On Israel’s Bombing of Gaza

Iā€™ve been grateful that all the work I had to do in the last weeks of the PA General Assembly has given me a respite from reading and thinking about the Israel-Hamas conflict. I have a couple of things I want to say about it. If I were making a larger argument, this one would not come first. But I finished it after reading an article comparing Israelā€™s bombing of Gaza with the Allied bombing of German cities in WW II. The article is in the comments. Thanks to Karly Whittaker for sharing that article. ā€¦ The comparison with Allied bombing in WWII is even more telling than the article suggests. The Allies had three justification for a bombing campaign that aimed at the center of German cities and that probably killed at least 300,000 civilians. Historians are divided about which was more important at different times during the war.ā€¦ Continue reading

What a just war against Hamas would look like.

I am concerned about what Israel has been doing and might do in Gaza. Some aspects of Israel’s current policy is morally dubious. At the same time the issues here are far more complicated than most people seem to recognize and what Israel is doing is, at that point, not totally clear. I think charges that Israel is engaging in genocide or ethnic cleansing, are at this point, and to be blunt, absurd. Israel does have a right to respond with military force to the Hamas’ attack. But it should do so in a limited way, and one that respects the moral rules of warfare that prohibit targeting civilians. And that means, among other things, that it must provide or allow others to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza’s caught up in the war. Its unwillingness to do so now is, also to be blunt, morally indefensible. Here is how Iā€¦ Continue reading

You can’t help free Palestine by embracing Hamas

I’ve been paying attention to what is going on in the Middle East not the reaction of people in the US and Europe to it. So I’ve been late to see some of the horrible reactions here and and there. If you are a critic of Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians and a supporter of Palestinian statehood–or even of a one state bi-national solution–you should be appalled by and furious at Hamas’ attack this week. Not just because it was a deliberate and brazen violation of the rights of non-combatants and because the murder of innocent men, women, and children violates the rights of the same moral code and religious beliefs that serve as the basis of any call for justice for Palestinians. But because Ā the attack was not aimed at securing Palestinian rights but rather at killing every Israeli Hamas soldiers encountered. The nature of the attack Ā confirms Ā thatā€¦ Continue reading

Thoughts on the War Between Hamas and Israel

Iā€™m terribly distressed at the war in the Middle East. Already almost 1000 soldiers and civilians have died on both sides. And the likelihood is that the war will continue for some time, with far more death and destruction. As the war goes on, Israelā€™s military might means that death and destruction will fall heavily of Palestinian soldiers and civilians. Iā€™m also distressed at the one-side reaction of much of the press and also of so many of my Jewish friends, even those who have been critical of Israel in the past. I want to start with three conclusions, which I will defend here and no doubt in further conversation. Hamas is fighting a legitimate war. It has a right to launch war on Israel in the current state of affairs. The idea that it was an ā€œunprovokedā€ attack is absurd. Hamas is not always fighting legitimately. It is clearlyā€¦ Continue reading