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.