Torkel Brekke : Opinion I Am a Friend of Israel. And I Can't Accept Its Indiscriminate Violence Against Palestinians in Gaza
The
political leadership in Israel often uses the concept of "friend" and
"enemy." Other countries also use those concepts from time to time, but
it seems that they are particularly prevalent in Israeli political
language.
For
instance, Prime Minister Netanyahu talks of "true friend" Donald Trump,
"close friend" Narendra Modi of India, while other leaders and nations
may be more difficult to place on his friendship scale.
Israel is a country I have engaged with
professionally and personally for many years, and something I will
continue to do. I consider myself a friend of Israel, but that raises
the question: what does that mean?
Since the end of March thousands of Palestinians in Gaza have taken part in demonstrations along the border with Israel. The Israeli military response has resulted in many deaths and many more serious injuries among the protesters. The protests are continuing.
Israel claims the protests have acted as a smoke screen for Hamas
and its terrorist incursions. They point to the background of persons
who have been killed saying that many of the protestors were Hamas operatives and had engaged in violence previously. Israeli
Much of my own research and teaching as a
professor has been in the ethics of war in the world religions - and I
read and hear the Israeli justifications with dismay. They are
unreasonable.
The
Jewish tradition has a long and advanced tradition of moral reasoning
about political life even though Jews have only brief experience – 70
years to be exact - with being in charge of their own state.
This Jewish moral tradition has been carried on
into the life of the IDF, as can be seen, for example, in the writings
of Shlomo Goren (1917-1994), the first head of the Military Rabbinate of
Israel. Like all modern armies, the IDF has a set of rules for when and
how to use lethal force. The guiding principle is known as the doctrine
of "Purity of Arms," or morality in warfare.
Sure,
there has been controversy about this concept and its application in
Israel. And yes, there have been rabbis supporting indiscriminate use of
force, just as there are individual Muslim and Christian leaders
supporting violence against civilians. Are their opinions valid?
Jewish moral philosophy requires caution in the
use of lethal force. On these points, the Jewish tradition shares many
ideas and principles with other great traditions of moral reasoning
about politics and violence, most notably the Christian and Islamic
traditions.
Discrimination
and proportionality are the two most fundamental principles guiding
legal and moral reasoning about the use of military force and they have
been cemented in the modern laws of war, such as the Geneva Conventions.
he principle of discrimination requires soldiers
to make distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate targets. The
crucial distinction between combatants and noncombatants is a case in
point.
We
have all heard the extremist argument saying all Israelis are part of
the military, therefore there are no real civilians in Israel, therefore
attacks against civilians in Israel are OK.
Israel
seems to be using the same argument about Gaza: everything is organized
by Hamas, protesters are Hamas operatives, therefore everybody is a
legitimate target.
The argument is immoral and dangerous when applied to Israelis, and equally so when applied to Palestinians.
It undermines the essential principle of
discrimination. Proportionality can be a fuzzy category, but the
principle is an intuitive one that applies to morality in all spheres of
life – not just the use of violence. The reports we have of the events
at the border indicate that the force used by the IDF has been
disproportionate.
In
my view, the IDF and its military and political leadership are being
unfaithful to their own heritage and principles when lethal force is
used under circumstances where it is highly doubtful that such force is
necessary.
In
fact, the justifications for the actions against protesters in Gaza
seem so hollow that it raises the question of who the arguments are
meant for. I am raising the question out of curiosity, not as rhetoric.
And I think the question brings us back to the categories of friends and enemies of Israel. Obviously, among the
enemies of Israel, no argument coming from the Israeli state will be
taken seriously. And there is no denying that Israel has very real
enemies who reject the state’s right to exist.
At
the other end of the spectrum are the type of friends of Israel who
would accept any kind of behaviour because they see Israel as an
exceptional case, and read its historical struggle against Palestinians
and aganist Arab states as a cosmic battle between forces of good and
evil.
I
know this type of "friend of Israel" from a Scandinavian context,
because of my research on Christian Zionist fundamentalists. Not only do
they tend to see every Arab Muslim as a terrorist, but they attach
their own Christian Messianist dreams to the landscape and the people of
Israel. Netnyahu may see these Christian Zionist fundamentalists as
true friends, but that is a mistake.
So the justifications offered by Israel cannot be
meant for the true enemies of Israel, nor can they be aimed at
fundamentalist "friends." The conclusion seems to be that the arguments
are meant for a global constituency of reasonable people who do not see
Israel and its environment in black and white. People like me.
he problem is that we – the reasonable friends of
Israel – do not buy the explanations on offer. Serious legal and moral
analyses of military action have no patience with the kinds of
justifcations offered by Israel for its actions against protesters in
Gaza.
This
leads us back to the question: what does it mean to be a friend of
Israel? It means that we accept that Israel has a right to defend
itself. That is trivial. All states have that right. However, states
must also defend themselves according to rules.
Being
a friend of Israel could mean that we remind the enemies of Israel that
the country consistently ranks between number 20 and 30 on all the
important democracy rankings: far from perfect, but certainly better than the global average and better even than some European countries.
Being
a friend of Israel could mean that one supports a robust stance against
Iranian policies in Syria and the wider Middle East.
Being a friend of Israel could mean that one criticizes the global BDS campaign.
But
being a friend of Israel can never mean that we see Israel as
fundamentally different from all other states, and it can certainly not
mean that we accept indiscriminate and disproportionate violence against
Palestinians.
If the the Israel's leadership expects that, they have a fundamentally flawed idea of what friendship means.
Torkel Brekke is a Research Professor at the
Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). He is an expert on religion and
politics and his latest book is Faithonomics – Religion and the Free Market (Oxford University Press, 2016)
Torkel Brekke
Haaretz Contributor
Commenti
Posta un commento