguration line, and generally was a central figure in the Kennedy administration and in the subsequent recording of its annals.

A Current Israeli Frame of Mind

Perhaps the single most important thing to understand when trying to explain Israel's positions and behavior is what Israelis think is happening in the world around them. What are the sort of things they notice and take seriously, the things they think are important. I'm talking about impressions and perspectives, not necessarily strictly objective truth. Then again, strictly objective truth is hardly what informs anyone else, either. People act on what they perceive as true, not what is true, even when that can be determined.

So here are a number of stories Israelis notice these days - not all Israelis equally, but enough of them to effect the mainstream, I'd postulate.

Most (not all) Palestinians see the two state solution as a stepping stone to the no-Israel solution. Elder of Ziyon has some commentary on the poll here.

Ma'an News Agency, that's the PA news agency, tells that the Palestinians are furious that the Israelis intend to renovate the plaza in front of the Western Wall, because it's in conquered territory and abuts on the Haram a-Shariff. (And also the Temple Mount, but that's not mentioned).

General Amos Yadlin, the departing chief of Military Intelligence, warns that the next war with the Iranian backed alliance will see Tel Aviv as its main battle ground. I suppose you might reassure yourself that if Israel retreats from the Western Wall and makes nice to the Palestinians they'll give up on the practicalities of their dream to have no Israel, but I don't see how that effects the Iranians and their local allies; if one lives in Tel Aviv or any other town with lots of Jewish civilians, this may well be a serious consideration as one forms political positions.

In an ongoing story, the PA leadership seems to be preparing the ground for abandoning the possibility of reaching a peace agreement with Israel and using the UN to achieve statehood without compromising with Israel on things the Palestinians don't wish to compromise on. As I've noted but haven't fully fleshed out, my personal position is that Israel could use such a Palestinian ploy to achieve the opposite effect, of leaving the Palestinians with less leverage to achieve what Israel can't give. But that's just me. Clearly, the Palestinian leadership doesn't see it that way, and their intention is hostile to Israel.

Update:Ben Smith of Politico, wandering around Israel talking to folks, tries to figure out what Israelis are thinking these days. It's interesting. (h/t Thom).