This is the level counter-level game theory argument; i.e. the best way for a president to protect his children from kidnapping for ransom is to make clear in advance that he will not yield even if they are taken (and somehow force everyone to believe him, which is the murkier part).
Anyway, I imagine responses to the piece are going to be pretty tempestuous. It makes some pro-Israel assertions that aren't popular right now and uses a train of logical thought that a Facebook friend of mine described as Goebbels-ian (hopefully with full awareness of the irony, but you never know). Regardless, I welcome your thoughts.
EDIT: I should mention that The New Republic has been unashamedly pro-Israel forever. Otherwise they wouldn't have come close to printing this.
Everything about this feels way over-simplified. I would quote, but literally the whole article is the example I would use. It's one thing to ask the questions the author is asking about Just War. Fine fine fine. It's another to paint Israel's current wartime tactics as the only wartime tactics, and thus inherently just if you've already accepted the morality of the overall campaign. And therein lies the problem- author isn't just laying out a justification for the invasion, he's laying out a justification for the way Israel is choosing to conduct the invasion as well. The first point is at least arguable from a philosophical, political and historical standpoint (for instance, your point w/ blackfox026 re. the continued existence of Israel). The second...? Israel has more than enough support, funding, training, experience and outfitting for a ground war that would by design end up engaging way more of the militarized anti-Israel contingent than, you know, kids in a UN schoolyard, and still give them a shot at dismantling the infrastructure of violence. The fact that these instances are still cropping up is appalling, and stand completely isolate from the broader question of Just War.
They call you personally! Can you imagine how that phone call goes down? "Hey, uh, we're planning on bombing your neighborhood later on today, and there's a chance, you know, I don't want to give probabilities? But definitely a chance that your home won't be standing when we're done. With the bombing and such. So you're going to want to leave your last shreds of wealth and security behind for like a day or so. Maybe more." If that isn't courtesy, I don't know what is. On the other hand, a ground war against unmarked combatants in a territory what, a third the size of Los Angeles? Populated by 1.5m... that's gonna be a tough sell (pretty sure you can map the logistics of this way better than I could). I see how they'd want to just stick to missiles for as long as possible. But then don't paint it as the Moral Option. That's a slap in the face. It's the Easy Option.True, Israel only targets combatants and takes unprecedented efforts at avoiding civilians (making personalized phone calls to civilians before striking areas near them)
It's like this: Imagine New Jersey was a nuclear power. Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, Connecticut, North Carolina and, bizarrely, Texas have invaded ad attempted to annihilate it in the past but due to complex treaty arrangements and more than a little chutzpah, New Jersey stands. Unfortunately, the people of Newark used to be the people of New Jersey and they resent being confined to a walled slum. Every now and then tensions boil up and the Newarkians launch rockets into the surrounding boroughs. New Jersey, maintaining a military capable of fending off an invasion from any three neighboring states, has ample ability to level Newark in a day. However, this would be an international human rights catastrophe and unabashed genocide. Texas knows this so it foments "Texas-style" unrest at all the honkeytonks in Newark. There's no possible way it's not going to be extremely fucked up. Even the least bad option is a human rights disaster.
Oh, and the reason New Jersey is able to maintain its military is because California is pouring billions of Silicon Valley moolah into Jersey. California ostensibly hates Texas and Newark but, coincidentally, aid laws are purchased by California defense contractors, from whom Jersey purchases weapons.
Yes, although he tries: And on this key issue, Israel may seem to fail the test. True, Israel only targets combatants and takes unprecedented efforts at avoiding civilians (making personalized phone calls to civilians before striking areas near them), but can we confidently say that the anticipated harm to innocents is justified by Israel’s expected military gains? The degrading of Hamas’ rocket capabilities, and most of all the destruction of its terrifying network of offensive tunnels (fortified by the limited cement that Israel permitted into Gaza for humanitarian purposes) are valuable military goals. But as the Palestinian death count rises above 500—many of these civilian—I find myself bewildered: Are these tunnels really worth the lives of all those children? It would seem to come down to this. There are other ways for Israel to go about this invasion (if you take for the sake of argument that they need to invade in the first place) but evidently someone in their Defense Ministry has decided that those options lead to a less acceptable kill to death ratio. I wouldn't be surprised if it's that plain and crass. They can commit more ground troops to more dangerous situations and probably harm many less civilians by decreasing the bombing (although as kb notes it's fucking hard to tell who is who regardless), but they'll lose a few more soldiers. And since neither side particularly thinks the other is human, no Israeli general is going to choose 100 of his own dead and half as many civilian Palestinians instead of the numbers we have now. Thanks for commenting, I hope I understood the gist of your critique.And therein lies the problem- author isn't just laying out a justification for the invasion, he's laying out a justification for the way Israel is choosing to conduct the invasion as well. The first point is at least arguable from a philosophical, political and historical standpoint (for instance, your point w/ blackfox026 re. the continued existence of Israel). The second...?
But there is also a second, larger question: How should wars be fought? And here, Israel runs into a problem. Because in the conduct of war, we insist not only that combatants be the sole targets of military action or that steps be taken to reduce civilian deaths. But we also insist on proportionality; that the military value of a target must outweigh the anticipated harm to civilians.
Yeah, you got where I was going with it. Notice that he never resolves the question you quoted above, though. And without that, doesn't it throw the whole article into contention? I'm with you and KB 100% on the logistical aspects/the calculus behind it. The thing that ends up sticking in my craw is the clumsy attempt at spinning it into a moral decision rather than tactical. In this case, the moral choice is not the prudent choice from the perspective of self-preservation. If we're going to talk morals, I'd argue that a ground commitment is a necessary prerequisite to any claim to moral authority. Not only does it pose a more honest attempt at curbing civilian death, but it forces each side to at least meet each other as humans and then kill each other as such; it also forces Israelis to recognize a human cost to any protracted hostility. After all, hostility shouldn't be cheap- that's a sure fire way to eliminate morality from the equation. Where do you fall on all this, anyhow? Not fightin' whards, just curious.
I did notice, and yes it does. If it's some sort of sliding scale, though... as in, by even allowing the second point onto the debate floor, we admit that if Israel could figure out the right way to wage this mess, it could be "moral" -- under Schwartz's definition. I have some thoughts. I don't take a side, because as kleinbl00 so eloquently pointed out in the most badged post in the history of hubski, there's no good side to take. Even if I agree with the New Republic and think the invasion is moral ... sometimes moral things suck. Today in Gaza every fucking thing sucks. Have you read this? I wish I knew what his inspiration was, because if we could pull that off in Jerusalem it would shove gum in the dam. One -- if you don't know what the Sykes-Picot Agreement is, you are not allowed to have an opinion on this conflict and your blather is leaving my facebook feed forever. I know dozens of Muslims and Jews (and hell everyone else too), and if I were of the inclination, I could convince any of them that they were in the wrong about this war. That is what comes from having an opinion without having knowledge, which is dangerous. Two -- another important conclusion I have drawn is that I was wrong a few years ago when I thought twitter and instant-media were going to have a net positive contribution to the conflicts in the Middle East. When the Syrian Civil War (ha!) began, and when various despots started trying to limit internet access etc, it seemed to me that the "anyone is a reporter" mentality was going to save us from ourselves. Wrong, at least at the moment. Three, and more tangibly related to Gaza -- I get the vibe when reading about the invasion that everyone would feel a lot more "okay" about this conflict if only more Jews were dying. If both sides had lost about the same number of troops. There is a sense that this war is maybe worse than other wars because it is not fair. And when that is a serious thought that is occurring in the liberal subconscious or wherever ... something is seriously broken. Somewhere.Yeah, you got where I was going with it. Notice that he never resolves the question you quoted above, though. And without that, doesn't it throw the whole article into contention? I'm with you and KB 100% on the logistical aspects/the calculus behind it. The thing that ends up sticking in my craw is the clumsy attempt at spinning it into a moral decision rather than tactical.
Where do you fall on all this, anyhow? Not fightin' whards, just curious.
Ooh, have read that book. It's good. Re. your third point- not sure it's that people want to see more Jews dying (although points for finding the most darkly hilarious way to turn the current liberal stance on the matter on its head) so much as it is that it's just really hard to ignore the power imbalance at this point, and the way it's been leveraged against the wrong populations. At which point, fairness becomes a reasonable wartime concern. Geneva Conventions and all that. Anyhow, think everybody would just be happier with less civilian deaths at this point. So maybe a more balanced Israeli-to-Palestinian militant ratio without necessarily upping the Israeli toll? Wow, no, comes off as crass no matter how you paint it. Besides all that though, my opinion on moral aggression stands for the time being- equal threat to both sides underscores the cost of conflict. That's all I got, I'm tired. Think your approach to this is nuanced, and that's the highest compliment I can think to pay somebody in regards to the subject at hand.
I read Perdido Street Station and The Scar when I was younger- they're both fit for YA, I'm not sure how they'd hold up now. Definitely not as subtle as TC&TC. If you're looking for something else by Mieville that matches the tone of that one, you might be disappointed...
Don't get me wrong, they might be worth checking out if you're just into SF and looking for some light reading. It's been a while, I might go back to them if I want to turn my brain off for a while. Could be because I read it roughly at the same time as TC&TC, but I seem to remember Neil Stephenson's Anathem as being somewhere along the same lines of brain-fuckery. You have to get over his writing sometimes, which draws a lot of attention to its own cleverness, but it was pretty enjoyable and marginally thinky.
I find it interesting that the author uses the same rationale I'd expect to hear from a suicide bomber. This article raises a few questions. What is more important, people or principles? Is it really worth 'setting an example' here? Is Israel's reaction to Hamas really going to change the way the world responds to terrorists and urban guerrilla fighters? I have the sneaking suspicion that all of this justification comes after the fact--that the author's position is a foregone conclusion, and any perspective he has of the conflict is going to be viewed through that lens. I don't think he'd accept the argument that principles should be valued more than innocent lives if it came from the other side. I could be way oversimplifying this, though.And it is that greater cause that decisively outweighs the terrible toll in innocent life.
No, I don't think so -- or at least to simplify is the central goal of logical argument. Gaza is a complicated mess; asking simple questions about it and agreeing on the answers is the only way to build a coherent idea of what is happening and should happen there. Unfortunately even straight answers to the basics are hard to come by at the moment. This is one I can take a stab at, however. I think the author's reasoning flips this question around: if Israel had been as dovish all along as the world wants them to be now, would there still be an Israel. Maybe. It wouldn't resemble what there is today, for better or worse. To put it another way -- Israel's reaction may not change a thing for the world's fanatical terrorist groups, but its nonreaction would. Or at least, the hawks think and have thought it's too big of a risk to take.
Possibly. Regarding the periodical for which he writes, this is certainly true. One central irony is that both Hamas and the Israeli coalition government would probably give the same answer. A nod to the Onion for providing the most incisive commentary of the entire affair?I could be way oversimplifying this, though.
Is Israel's reaction to Hamas really going to change the way the world responds to terrorists and urban guerrilla fighters?
I have the sneaking suspicion that all of this justification comes after the fact--that the author's position is a foregone conclusion, and any perspective he has of the conflict is going to be viewed through that lens. I don't think he'd accept the argument that principles should be valued more than innocent lives if it came from the other side.
What is more important, people or principles?
What would this look like in a Western nation? What if terrorists gained a foothold in say, the American South? With as little as 1% of the population supporting them, they could probably find shelter and weapon supply. In this hypothetical scenario, how would we feel if the US government used the same tactics Israel is using now? Level a city block, to take out one rebel leader. Drone strike a shopping mall after a couple of suspected terrorists were sighted eating cheeseburgers. Launch missiles into an apartment building where a terrorist is having tea with a friend. Would we be okay with these things? Would we use the same rationale to defend them? Would Israel use the same rationale, if they were killing Israelis instead of Palestinians in the crossfire? Would they kill Israeli civilians to achieve the same goal?
Practically, of course not. Within the New Republic's convoluted moral thing, where does your hypothetical leave us? There's an added layer -- governments have an obligation to their people. The Israeli army and coalition leaders have a duty to their citizens, which they clearly don't think extends to Palestinians. That's nothing isolated to Israel, either. People after people have followed a similar moral trail throughout history. What's interesting is that Tories protecting British spies (and soldiers) during the American Revolution offers a similar case study. The scope was far too small to give an answer to your question, but it's still worth thinking about.Would Israel use the same rationale, if they were killing Israelis instead of Palestinians in the crossfire? Would they kill Israeli civilians to achieve the same goal?
What if terrorists gained a foothold in say, the American South? With as little as 1% of the population supporting them, they could probably find shelter and weapon supply.
If the answer is "no" to my questions, I think the New Republic's moral thing falls apart; unless one believes Israeli humans are more valuable than Palestinian humans. The New Republic's argument is that it's necessary: Israel can't do anything else, and ought implies can. My claim is that if they can do else with their own citizens, they can do else with others. Right. Perhaps all governments must necessarily be immoral. Ethicists have made similar arguments. I think there's a balance. I don't condemn the Israeli government for negotiating a trade agreement to the detriment of other humans. I do condemn them for slaughtering other humans. There's a line somewhere. Something astronaut Edgar D. Mitchell said comes to mind,Practically, of course not. Within the New Republic's convoluted moral thing, where does your hypothetical leave us?
governments have an obligation to their people
You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.'
This is such a complicated idea, and I find myself on both sides and none whenever I think about it. The Us and Them side is biological and fundamental, but the global consciousness side is what I believe the hope of our species to be. I wish all humans could treat each other the same way and collaborate and so on but we aren't wired that way, probably never will be; and there's an argument to be made that even if we were, the necessary homogenization would be worse than the benefits. So do I, and so, I think, does the author of this piece. He's trying to make a sort of utilitarian argument -- what does he say in the last paragraph about shifting probabilities -- which implies a line. The line is different for everyone. Right now it's Netanyahu's line that matters -- or is it Ya'alon's? Or the Israeli voting mass's? The Jerusalem Post did a poll; looks like your average Jew wants to stick it to Gaza. No one is surprised, but you're damn straight Netanyahu had to incorporate that into his decisions on Sunday.I do condemn them for slaughtering other humans. There's a line somewhere.