Israel, Hamas, and Moral Asymmetry

Last week I attended a conference on “AI and the Law, on the Battlefield and in Cyberspace” organized by Academic Exchange and the Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas, Austin. During the conference we received some updates about the situation in Israel and the Israeli efforts to comply with international law in their war against Hamas. Using rules of engagement and battlefield procedures similar to U.S. practices in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Israelis have been trying to balance their need to fight a terrorist enemy against legal and moral imperatives to protect noncombatants. Their approach contrasts sharply with the way Hamas attempts to both terrorize and murder Israelis on the one hand and to use Palestinians as human shields on the other hand. We might say that this is a “morally asymmetric” war because Hamas does not abide by any legal or moral scruples and in fact takes advantage of the fact that Israel does maintain such scruples in its own conduct. By placing its command posts and ammunition stores underneath civilian structures such as schools, mosques, and hospitals, Hamas, with the help of Iran, forces Israel to choose between pursuing its military goals and protecting civilians. The asymmetric military advantage that Hamas enjoys consists in the fact that it would be clearly useless for Israel to employ similar human shields because Hamas would have absolutely no hesitation in killing Israeli civilians.

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The Sources of War

As Israel begins its attack on Hamas, it will be important to remember the underlying sources of war that will ultimately be the target of Israel’s efforts. Most leftists in the United States and Europe attempt to blame Israel for the continuation of hostilities. But the variety of enmity that fuels the war comes primarily from the Palestinian side. Hamas’s attack on Israel demonstrates that it sees Israel and Israelis as what Carl Schmitt called an “absolute enemy,” against which there can be no compromise and against which the primary strategy is eradication. There clearly can be no peace as long as this attitude prevails. It is also clear that Israel does not share this kind of enemy thinking. In fact, it has worked over the decades to integrate Palestinians into its society and economy. Arabs and Palestinians continue to live and work within Israel, in stark contrast to the plight of Israelis who remain in Gaza primarily as hostages. If the war cannot end until each side stops treating the other side as an absolute enemy, then Israelis have shown their willingness to live alongside Palestinians—while Palestinian leaders have demonstrated the opposite.

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The Telos Press Podcast: Jon Simons on Walter Benjamin, Rabbis for Human Rights, and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

In today’s episode of the Telos Press Podcast, Camelia Raghinaru talks with Jon Simons about his article “Divine Violence, Profane Peace: Walter Benjamin, Rabbis for Human Rights, and Peace in Israel–Palestine,” from Telos 192 (Fall 2020). An excerpt of the article appears here. If your university has an online subscription to Telos, you can read the full article at the Telos Online website. For non-subscribers, learn how your university can begin a subscription to Telos at our library recommendation page. Purchase a print copy of Telos 192 in our online store.

Listen to the podcast here.

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Negative Theology, Power, and the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict

Aryeh Botwinick’s “Negative Theology, Power, and the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict” appears in Telos 192 (Fall 2020): Truth and Power. Read the full article at the Telos Online website, or purchase a print copy of the issue in our online store. Individual subscriptions to Telos are available in both print and online formats.

From a Machiavellian perspective, peace is war by other means. You can have a much greater watchful vigilance of your former (or future) opponent in times of peace than in a time of war. Israel as a sponsor (or co-sponsor) of a kind of Middle East Marshall Plan: Rebuilding your enemy so that he becomes your ally and friend. Enemies must learn to use each other’s weapons. The weakness of the Palestinians has to be matched by the deliberate, self-consciously generated weakness of the Israelis in the form of benevolence and generosity in order for both sides to emerge as triumphant. If this approach is pursued, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict harbors the prospect of turning into a sum-sum conflict, where both sides stand equally to gain by pursuing peace.

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Telos 192 (Fall 2020): Truth and Power

Telos 192 (Fall 2020): Truth and Power is now available for purchase in our store. Individual subscriptions to Telos are also available in both print and online formats.

There is a strong temptation to oppose the idealism of truth to the realism of power in order to criticize and turn away from politics as a base pursuit. Science, facts, and ideals are cited as the objective truths that so often are ignored in favor of ideology, lies, and self-interest by those who wield power. Yet this opposition between truth and power can itself become a dubious tactic, as it is often the speaker who seeks to define an opinion as truth. This situation is complicated by the circumstance that there are three forms of truth that are often merged in such discussions.

First, there are natural scientific truths that even autocrats and totalitarians do not seek to deny, as they are the source of the technological tools that can support any attempt to maintain power. Here, there is certainly no conflict between truth and power. Not only does political power depend on technological achievement, but natural scientific facts cannot be covered up by lies and ideology for long. Consequently, political actors must pay attention to natural scientific and technical knowledge, even if they then instrumentalize it in different ways.

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