As a follow-up to the article on the reaction to the pilot’s letter, Ha’aretz had an interview with playwrite Joshua Sobol. Disturbing and provocative:
“War crimes have a definition. The Geneva Convention and the annex to the Rome Convention stipulate that a systematic and prolonged policy of killing civilians is a war crime. So in the present case we have to examine whether such killing is being perpetrated or not. In retrospect, many civilians and children have been killed here. Too many innocent people have been killed here. And of the 2,400 Palestinians who have been killed, wanted individuals were not the majority. It’s impossible to apologize day in and day out and say we didn’t mean it. If there are so many civilian casualties on the other side, we have to stop. That is what the pilots wanted to say and in that they are right.”
This week I was up in Toronto at a conference, and I happened to see a three way panel of local journalists discussing the situation in Palestine/Israel in light of the road side bombing which killed three American CIA agents. [As an aside, the fact that they were CIA agents was published in the first notice of the event in Ha'aretz. It was quickly removed, and not mentioned anywhere else. I believe the initial report was credible, because the CIA has a strong presence on the ground as the American mediating force between the PA and Israel.]
One of the pundits pontificated on an op-ed piece he wrote, which was to appear the next day in a local paper. Essentially he said that the Palestinian people as a whole had become complicit in the crimes of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. After all, someone must have seen the militants planting the roadside bomb, and didn’t report it to the police. The fact that they didn’t shows Palestinians as a whole support terror. Hence they deserve what they get from the Israelis.
Hearing this argument made my mouth drop to the floor. One of the other pundits made the point that there are two sides to this conflict, but he didn’t have much time to respond. Since I’m the moderator here, no one can cut me off. And I think it’s worth responding to, since unfortunately many people in the West, especially in the U.S., see the situation in the same light – the Palestinians are murderous and violent and so deserve the repression imposed upon them by the Israelis, who are only acting in “self-defense.”
Firstly, I am a strong supporter of Ghandi’s ideas, so I don’t believe that even blowing up combatents such as CIA agents is going to help the Palestinian’s cause or is morally justified. However, those, such as that TV pundit, who argue the Israelis are justified in using force to achieve their aims as long as they are targeting combatents, should at the very least apply their principles consistently. From the Palestinian’s perspective, the Israelis and their American allies are causing them grievious harm, so they have the same right of self-defense. Blowing up a convoy is not a war crime – it is an act of war. Using this example to show the complicity of Palestinian society in “murderous activities” is the worst possible argument one can give.
Also, the idea that Palestinian civilians definitely saw the combatents planting the roadside bomb and should have reported the activity to the police, is patently absurd. Most Palestinians have been trapped in their homes over the past few weeks under the holiday curfews imposed by the Israeli army, so it is highly unlikely that anyone saw it. And even if they did, given the absolute lawlessness that reigns in the territories as a result of the destruction of the PA by the Israeli army, who would they report it to? Yes the PA is functioning to a limited degree in Gaza (unlike the West Bank), but not to the extent that it can protect their lives from certain revenge as a collaborater. Moreover, why would they want to risk their own life to save that of some Israeli soldier, when those same soldiers have likely killed a brother, a father, a mother or a child of any possible witness?
While this Canadian pundit is obviously totally detached from the reality on the ground, Joshua Sobol isn’t, and he makes a much more powerful argument. Even if he is talking about Israelis, it is an argument that cuts both ways and applies to both sides. Despite the argument of the combatents on both sides that they are acting in self defense, it is an undeniable fact that far too many civilians have been killed and both sides are committing horrendous war crimes.
I have already discussed the parallel language of both sides of the conflict. What Sobol is saying, is that to be silent is to be complicit in these crimes.
But Sobol has another insight as well that he shares in the interview:
“Look, for me the terrorist attacks were a terrible shock. After every attack I found myself in a state of conceptual shock. I also found myself seething with an instinct for revenge. I wanted to finish them off, to wipe them out. In the period of the attacks at Cafe Moment [in Jerusalem] and in the Park Hotel [in Netanya, during the Passover Seder] I was frightened of myself. I was full of rage and nausea. Within my family I said we should deliberately attack civilians. I found myself espousing very violent positions. On the night of that Seder I sat watching television and I was filled with the desire to kill. With a real desire to kill. I said we should go into their cities and drop bombs in the heart of their cities and hurt them the same way they are hurting us. I wanted to trample them, blow them up, liquidate all the terrorist leaders one by one.”
Here is a good man with a good heart who is driven to rage and a bloody desire for revenge. Fortunately, he holds himself back and finds a different way to channel his anger. But others who are no different than him, do not hold back, and act out their terrible desire for vengeance.
Both sides are guilty of horrible crimes. I don’t buy into the argument that some make, that since the Palestinians are the weaker side and the victims of injustice, murderous militant actions are justified. Such actions are wrong both morally and strategically. There is no question that the Israeli actions are morally wrong, since they are the continuation of an act of injustice that began long before the suicide bombings began. And strategically, Israeli violence also has only led to more deaths.
However, to dehumanize one side or the other in this conflict only perpetuates the blood shed. To brand all Israelis or all Palestinians as murderous, immoral creatures, is not going to change anything. Rather we must help both sides see their shared humanity, and hope that this arouses their conscience buried deep by the burning desire for revenge.
Tags: Moral Equivalence
