Moral Equivalence Redux

by Aron Trauring

Suppose you came across the following text:

IDF military actions against the Palestinian terrorists is not directed against the Palestinian civilian population, but rather against terrorism....In acting against terror, the IDF directs its action against military targets and does its best to ensure that its actions would not cause losses among civilians. It is true that in some cases actions carried out by the IDF resulted in some civilian losses, but these losses were in self-defense and came in response to the massacres committed against innocent Jewish civilians as was the case with the Passover massacre, when innocent Jews were blown up while celebrating the Seder. Anxious to see no civilians on either side fall victim to the conflict, the IDF took several initiatives to end the violence. However, the terrorists rejected these initiatives and by doing so, they showed their terrorist nature and their indifference to saving innocent civilians from bloodshed.

In its actions, the IDF is keen on adhering to the noble teachings of Judaism, human rights and international law. It carries out its lawful actions not for the sake of murder and bloodshed, as is the case with the Palestinian terrorists.

You would immediately assume this is a typical argument that might be put forth by Israeli politicians or military spokespeople, or some pundit defending Israel. Except, the above text was taken straight off the Hamas web site! Of course, I substituted some words according to the following key:

IDF = Hamas
military actions = resistance
Jews = Palestinian civilians
Palestinian terrorists/terror = occupation
Jewish = Palestinian
terrorists = Zionists
Judaism = Islam

Here is the original text:

Hamas resistance against the occupation is not directed against the Jews as followers of a religion, but rather against the occupation...In resisting the occupation, Hamas directs its action against military targets and does its best to ensure that its resistance would not cause losses among civilians. It is true that in some cases resistance carried out by the movement resulted in some civilian losses, but these losses were in self-defense and came in retaliation to the massacres committed against innocent Palestinian civilians as was the case with the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre in Hebron when Palestinians were shot dead at the hands of settlers and the soldiers of the occupation. Anxious to see no civilians on either side fall victim to the conflict, Hamas took several initiatives proposing that both sides stop targeting civilians and that they be excluded from the scope of conflict. However, the Zionists rejected these initiatives and by doing so they showed their terrorist nature and their indifference to saving innocent Palestinians from bloodshed.

In its activities of resistance, Hamas is keen on adhering to the noble teachings of Islam, human rights and international law. It carries out its lawful resistance not for the sake of murder and bloodshed as is the case with the Zionists.

The question of moral equivalence continues to bedevil the conflict. Those who support the use of military force on both sides , argue the justice of their cause, painting the other side as evil and murderous. But the militarists on both sides are at best deluding themselves, and at worst lying.

I don't need to convince my Jewish friends when I say this about the Hamas. It is so much harder for them to accept that the IDF, "the most moral army in the world," is acting immorally. But sticking ones head in the sand, refusing to face the reality of the situation, makes one complicit in the crime. In this recent article by Amira Haas, she carefully and clearly points out the yawning gap between the words of the Israeli army spokesperson and the reality on the ground. As time passes, this gap grows wider and wider. The Israeli army, which Israeli see as the vanguard of society, is losing all moral restraints.

In an article in the weekend paper, Amos Harel, Ha'aretz' military correspondent, notes how the army is convinced it is "winning the war."

Yesterday's relatively high number of Palestinian casualties, nine, momentarily refocused attention on the territories, before public opinion goes back to dealing with the issues that it finds far more fascinating - the corruption allegations in the Likud and the impending war in Iraq.

Most of those killed yesterday were armed, but the number of dead, apparently the result of coincidence, is evidence of the campaign underway in the territories far from the public eye. It's a stubborn, sometimes dirty war, in which both sides are investing much effort to win points - and which neither side appears to be winning.

When Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon was commander of the forces in the West Bank in the early 1990s, he used to tell company commanders, "As long as we are on page 19 of the newspapers, everything's okay."

In recent weeks, it was just that. Three Israelis have been killed so far in December, compared to 44 in November and 22 in October. That's the result of the enormous pressure on the wanted men - and on the Palestinian population among which they live.

Of course, this was written before the most recent attack which killed another 4 Israeli civilians, and left many more wounded. So we are up to 7 dead Israelis, and the month not yet finished. But Harel goes on:

The fact the town most densely populated with wanted men - Nablus - has not managed to send a terrorist into Israel for more than a month can only be explained by the army's use of an elite unit, the Paratroopers Brigade, in the city, as well as the extensive curfews they impose.

In the last four months, more than 50 terrorists have been killed in the West Bank. In Gaza, 220 have been killed since Operation Defensive Shield in the spring.

But Ya'alon wants more than that. In internal army meetings, he is talking about the need for a decisive victory and 2003 is being described as "the year of decision." It won't only by a by-product of the American assault in Iraq, but rather, he hopes, the result of the ongoing pressure on the Palestinians, including more arrests and many more demolitions of terrorist homes.

Since September, 78 houses have been demolished and the army believes it is the most effective deterrent it has found to foil terrorism. Army commanders speak about fathers who turn in their sons before the youths manage to commit terrorist attacks and the army destroys the family's home.

Essentially what this says explicitly is that the Israeli army openly and clearly believes that collective punishment against the Palestinian civilian population and the commission of war crimes are its most effective tools. In other words, the army is justifying the use of terror to fight terror. Once again, moral equivalence. Or rather, the lack thereof. "The most moral army in the world" no longer even pretends to be moral. And the next paragraph just drives the point home:

Yesterday's relatively high number of casualties is not perceived in the army as requiring any explanation, but rather as a nearly-positive development, showing that the army is able to simultaneously reach large numbers of suspects in their hiding places, and then either arrest them or, if they resist, kill them.

The "argument" used on both sides to justify terror, is that we are fighting to save the lives of our own innocent civilians. But the reality is, that terror breeds counter-terror. And even the army people, who are proud of their terrorist actions, admit this, as Harel continues:

The army regards itself as "winning by points;" but when pressed to the wall, senior officers admit that there's no end in sight. One element that might stabilize the situation is the completion of the first stage of the seam line fence, from Salam to Kafr Qasem by next July. But even the fence won't completely prevent suicide bomber infiltrations. There's talk in the Central Command of the "junkie effect" among terrorist leaders, with the terrorists continually requiring "a larger dose" of dead Israelis to feel the effect.

Suicide bombings will continue, say the officers, because it's "the Palestinian Scud," and the threat could get worse with the start of a war in Iraq, when Palestinians will want to identify with the Iraqi people.

Those who argue against making a moral equation between the Israeli army and the Hamas, say that by doing so we are being moral relativists - not seeing the difference between good and evil. But in fact, I would argue exactly the reverse. Targeting civilians for a political goal is absolutely evil and immoral, no matter what your motivation for doing so. Both the Israeli army and the Hamas are guilty of such behavior and both must be condemned without equivocation. Those who see the violence of one side in this conflict as good, and the violence of the other side as evil, are justifying immoral behavior and so are being moral relativists.

A while back there was an interesting piece by Judith Shulevitz in the NY Times which addresses this issue. Shulevitz argues that we must judge people who do bad by their actions, not their intentions.

The idea that we judge evil men by their actions, not by the content or intensity of their beliefs, may be postmodern in the sense that it succeeds the modern Enlightenment definition of evil, but it does not lead to moral relativism. On the contrary, it leads to its opposite -- moral absolutism -- since it presumes a universal standard by which to judge behavior.

Another advantage of this position is that it allows us to admit what has seemed obvious all along: that Al Qaeda members and Palestinian suicide bombers are genuinely, sincerely, convinced that they are doing the right thing. That doesn't make them less evil, but it does make them more terrifying, since they force us to face the chilly reality of a world in which sincerity and morality have nothing to do with each other. How strongly you believe in something is irrelevant; what matters is whether your beliefs are the correct ones, and we figure that out that by examining what your belief leads you to do.

And that view demands humility, since it holds as true for us as it does for our enemies. If there is only a single standard of good behavior, then no matter how honestly we believe in our causes -- in democracy, for instance, as opposed to tyranny or religious totalitarianism -- we are never allowed to stop worrying about our own morality when we march forth to defend them.

I would add the Israeli occupation government and army to Shulevitz' list of those who are "convinced they are doing the right thing," but are in fact doing something evil and immoral.

Sadly, intellectual honestly won't let me end here. Recently I was having a discussion on the issue of intention vs. action with a friend. I put forth the proposition that in Jewish thought, intention does not matter when we do something good. The goal is to get people to do good actions, whatever their motivation, with the hope that over time the external will become internal. On the other hand, when people do bad, intention does matter. For if not, we are all eternally condemned. All of us have engaged in immoral actions at one time or another in our lives, probably more often than we care to admit. As I have written elsewhere, I myself participated in the immoral Israeli occupation. If intention does not matter, than there is no hope for repentance, redemption or forgiveness.

Which leads me to this: while we can condemn actions absolutely, we should never condemn actors absolutely, because actors are human, and all humans are flawed. We must always leave open the hope that even the most evil person can change and be redeemed. This does not mean we condone or justify evil actions. This does not mean that we don't try to prevent or stop them. What it does mean is that we leave open the possibility for reconciliation and true peace, even in the most violent of conflicts. Equally important, we leave open the possibility of reconciliation and true peace in our own flawed lives.