To think about the war in the Middle East, I suggest it is urgent to read, or reread, Bertrand de Jouvenel’s 1945 book On Power. (See also my Econlib review of the book.) Reflecting on attacks and atrocities against civilians during WWII, Jouvenel wrote (and that was before Hiroshima and Nagasaki):
We are ending where the savages began. We have found again the lost arts of starving non-combatants, burning hovels, and leading away the vanquished into slavery. Barbarian invasions would be superfluous: we are our own Huns.
Hamas represents an extension of the barbarism that Jouvenel was denouncing. If an undisputable marker were needed, talking civilian hostages would be one. That the terrorist gang was once elected as the political authority or quasi-state of Gaza only buttresses the parallel. On the other side, the state of Israel, whose civilian population has been directly targeted and whose right of self-defense cannot be seriously challenged, should follow “higher standards,” as American Secretary of State Antony Blinken correctly said.
Over the past millennium or so, rules of civilized behavior have evolved, especially in the West, for protecting civilian populations in war. They have not always been respected, perhaps especially—that’s Jouvenel’s argument—under the modern state. Would-be states, like Hamas and Isis, have doubled down on barbarism by conspicuously rejecting these rules of civilized behavior. These barbarians are literally “bands of robbers and murderers,” to borrow Lysander Spooner’s expression.
The plight of ordinary Gazans, often the children of Palestinians displaced when the state of Israel was created, and who are now forced to move again, should not leave us indifferent (“As War Looms Israel Calls for 1.1m people to evacuate Northern Gaza,” The Economist, October 13, 2023; see also “Inside Gaza, People Desperately Seek Safety,” Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2023).
If states did not exist and if (admittedly a big if) anarchy remained peaceful, such moral catastrophes on the scale as we have observed could not happen. On the other hand, it is true that political authorities did not prove capable of protecting the Jews against persecution during most of their history, so it is understandable that many of them count on their own state to protect their lives and liberty.
Political economy helps us to inquire into the general role of moral values in social interaction. James Buchanan with his ethics of reciprocity and Friedrich Hayek with his spontaneous-order rules of just conduct argue that the maintenance of a free society requires some minimum ethics.
The basic individualist ethic nurtured by Western civilization rejects group identities and tribal intuitions that justify collective punishments. In times of war, individualist ethics may be difficult to uphold by those waging a just defensive war, but its recognition is essential as a standard to distinguish collectivist barbarians and civilized individualists. Just as it makes no sense to hold the Israelis responsible for the barbaric attack of which they were victims, it is nonsensical to think of ordinary Gazans, under the yoke of Hamas thuggery, as collectively guilty and artisans of their own misfortune.
READER COMMENTS
David Seltzer
Oct 15 2023 at 11:23am
Pierre: “it is nonsensical to think of ordinary Gazans, under the yoke of Hamas thuggery, as collectively guilty and artisans of their own misfortune.” True and profoundly sad. I’ve lived in Israel and the threat of attack seems continuous. Simultaneously I’ve observed hand wringing by Israeli citizens at the plight ordinary Gazans.
Richard W Fulmer
Oct 15 2023 at 2:14pm
In the past, my response to people who sneered at civilization or who put the word in scare quotes was to list technical advances such as indoor plumbing, painless dentistry, and penicillin. That was a mistake; focusing on technology trivializes civilization. From now on, my list will start with not decapitating babies.
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 15 2023 at 5:14pm
Richard: Yes. It also includes taking much care not to bomb babies and of course not using them as human shields.
Richard W Fulmer
Oct 16 2023 at 8:32am
Israel is trying to minimize the loss of innocent Palestinian lives, Hamas leaders – living in luxury in Qatar – are trying to maximize the loss of Palestinian life.
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 16 2023 at 12:01pm
Richard: I understand what you are trying to say, and I probably agree. It is however important to formulate it precisely. In the real world, optimization functions include constraints, and these constraints are formally as important in the problem as the maximand. Otherwise, “minimize” would simply mean reduce to zero. My own Kantian value is that “minimize the killing of babies” does mean getting its probability close to zero, the exceptions being when innocent shields prevent reaching a supremely important specific target. The First Commandment is more restrictive: it seems to require a zero probability, which does not exist. (Perhaps probability theory was not Yahveh’s strong field?)
The illegitimacy of blockading and starving a civilian population has slowly become recognized from, I would say, 500 AD until quite recently.
Richard W Fulmer
Oct 16 2023 at 12:56pm
Why is Israel obligated to feed people dedicated to its destruction? Egypt also has a border with Gaza.
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 16 2023 at 1:08pm
Richard: I would agree of course that the state of Israel can legitimately “blockade” terrorists if this can be done without blockading innocents. On these topics, Jouvenel is interesting; so is (at a higher theoretical level) Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia.
Richard W Fulmer
Oct 16 2023 at 1:59pm
Agreed. However, the transaction costs of differentiating between innocents and belligerents are very high – especially in an area as densely populated as Gaza. Israel attempted to separate the two groups by warning Gaza citizens to move south before the IDF invades in an attempt to find and destroy the tunnel network that Hamas has constructed. Hamas responded by trying to prevent the southward flow of refugees. As a result, Israel has softened its initial 24-hour deadline. Israel has also allowed water – though no food or fuel – to flow into southern Gaza.
Meanwhile, Egypt shares a 7.5-mile-long border with Gaza and could – with the assistance of the PA security forces and the European Union Border Assistance Mission that control the Rafah border crossing – allow food and fuel to be sent to the Palestinians.
Richard W Fulmer
Oct 16 2023 at 2:26pm
Egypt could also choose to accept Palestinian refugees. They are unlikely to do so because Palestinians have made themselves toxic throughout the Middle East – first by their attempt to take over Jordan and then by their somewhat more successful attempt to take over Lebanon.
Egypt’s regime is not that stable, and admitting tens of thousands – or, potentially, hundreds of thousands – of Palestinians would be problematic to say the least.
The Muslim world sympathizes with the Palestinians’ plight, but they prefer to do so at a distance.
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 16 2023 at 1:04pm
Richard: I am not speaking of an “obligation to feed.” A blockade is an interdiction to exchange or to be fed (and get medicine, etc.) however and by whomever. The fact that somebody else blockades you (prevents you from exchanging or leaving) does not justify me for blockading you too.
Mactoul
Oct 16 2023 at 12:13am
Careful. You will be quoting Russell Kirk next. State ordained of God.
Now how do you fit this mystical link between State and people expressed in their own state in liberal theory? There is no they, is there?
Collectives don’t exist. State isn’t any factor in historic reduction in violence.
And do other persecuted people get their own state ? Armenians (ethnically cleansed only last month), Kurds, Ameriandians tribes, even Hindus (expelled from territories many times size of Levant).
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 16 2023 at 11:38am
Mactoul: One can read in your questions the fundamental interrogation that was at the base of James Buchanan’s enterprise (of which the 1960 *The Calculus of Consent*, with Gordon Tullock, remains a major landmark). It is probably in *The Calculus of Consent” that you can understand better how the state how (if anyhow possible) the state can both be us and non-us. It is worth also understanding why Anthony de Jasay, who was in the same analytical tradition, gave different answers.
And please read correctly what I wrote and don’t quote it selectively. I wrote:
If I had wanted to say “they” instead of “many of them,” that’s what I would have written. But it would have made no sense. Many Jews were and are anti-Zionist. A very large number of sets of individuals in the world want their own states, for good or bad reasons. In fact, any little authoritarian head of state, actual or would-be, wants his own state to oppress others.
Mactoul
Oct 17 2023 at 12:53am
I suspect the us in above quote is different from what is implied in our own state.
Our own state implies an ethnostate which privileges a particular group. But the us of Buchanan and Tullock is just some collection of individuals that happen to form a compact. I haven’t seen any consideration of boundaries of the social contract, geographical or otherwise. There is no concept of people outside a given social contract. We never see any discussion of co-existing social contracts.
So, how is Buchanan’s state both us and non-us?. For it would imply a state existing on its own, a violation of methodological individualism.
I submit that the concept our own state can not be fitted into liberal theory at all. For the liberal theory admits on no political boundaries between individuals. The left-liberal thought logically climaxes in the world state while the right-liberal thought reaches limit in atomic individuals.
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 17 2023 at 11:08am
Mactoul: I fear I have to repeat myself. My blog cannot be more than a conversation and an entry door to knowledge. Buchanan and his co-authors have discussed all these issues–perhaps not satisfactorily, but there is no way to know to which extent without reading them. (I could say the same for Hayek.) Buchanan’s The Limits of Liberty is a good entry point to the real discussion (but it cannot be skimmed like a newspaper article). Just before or just after that book, Why I, Too, Am Not a Conservative is very accessible. The next book in the list could be Buchanan and Brennan’s The Reason of Rules. It is a bit more demanding. The foundation of them all is in Buchanan and Tullock’s The Calculus of Consent, a more technical book, but an honest effort to read it is worthwhile, if only for a glimpse at the economic method and at the extent of what one knows and what one doesn’t know.
Roger McKinney
Oct 16 2023 at 10:42am
Unfortunately, Hamas ensures that Israeli soldiers must kill the children to get to the Hamas butchers.
steve
Oct 16 2023 at 11:48am
Which perpetuates the revenge loop. An Israeli baby dies so in the revenge process 10 Palestinian babies die as collateral damage, permissible under the rules of law and often unavoidable. That creates grieving angry mothers who raise up they sons to be terrorists to get revenge. The common rejoinder to this is that if the didnt kill the first Israeli baby to begin with this would stop, which was maybe true 60 years ago but now we are in a loop. It’s an intractable problem. Only realistic solution is getting rid of the Palestinians.
Steve
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 16 2023 at 12:12pm
Steve: I focus on your last sentence which, I think, if it is not ironic, does not follow from the rest of your post. You mean like the only definitive solution to crime in our own societies is to lock up all young men from age 17 until they reach 24? See my post “A Simplistic Model of Public Policy.”
steve
Oct 16 2023 at 2:47pm
It’s just my way of saying it’s a problem that has no answer. For those of us outside the conflict it looks easy to resolve. Each side gives up a bit of land and they stop fighting, but they have deep seated cultural and religious beliefs that cannot accept that. Look at the year 2000 negotiations lead by Clinton. The primary sticking point was the 3% of the West Bank that had settlers on it. Hamas was criticized because it could have piece if was willing to give up just 3% of the West Bank. However, looked at from the other side Israel could have had peace if it just up that last 3% of the land. For those looking on I think this seems nuts, they are willing to keep killing each other forever rather than cede a very small piece of land. To be fair, this mostly just solves the West Bank side where the PA has not been engaged in terror attacks. Hamas is a jihadi group.
So if they cant/wont compromise they cant live in the same area without killing each other and no way to stop the revenge loop. The only solution is one side must go. Israel has nukes and has the support of the US so it wont be them.
Richard Fulmer
Oct 16 2023 at 3:16pm
The issue wasn’t 3% of the West Bank. The problem is that any Palestinian leader would be assassinated for signing a peace agreement that recognized Israel’s right to exist.
The closest that anyone came was Yasser Arafat’s 1988 statement that the PLO “accepted the existence of Israel as a state in the region.” But that was no more than admitting reality, and was far from agreeing to acquiesce to that reality in the future.
Palestinians will not accept anything that Israel can reasonably be expected to offer.
Jose Pablo
Oct 16 2023 at 10:15pm
For those looking on I think this seems nuts, they are willing to keep killing each other forever rather than cede a very small piece of land
The most likely reason from WW III to start is because the government of a nation of 1.412 billion people and 3.7 million square miles has made its “raison d’etre” (its unavoidable destiny), to govern over an additional 0.023 billion people (a 1.6% increase) and over an additional 0.014 million square miles (0,38%). Maybe there is something terrible about 0.3% of territories …
Trying to apply rationality to understand “nationalism” will inevitably drive you to the most horrible melancholy.
Jose Pablo
Oct 16 2023 at 8:27pm
Only realistic solution is getting rid of the Palestinians.
What does this even mean?
Like a “Final Solution”? … certainly sounds like that
steve
Oct 16 2023 at 11:35pm
“The problem is that any Palestinian leader would be assassinated for signing a peace agreement that recognized Israel’s right to exist.”
Speculation and the provenance of that story is suspect. What we do know is that according to multiple sources the Palestinians were offered a “great deal”, but had to cede that 3% of settler land. Israel has never been willing to give up that land. Any Israeli PM who gave up the settlers would be booted. (The details on East Jerusalem were also a little fuzzy but people who were there thought it was doable.)
“Like a “Final Solution”? … certainly sounds like that”
Nope. Israelis have no interest in genocide. They would just keep doing what they are currently doing on the West Bank ie accelerating settlements. That would gradually push out the Palestinians. Gaza is harder since Hamas is a jihadi group. The obvious solution, already mentioned several times is to establish a large security zone around Gaza, taken out of Gaza land. When, not if, they attack again increase that zone. Tighten the blockade. Hamas would become irrelevant and likely leave to attack Israel from an external site.
Steve
Jose Pablo
Oct 17 2023 at 1:46am
When, not if, they attack again increase that zone.
So, if Hamas terrorist keep attacking, the solution is keep pushing Gazans into the Mediterranean Sea? So, it was a Final Solution after all, because what if some of them don’t know how to swim?
Some of the Gazans I mean, not some of the Hamas terrorist. In your “they” you don’t seem to make much of a distinction between these very different two groups.
It is always very tricky to properly use this “we” and “they”.
Warren Platts
Oct 16 2023 at 5:16pm
I’m not sure about that Pierre. As I think Chairman Mao once said that insurgents are like fish and the population is the water they swim in. There’s only been one election in Gaza, but Hamas did get 78% of the vote at the time. That indicates widespread popular support for Hamas. I doubt there was much hand-wringing happening on October 8.
Thus a little perfunctory bombing will not change the population’s attitude toward the Hamas leadership, and will indeed likely harden support; Hamas fighters will like Hydra’s heads simply multiply. Thus, I think the Israeli plan is to make the Gazan population realize in no uncertain terms that the Hamas leadership is not acting in their best interest and that they will be a lot better off getting along with the Israelis than fighting them continually.
Gaza could be a very cool little city state. It’s got lots of nice beaches that could attract tourists. The prevailing low wages and high unemployment indicates a work force that’s ripe for export led manufacturing. They could even maybe turn the place into a Cayman Islands-like tax haven. But for any of that to happen, they’re going to have to accept their lot in life and reject Hamas’s ISIS-like vision of a worldwide Islamic Caliphate, which is just crazy.
Yaakov
Oct 17 2023 at 12:10pm
78% grossly underestimates the support for murder in Gazza. The Washington institute latest poll gives 71% support for the Islamic Jihad and 74% for Lion’s Den. The article does not give the number of those who reject all these murder groups, but it is probably very low.
Jose Pablo
Oct 16 2023 at 8:33pm
should follow “higher standards,” as American Secretary of State Antony Blinken correctly said.
That’s interesting, Blinken saying that. Did the women and children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki deserve less “higher standards” than the women and children of Gaza?
Why so?
steve
Oct 16 2023 at 11:41pm
Under just war theory you have discrimination, is it a legit target, and proportionality, is the force morally appropriate. While there are divisions on those two bombings I think most people agree that while the targets had questionable legitimacy the use of force was morally appropriate. What we had seen over and over in taking the islands leading up to Japan was that the Japanese were fighting to the last man and not surrendering. The bombs like saved many Japanese and American lives.
Steve
Mactoul
Oct 17 2023 at 12:40am
America could have just blockaded Japan. Where was the necessity to invade the Japanese islands.
Warren Platts
Oct 17 2023 at 1:05am
Because if we didn’t invade, the Russians would have.
Craig
Oct 17 2023 at 6:02pm
Just to expound here a little bit, the USN could have blockaded Japan, but Japan still had a large number of soldiers in Asia. Singapore was still under Japanese control, I believe the Japanese were still effectively in charge of French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies, they had lost the Phillipines, but obviously still held large pieces of China. There was some sense of course to end the war ‘then and now’ — I had even read somewhere there was some concern Pacific theater soldiers would resent the end of hostilities in Europe and that there was concern about how European theater soldiers would react if transferred to the Pacific. They were also concerned with the continued financing of the war effort.
Jon Murphy
Oct 17 2023 at 12:15pm
If I recall correctly, the decision was made to consider invasion (and ultimately the bombs) because Japan refused to surrender.
Jose Pablo
Oct 17 2023 at 12:43pm
Japan refused to surrender.
Does it mean, the women and children living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki refused to surrender?
Given the logic of punishment (you are punished for something you did). Every single one of them should have refused to surrender. I very much doubt that was the case.
Craig
Oct 17 2023 at 5:43pm
The Japanese refused the Potsdam declaration with the one word response: mokusatsu ‘to kill with silence’ after which the Allies bombed Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945. 3 days later the Soviets went into Manchuria and they were slicing through the Kwangtung Army. Now, while Hiroshima and Nagasaki are often spoken of together, they are still two different events because Hiroshima and the Soviet entry DID change the Japanese position. The Japanese offered a qualified acceptance of Potsdam on the basis that would not result in “prejudic[ing] the prerogatives” of the Emperor.
The Allies responded to this, but the Japanese remained intransigent until Nagasaki after which Japan surrendered unconditionally.
After which the US lets Japan keep the Emperor which in my opinion makes failing to budge off ‘unconditional surrender’ obstinate.
Mactoul
Oct 18 2023 at 12:47am
What is this Japan that refused to surrender? You are speaking of a collective entity Japan of a type which does not exist (by your statements made on other posts), Where is the methodological individualism?
Even otherwise, your answer doesn’t satisfy, I refuse to surrender so you are justified in shooting me dead? I rephrase the question now as —What was the necessity that Japan should surrender (unconditionally)?
Craig
Oct 18 2023 at 10:27am
” I rephrase the question now as —What was the necessity that Japan should surrender (unconditionally)?”
Well its the ‘unconditionally’ part which is the relevant inquiry. Most wars prior would result in battles, victories, losses followed by some kind of armistice with terms like WW1, fair or otherwise. With respect to Germany, the necessity of unconditional surrender was that Hitler/Ribbentrop simply couldn’t be dealt with or trusted and they could point to pre-war conduct.
In the case of Japan, Truman perceived a need to ensure that the weed was pulled out by the root, the fear being that Japanese militarism would reblossom [who needs that as a threat to British, French, Dutch and American imperialism?]. The counterpoint would be that such a term was not quite as necessary as it was with Germany and Japan would be in a position to be a bulwark against the Soviet Union as people began to note the seeds of the Cold War being sown. Indeed, while one would never justify Japan’s actions in China and particular the Rape of Nanking, there is at least some recognition that the Allies had thrust themselves into Asia by way of empires but for which they would never have come to grief with an Asian regional power in the first place.
As an aside ‘unconditional’ surrender isn’t quite as ‘unconditional’ as it sounds, there are necessarily implied conditions that the occupying force will cease hostilites, etc.
Total war was horrific, the body count was insane. Ending with Hiroshima and Nagasaki a future total war threatens humanity’s very existence. However, it did actually END the conflict, Germany doesn’t champ at the bit to occupy Alsace-Lorraine, the Sudetenland or the Polish Corridor anymore. Japan makes no claim to a Co-Prosperity Sphere. The post-war redemption of both countries, while not perfect of course, the Japanese being notably less contrite, is nothing short of amazing. I would suggest the unconditional surrender did have the consequence of pulling out the root of militarism in both Germany and Japan laying the foundation for a genuine prosperity.
Jose Pablo
Oct 17 2023 at 1:31am
So, what Blinken meant is that civilians in Gaza are not a legit target (but civilians in Hiroshima were) and that the force used against civilians in Gaza is not (or could not) be proportionate, but the force used against civilians in Hiroshima was proportionate.
So, what Blinken meant is that if Hamas terrorists “fight to the last men” and don’t surrender then, the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Gaza would follow “higher standards”.
So, what Blinken meant is that if somebody (the IDF?, ONU?, the PNA?) thinks that killing a significant number of innocent civilians in Gaza can save many Palestinian and Israelis lives, then the killing is ok, and follow “higher standards” (as it did in Hiroshima, as per your reasoning).
Now I think I get it. Thank you, Steve.
steve
Oct 17 2023 at 12:11pm
Close enough. People who write on the topic dont all agree on where to set limits and what’s legitimate. War is hard and messy. In this case I think the question centers upon proportionality and on that there will be a lot of disagreement about how many civilians it is OK to kill in the pursuit of killing Hamas. Nearly every serious writer on this thinks some civilian casualties are acceptable. The issue of cutting off, food, water and power is a lot more gray.
Steve
Jose Pablo
Oct 17 2023 at 12:54pm
God, Himself, agreed with Abraham to spare Sodom if 10 righteous people lived in the city. Abraham (a Jew) had skillfully negotiated with God to get the figure down from His initial 50 people offer.
I very much doubt Netanyahu (or Blinken) knows better than Yahweh, since He (Yahweh I mean) is omniscient (and, for sure, a much better reference that the “serious writers” you mention).
So, if 10 righteous people are found in Gaza, the territory should be spared. The same thing should have been done in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Jose Pablo
Oct 17 2023 at 12:58pm
And, by the way, Yahweh also agreed on the evacuation of the righteous before destroying the city.
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 17 2023 at 3:37pm
Jose: Interesting example!
Craig
Oct 17 2023 at 5:29pm
The post-WW2 LOAC evolved in no small part because the stacks of bodies in WW2 were so high that total war had to be rejected ‘in favor’ of limited war. Post-WW2 the Allies were not politically disposed to question the righteousness of their cause, to the extent it was to defend the British, French and American Empires those causes weren’t completely white hat obviously, or to reject the obvious rather obvious hypocrisy of not condemning strategic bombing or at least firebombings of places like Dresden or Tokyo much less the nuclear attacks at Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
Jose Pablo
Oct 16 2023 at 9:06pm
civilized behavior have evolved, especially in the West, for protecting civilian populations in war. They have not always been respected, perhaps especially—that’s Jouvenel’s argument—under the modern state.
That’s just impossible under any form of “State”, modern or otherwise.
The “State” requires and nurtures the concept of a collective being (“us”) and of a collective “villain” (the “others”). It can’t exist without that (ask Trump’s voters).
Within this “framework” the “individual” just disappears. They became, non-individuals, just identical clones defined as part/meat of a supra-entity (“us”, “the others”, “Israelis”, “Gazans” …).
How can distinctions being made among individuals that doesn’t any longer exist, since they have been reduced to be just part of a “higher collective being”?
But the unbearable atrocities that were committed against individual citizens of Israel, were committed by individuals (individual animals not individual human beings). With first and last names. By them and only them, a subset of the millions of people living in Gaza. But in the realm of collectivities, only collective guilt can exist.
Women, children, warriors, elders … who cares? They are all “the others”. “Justice” is about punishing individuals for their acts. But “justice” is too sophisticated a tool for wars. Wars are about “collective” punishment.
In the realm of collective identities, trying to make distinctions among individuals is conceptually impossible.
It could happen, maybe, when states have disappeared and only individuals exist. Maybe not even then. After all we are just apes. Sometimes this fact is just more evident.
Jon Murphy
Oct 17 2023 at 10:29am
Good stuff here, Pierre. I agree with you that what makes a civilization civilized is how it treats people. I think what makes Western civilization so unique (and worth defending) is individualism: that each person, regardless of their caste, class, nation, religion, or any other “collective” characteristic is a unique person deserving of a base level of respect. The concept of “collective guilt,” that someone is deserving of punishment due to some accidental association with someone else, is an anathema to Western individualism. One cannot claim to be defending Western civilization while practicing collective guilt; that would be like claiming to defend Christianity by denying the divinity of Christ.
Yaakov
Oct 17 2023 at 12:00pm
The support for brutal attacks against Israelis in Gazza is enourmous, nearly unanimous. Requiring Israel not to bomb Hamas leaders who hold babies as protection, is just about saying that Israel should not protect itself, and its civilians should be slaughtered. The people of Gaza voted for Hamas, and are responsible for its acts. Over the past 18 years the righteous people of Gazza had sufficient oppertunities to leave. I would suggest emphasizing aiding the righteous people of Gaza, if there are any, to leave.
This is from Washington institute:
“Overall, 57% of Gazans express at least a somewhat positive opinion of Hamas—along with similar percentages of Palestinians in the West Bank (52%) and East Jerusalem (64%)—though Gazans who express this opinion of Hamas are fewer than the number of Gazans who have a positive view of Fatah (64%).
But it is organizations like Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Lion’s Den that receive the most widespread popular support in Gaza. About three quarters of Gazans express support for both groups, including 40% who see the Lion’s Den in a “very positive” light, an attitude shared by a similar percentage of West Bank residents.”
Jose Pablo
Oct 17 2023 at 1:47pm
The people of Gaza voted for Hamas, and are responsible for its acts
“Overall, 57% of Gazans express at least a somewhat positive opinion of Hamas
So, who is responsible for Hamas’ acts, all the people of Gaza or just the 57% of Gazans that expressed “at least a somewhat positive opinion” of Hamas? (And I very much doubt that expressing a “somewhat positive opinion” of Hamas in a poll means that you support the cool blood killing of hundreds of innocent civilians … that’s certainly a stretch of what “somewhat positive opinion” means in the art of surveying people opinions)
Polls are tricky. Only a sample of people is actually questioned. So, 57% (in the best interpretation of your words, maybe you think it is 100%) of the people that didn’t participate in the poll and never stated their opinions on Hamas, should be held responsible (like in “deserving to die” kind of responsible) for what the terrorist of Hamas did to innocent Israelis.
Isn’t this a terrible accusation, with potentially terrible personal consequences, for your level of personal responsibility to be decided depending on the answers of a random (a small) sample of your fellow Gazans?
Richard W Fulmer
Oct 17 2023 at 5:30pm
Hamas has made it all but impossible for the IDF to differentiate between Hamas fighters and innocent Palestinians. They’ve done this by siting military installations in or next to hospitals, schools, and mosques and by using Palestinians as human shields. Given that Israel wants to stop the incessant rocket attacks and prevent the threat of incursion, how should the IDF proceed?
Jose Pablo
Oct 18 2023 at 1:11pm
how should the IDF proceed?
Following the well-established principels of just war: distinction, proportionality, and necessity. Avoiding unnecessary suffering.
Making very clear the distinction between the ways of a group of barbaric terrorists and a well-organized modern army, under the control of a democratic law-abiding government.
This distinction is key in the long-term solution of this conflict. Thinking that it can be ended by force is very naive (childish I would say).
Killing a significant number of innocent (women, children, elders) to get to a handful more terrorist or to eliminate some additional weapons, will do much more harm than good to the future of an Israel peacefully established in the region.
That should be clear to everybody, no matter how difficult to overcome the outrage and hate that “pure evil” can justly cause with its horrendous acts of terror.
Dragging Israel into an unsustainable situation with the Arab countries surrounding it, would be the true success for Hamas. Even if the IDF manage to exterminate the terrorist (something it can’t realistically expect to achieve)
I do believe that these horrendous attacks were timed to avoid the normalization of diplomatic relations between Israel and the Arab world. The IDF can do a lot to diminish the probabilities of Hamas to score this success.
Mactoul
Oct 18 2023 at 11:22pm
I suspect IDF follows the Just War principles better than most militaries.
Yaakov
Oct 18 2023 at 7:08am
I purposely quoted the part about the Islamic Jihad and the Lions Den. Nobody even partially supports these groups unless he belives that Israelis should be slaughtered. On the other hand, many Gazans do not support these groups because they are loyal to their sect of murderers.
When 80% or even only 70% or even only 50% of Gazans support murderers and prefer to die killing Jews rather than have their families live, demanding that civilized people carefully target only the murderers means giving victory to the murderers.
Jose Pablo
Oct 18 2023 at 2:44pm
demanding that civilized people carefully target only the murderers means giving victory to the murderers.
Quite the contrary. It is targeting the innocent which will give victory to the murderers. And will significantly increase the number of people joining the murderers’ ranks.
Revenge is a dish best served cold.
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 17 2023 at 3:51pm
Yaakov: Consider the following. The difference between collectivism and individualism is that the latter does not rely on any arbitrary percentage of some group to control the life of an individual. Any exception must be carefully circumscribed (like liberals like Buchanan and Hayek try to do). Reading Nozick (not only my recent short post, but the whole book) also provides some intellectual antidote.
David Seltzer
Oct 17 2023 at 12:33pm
Pierre: The point, counterpoint comments in this blog is a microscopic view of what is currently happening in the Knesset and Bibbi. The problem is hate. I recently heard someone say “Hate is nature’s most powerful energy source.”
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 17 2023 at 4:12pm
David: Hate and other powerful emotions are not new, of course. The function of civilized rules is basically to control them. One can hate, say, one’s ex-wife but may not kill her, even if one is president of the United States. An individualist civilization controls raw emotions mainly by limiting the coercive powers that can transform them into actual aggressions. (For these reasons, it is probably true that hate has actually decreased over the past 300,000 years. A similar argument is made in Mike Huemer’s The Problem of Political Authority, although I don’t think I mention that in my Regulation review of the book.)
David Seltzer
Oct 17 2023 at 5:30pm
Pierre: Hate and other powerful emotions are not new, of course. The function of civilized rules is basically to control them. One can hate, say, one’s ex-wife but may not kill her, even if one is president of the United States. Yes but is Hamas civilized? The conundrum is moral relativism (however interpretated). I suspect Israelis would rather not conduct an air strike on a hospital in Gaza. If a nation is to prosecute a “just” war, Jus in bello, humanity is often lost. A tragic irony. In order to survive, what trade-offs does a Israel or any nation so threatened make; given there are no perfect solutions? With apologies to Thomas Sowell.
Jose Pablo
Oct 17 2023 at 5:53pm
Yes but is Hamas civilized?
No, it is not
But Israel is. That’s a very significant difference worth to maintain that way.
David Seltzer
Oct 17 2023 at 12:34pm
Meant Bibi.
Mactoul
Oct 18 2023 at 12:55am
If so, than doesn’t it make space for the concept of collective punishment?
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 18 2023 at 3:43pm
Mactoul: Of course not. No individualist philosophy could.
Richard W Fulmer
Oct 18 2023 at 9:28am
I’m sorry that Palestinians don’t have water. But perhaps part of the reason is that Hamas digs up water pipes and turns them into rockets:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/10/eu-funded-water-pipelines-hamas-rockets/
I’m sorry that Palestinians don’t have an adequate sewage system. But perhaps part of the reason is that Hamas builds tunnels with cement that was meant for Gaza’s sewage treatment plant:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/15/middleeast/hamas-tunnels-gaza-intl/index.html
I’m sorry that innocent Palestinians were killed in the hospital blast. But perhaps part of the reaons is that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad located its rocket battery near the hospital:
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-10-17/israeli-bombings-gaza-kill-dozens-aid-still-stalled
Hamas beats plowshares into swords and complains that Palestinians lack food.
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