Responsibility
Rod asks:
The Palestinians, on the other hand, had a choice — and they chose Hamas, in a free and fair election. Are they not to be held responsible for those choices?
It seems to me that they have been “held responsible” for this for almost two years as Gaza has gradually been deprived of aid and supplies in response to the election of Hamas. Having to live under Hamas rule since then is how they have been “held responsible” for the majority’s vote, and one would think that this is punishment enough. This question of collective responsibility and collective punishment is central to the matter. Do we, in fact, believe that an entire population is directly responsible for the actions of a relative few or for the actions of their political leaders? Does an entire population deserve to suffer on account of those actions? Put that way, I hope most of us would say no to both. Most of us understand that this is the reasoning behind total war and also the justification for terrorism.
I assume no one would seriously maintain that Israelis are being “held responsible” for the choices of their past governments when they come under attack, and I would hope we would all maintain a sharp and clear distinction between the people and the political authority in all cases. Collective responsibility here seems to mean that every voter is not only partly responsible for empowering or endorsing a particular government, but that every voter is culpable and can be punished for any wrong done by that government. I submit that we would not make such an argument about most other nations, and if someone used such an argument to justify attacks on American or Western cities we would repudiate it immediately, but it is one that we hear with depresssing frequency when it comes to Arab nations.
The logic of collective punishment in this case says, “Islamic Jihad and Al-Aqsa members are launching outrageous rocket attacks into Israel, Hamas permits them to do this, a majority voted for Hamas, so any Palestinian in Gaza who suffers on the account of the retaliatory strikes basically had it coming.” Isn’t it clear how effectively lumping together everyone in Gaza from the fanatic launching the rocket to the Hamas voter who relies on its social services to the Fatah supporters who quietly oppose Hamas rule works directly to the advantage of Hamas? Isn’t it even more clear that Hamas’ appeal grows when it can portray itself to people in Gaza as a resistance movement, and that the siege and these strikes recreate some of the occupation conditions that originally made Hamas so popular?
Rod asks what I and other critics of the strikes would like to see Israel do instead. Speaking for myself, I would have liked to see Israel not foolishly strengthen the hands of its enemies by escalating a minor security threat into a major military operation. What else could the Israeli government have done? It could have lifted or ameliorated the siege, or better yet never imposed it. If we grant that cutting off Gaza was actually a blunder, remedying that blunder would be a first step. It is not certain that ending Gaza’s isolation would weaken Hamas, but its isolation has done nothing but strengthen Hamas’ position. Short of an extremely difficult and risky urban war aimed at destroying the organization entirely, which would cause massive dislocation and suffering, that seems the best means of weakening Hamas politically by forcing it to (mis)govern Gaza under relatively normal conditions. There will undoubtedly be a core of support for the group that will remain, but surely the political goal that Israel wants to reach is to have a majority of people in Gaza grow disillusioned with Hamas and to drive wedges between the group and most of the population. I don’t assume Hamas would sit idly by and let its support dwindle without attempting to gin up another crisis, and I expect that it would try to intimidate or kill dissenters to retain its hold on power, but there does not seem to be any other way to break its hold without taking military action that will create, if it is possible, an even more radical movement to replace Hamas should it be destroyed.
Of course, this may not be politically palatable in Israel, and it would invite accusations of “showing weakness,” because any policy that has been thought out for more than ten seconds is always labeled as “weakness” or “appeasement,” but that is at least the beginning of my proposal of an alternative.
Well, I would say the danger is that Hamas WOULDN’T misgovern Gaza – that it might, in fact, do a decent job. Then what?
As per the idea of collective punishment, well, there’s precedent, isn’t there? The bombing of German and Japanese cities in WWII didn’t do a whole lot to cause military collapse, but did administer “punishment” for those who, we say, bore culpability for starting the war. It’s an imperfect parallel, to be sure – but it’s not as if we’re hearing this rationalization for the first time.
If it didn’t engage in misrule and lost its credibility, some pragmatic (there’s that word again) accommodation would have to be reached. All of this “war to the bitter end” rhetoric closes off a lot of options, just as unconditional surrender rhetoric made a negotiated peace in WWII impossible and made the war last longer than it needed to.
Indeed, I continue to hear people cite the Germans and Japanese as examples of nations that deserved what they got, and few find this position as horrific as I do. Those bombings of cities were war crimes, pure and simple. It isn’t the first time we’ve heard this rationalization, it’s true, but that’s what troubles me. We ought to have learned something by now.
No, we’ve learned nothing, and WILL learn nothing, as it’s enshrined in our national consciousness that the bombings of Dresden and Tokyo hastened the collapse of Germany and Japan; and thus was morally justifiable. We just don’t want to think too much about such things. And so we don’t.
The fire-bombings on Germany were most certainly war crimes, and an example of collective punishment in the extreme–a warming I would hope, against such brutality. Our slaughter of Japanese was criminal as well, though it’s easy to pass judgment on such actions in retrospect. Those bombs were used for the first time, whereas the fire-bombing of Germany was ongoing and its effects documented over a longer course than the Japanese attacks, which were far more destructive, I think, than most expected…
Sorry, Daniel, I meant to comment on the post. I think you’re completely right about Israel’s impatience in this matter. Were they simply to wait and do their best to defend their citizens against the rather shabbily made rocket attacks, certainly at some point either Hamas would misgovern so poorly as to become a burden on the Gazans, or would reform in a similar way to Fatah.
Of course, then the concern becomes a new Hamas, a sort of unending evolution of militant groups transforming from terrorist to mainstream…
I think you have to ask yourself, what is Hamas’ military strategy for its war with Israel, that the people of Gaza voted for? The answer seems to be that they voted for a strategy of martyrdom. It’s obvious there’s no way Hamas or the other Palestinian terror groups, or even the entire Arab world can actually defeat Israel militarily. It has, what, 200 nukes? So the strategy they have decided upon is to harass Israel with rocket attacks, suicide bombers, and other attempts to indiscriminately kill Israeli civilians, in the hope that Israel will retaliate disproportionately, create martyrs of the Gaza Palestinians, and somehow rally world opinion against Israel to such a degree that all Arab nations will somehow go to war against Israel, and lose once again of course.
Is this really a sane strategy? Surely those who voted for Hamas must be aware by now that this is an insane strategy that will only succeed, to the degree it succeeds at all, in killing more and more Palestinian civilians, and maybe civilians of quite a few other countires if it gets that far.
I’m not saying Israel isn’t culpable for its own actions, or even that it’s actions make sense, but one can hardly relieve the Palestinian people of responsibility for their own slaughter, in that they have democratically voted in a government whose only military strategy is their own people’s martyrdom. When that martyrdom arrives, are we supposed to pretend it wasn’t fully intended by the martyrs themselves?
Isn’t it somehow incumbent on Israel to assure the Palestinians that if they act as they do, they will indeed be martyred, but to no affect whatsoever? That at least is the hope of the Israeli military plan, and at least it relies on some kind of common sense, or at least the hope that the Palestinians will act sensibly, rather than pursuing this irrational martyrdom policy. I’m not sure it will work, however, in that one should never undererstimate the Islamic love for martyrdom in our day and age. Israel could try NOT to retaliate, and see what that gets them, but I think they tried that already and it didn’t seem to work either.
While agreeing with much of the substance of E.D. Kain’s remarks, I must note that the firebombing of Japan was much worse than that endured by the Germans at Dresden. There is a very good book on th topic called Flames Over Tokyo. The use of incendiaries in the Pacific was so horrible, in fact, that some of the Japanese authorities initially thought that Hiroshima was just a particularly bad episode.
Of course, our goal in WWII was the complete obliteration or unconditional surrender of our adversaries, whichever came first. As DL points out elsewhere, the obliteration of Hamas does not seem to accomplish much unless Israel is willing to go yet further down the occupation road which has already advanced their cause so much.
I concede that I don’t see a good option for Israel. When I look at their position honestly, my thoughts are drawn toward Constantinople in the early renaissance.
Someday I would like to see the case made here for why “war crimes” exist as a concept. Goering didn’t think it made much sense and neither, it would appear, does Victor Davis Hanson. While it is a bit nauseating to ally myself with such august company, I confess that I have never been particularly comfortable with the idea that the act of war can be mitigated by honourable conduct.
Oh, and welcome back, Mr. Larison.
jetan–thanks for the heads up on the fire-bombing of Japan. I admit to having spent more hours studying the European arena than the Pacific. I’ll take a look at Flames Over Tokyo…sounds depressing…
Rod’s logic is, of course, what Al-Qa’ida uses to justify attacks on American civilian targets such as on 9/11, embassies, tourists, etc. that we elected governments that do all sorts of nasty things in third world countries. I believe that Rev. Wright got all sorts of grief from saying that 9/11 was a case of “chickens coming home to roost.”
The irony of the “they elected Hamas” dodge is that the US did everything it could short of rigging the vote to try to get Fateh to beat Hamas. Those were poorly thought out elections aided and abetted by the Bush Administration which Hamas won fair and square running on a “change” (!!!) and anti-corruption platform.