The moral dilemma exposed yet again by Israel's war against Hamas

 

We're witnessing preparations in Israel for a massive counterstrike against Hamas after the latter's recent terrorist onslaught.  Tragically, many innocent people are very likely to be caught up in that counterstrike.  Many will probably be injured or killed.  Morally speaking, that's repugnant at the very least, if not actually forbidden, under the moral and ethical code of most (but not all) mainstream religious faiths - but it's going to happen, regardless.  Can it be justified?

This is a conundrum that's been faced many, many times before in human history.  Considerations of what's "right" have far too often been supplanted by what's "necessary", at least in the eyes of those taking the actions concerned.  They've looked for justification for their actions in many ways, and many of them claim to have found it, no matter how spurious it may be.  Some of the earliest examples can be found in the holy books of many religions, where you'll find claims that "God told us to kill the people at this place" or "God gave us this land to be our own, and told us to kill or enslave those already living there".  It's fairly likely that those statements wound up in those "holy books" several generations after the events in question, when justification was needed for actions that were anything but "holy".  That way, those questioning them could be accused of profaning God's revelation (as the tribe or clan or nation concerned saw it), and conveniently silenced instead of the "establishment" having to confront their doubts.

So-called "just war theory" is all about this dilemma.  Is it right/moral/ethical to go to war?  If so, what is the right/moral/ethical way to conduct that war?  What about treatment of the survivors after that war?  It's a vast subject, far too large to treat adequately in a brief blog article like this.  Go read the linked article, and follow the links it provides.  It was applied in various ways at different times, with results that often seem incongruous at best.  For example, at the sack of Béziers in 1209 AD:

Caesarius of Heisterbach relates this story about the massacre:

When they discovered, from the admissions of some of them, that there were Catholics mingled with the heretics they said to [the Papal Legate in command, the Abbot of Citeaux, Arnaud Amalric] "Sir, what shall we do, for we cannot distinguish between the faithful and the heretics." The abbot, like the others, was afraid that many, in fear of death, would pretend to be Catholics, and after their departure, would return to their heresy, and is said to have replied "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius – Kill them all for the Lord knoweth them that are His" (2 Tim. ii. 19) and so countless number in that town were slain.

While there remains doubt that the abbot said these words – also paraphrased as "Kill them all; God will know His own", "Kill them all; God will sort his own", or "Kill them all and let God sort them out" – there is little if any doubt that these words captured the spirit of the assault, and that the Crusaders intended to slaughter the inhabitants. The Crusaders allowed the routiers to rampage and kill without restraint, sparing neither women nor children, but swiftly put a stop to looting.

Kill civilians without restraint, because you can't identify the guilty, but don't loot their belongings?  That's a rather warped application of allegedly Divine moral law, isn't it?

A more modern example may be found concerning the bombing campaign against Germany during World War II.  Bishop George Bell was outspoken in his opposition to the bombing of non-military targets.

In November 1939 he published an article stating that the Church in wartime should not hesitate

to condemn the infliction of reprisals, or the bombing of civilian populations, by the military forces of its own nation. It should set itself against the propaganda of lies and hatred. It should be ready to encourage the resumption of friendly relations with the enemy nation. It should set its face against any war of extermination or enslavement, and any measures directly aimed to destroy the morale of a population.

In 1941 in a letter to The Times, he called the bombing of unarmed women and children "barbarian" which would destroy the just cause for the war, thus openly criticising the Prime Minister's advocacy of such a bombing strategy. On 14 February 1943 – two years ahead of the Dresden raids – he urged the House of Lords to resist the War Cabinet's decision for area bombing, stating that it called into question all the humane and democratic values for which Britain had gone to war. In 1944, during debate, he again demanded the House of Lords to stop British area bombing of German cities such as Hamburg and Berlin as a disproportionate and illegal "policy of annihilation" and a crime against humanity, asking:

How can the War Cabinet fail to see that this progressive devastation of cities is threatening the roots of civilization?

He did not have the support of senior bishops. The Archbishop of York replied to him in the House of Lords: "it is a lesser evil to bomb the war-loving Germans than to sacrifice the lives of our fellow countrymen..., or to delay the delivery of many now held in slavery".

In strictly Christian terms, Bishop Bell was, of course, entirely correct.  Tragically, by then the events of the war had overtaken morality.  Britain got around the moral dilemma of bombing "innocent civilians" by an official policy of denying that there was any such thing.  Civilians worked in armaments factories or supported war production in other ways;  and if civilian housing was destroyed, it would require diversion of a large part of the German economy to repairing or replacing it, thereby affecting war production and weakening Germany's armed forces.  Therefore, bombing the civilian population was, in fact, an attack on Germany's ability to make war.  (The same rationale was applied to killing prisoners of war and slave laborers during attacks on German infrastructure.  Tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of them were killed during such air raids, but their loss was regarded as "collateral damage" - unintended, yet unavoidable, and justified under the circumstances.)

My parents lived through the Second World War, my mother enduring bombing as a civilian on the ground, my father as an officer in the Royal Air Force.  I was able to ask both of them for their opinion of Bishop Bell's position.  My mother put it something like this:  "The Golden Rule says to do unto others as you want them to do unto you.  The Nazis 'did unto us' when they bombed Warsaw, and Rotterdam, and Coventry, and London;  so I always reckoned that the Golden Rule gave us the right to 'do unto them' what they first 'did unto us'."  My father's response was somewhat more pungent and profane, but basically agreed with hers.  "They started it:  we finished it."

I imagine that a similar justification - classifying "innocent civilians" as no longer innocent, but instead as part of the problem - is driving Israel's preparations to deal with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.  From that perspective, if the local population supports Hamas, and - willingly or not - provides cover for its operations, then that local population is itself part of the terrorist problem, and must be dealt with as severely as the terrorists in order to eliminate the threat.  I don't think Bishop Bell would agree, and from a Christian moral perspective I don't either, but nobody's asking us for our opinions.

Tragically, in applying that perspective, Israel will be storing up yet more hatred against itself that future generations will express in one way or another.  When Israeli bombs or bullets kill Palestinian children, their siblings will remember, and hate those who did that.  They won't ask whether it was justified, or necessary, or moral . . . they'll just hate, and want revenge against those who did it.  It's been that way throughout recorded history.  I wrote about it after the Bataclan Massacre in 2015.  What I said then remains true today, and will remain true for all time, whether or not you agree with the ethical and moral issues involved.  That's just the way it is.  (The comments from readers after that post are also worth viewing, particularly those that disagree with me.  They have the right to their opinions, too.)

What it boils down to is what's possible rather than what's theoretically ideal.  It's absolutely not possible to deal with Hamas terrorists in isolation from the population in which they live and from which they derive their support.  Think of Mao Zedong's famous dictum that "The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea".  In so many words, to get at the fish, you have to either remove it from the water, or remove the water from around the fish.  The same applies to dealing with the guerrilla/terrorist:  if he can't be distinguished from the people, you must remove all the people that are sheltering and supporting him.  We have to acknowledge that there are undoubtedly many individuals and families within that population who do not support violence and terrorism, and have never done anything to support it;  but their presence nevertheless offers protection to the terrorist, and provides him with cover and concealment.  To deal with him, it's unavoidable that we have to deal with "the sea in which he swims" - the people around him, innocent or not.

Tragically (and I mean that very sincerely), that means Israel has literally no choice but to deal with the entire population of Gaza as if they were all guilty.  I hope and pray it exercises as much restraint as possible;  but when you look at what the terrorists in Gaza did to Israel, the latter has no moral choice at all but to protect its citizens against further such atrocities.  That means the people of Gaza - all of them - are about to find themselves between a rock and a hard place, with no alternative but to be treated as guilty unless and until proven innocent.  Many of them will probably die before such a determination can be made, because in the middle of a war, you can't stop and put yourself at risk to find out.

That doesn't make it right.  That doesn't make it moral.  It does, however, make it inevitable.

Peter