In response to my last blog entry,
Do I advocate the eradication of Israel? reader "dansac" had this to say:
"...Maybe, just maybe, a poster on this site who writes a post critical of Israel will find a way to also say, I condemn the tactic of suicide bombings against civilians," instead of blaming the Jews of 1948 for Palestinian violence. Policy wrongs occur all over the world, and resistance is often justified. But violence, especially in the form of specifically targeting civilians, never is.
Maybe, just maybe, you have finally encountered such a poster, dansac...
The one event in history that always puts any discussion of terrorism into perspective for me was America's "terror bombing" (as the Brits used to call it) of Japanese civilians that American bomber pilots were ordered to carry out during World War II. In these terror attacks, hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children were successfully and intentionally targeted for incineration. I cannot justify the terror attacks of Palestinian suicide bombers that have taken the lives of innocent civilians any more than I can justify America's non-suicide terror attacks on innocent civilians during World War II.
One moral lesson in foreign affairs that America seems to have difficulty grasping is that it is possible for a nation (or group or tribe) to use immoral, unjustifiable means to achieve truly moral ends. That is to say, I believe that the United States was justified in attacking Japan because Japan had declared war on us. But the fact that your cause is just does not mean that any and all methods you use to pursue those just ends are automatically moral and justified. The truth is that America's attacks on Japan's civilian population during World War II were immoral. Still, our cause was just.
Recognizing this truth forces us to see a lot more gray than just black and white and it also forces us to look at ourselves when we are demonizing our enemies. In light of our own `gray past' we have no choice but to separate the means and the ends of wartime actions and evaluate them separately. We need to acknowledge that just because you are pursuing a just cause does not mean that it is impossible for you to take actions that are despicable and immoral in pursuit of that cause. Also, our own experience tells us that it is not impossible for a group of warriors to be fighting for a cause that is 100% justified, even though it is undeniably true that they have used methods to pursue a worthy end that are both immoral and contemptible.
This is significant because it means that it is possible for us to bring an end to the Israeli-Arab war (and also to America's problem with terrorism) in a way that favors the Palestinians without being guilty of "caving in to terrorists." We simply need to be careful to state that, while we condemn---as strongly as ever---the terrorist attacks that have been made on civilians, we are big enough to admit our wrongdoing when it is pointed out to us and are humble enough to try to make amends. We do not claim to be a perfect people. We simply want the rest of the world to know that we are earnest in our desire to be a good and moral people.
Sure, the terrorists would claim that their terror tactics were necessary and justified in order for ultimate justice to be obtained (just as those who authorized America's terror bombing tactics in WWII argued that they were necessary and justified in order for ultimate justice to be obtained) but they would be wrong. Does that annoying fact give us good cause to not admit the truth of our own culpability in this whole mess? No. The fact that they will gloat without justification should not affect our moral decision-making at all. We need to do the right thing, period.
I hope this helps you to understand my intentions and my arguments more clearly, dansac.
My Website: Nontrivial Pursuits
