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 Monday, August 04, 2003

Some interesting distinctions

Okay, right off the bat I apologize because I was merrily bloghopping along and right-clicking links for later viewing when I found something I want to share and now have no idea who to credit for steering me this way.

Anyway,  I ended up here, an article in IMPRINTS: A JOURNAL OF ANALYTICAL SOCIALISM which is an interview with Michael Walzer, UPS Foundation Professor in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Yeah, I hadn't heard of him before either.  Anyway, he is asked:

In Just and Unjust Wars you take a strong stand on the issues of war crimes, guerrilla war, reprisals, and terrorism in general. How do you view the current crisis in Israel in the light of what you wrote in that book? How do your insights regarding the history of anti-semitism contribute to an analysis of how radical politics is understood within both sets of national identities?

Walzer responds:

This is a hard question for me to answer with any sort of brevity, given my long involvement in Zionist politics in the Jewish diaspora and in Israeli politics too, as a frequent visitor. I recently published an article in Dissent, 'The Four Wars of Israel/Palestine,' explaining my position, which I will try to summarise here. These are the four wars: there is a Palestinian war to destroy and replace the state of Israel, which is unjust, and a Palestinian war to establish a state alongside Israel, which is just. And there is an Israeli war to defend the state, which is just, and an Israeli war for Greater Israel, which is unjust. When making particular judgements, you always have to ask who is fighting which war, and what means they have adopted, and whether those means are legitimate for these ends, or for any ends. Most of the people attacking Israel or defending it, and most of the people attacking the Palestinians or defending them, don't even begin to do the necessary work. I can't do that work here, but I will suggest some of the judgements that I think it leads to – most crucially these two: Palestinian terrorism, that is, the deliberate targeting of civilians, should always and everywhere be condemned. And Israeli settlement policy in the occupied territories has been wrong from the very beginning of the occupation. But this second wrongness doesn't mitigate the first: Palestinian attacks on the occupying army or on paramilitary settler groups are justified – at least they are justified whenever there is an Israeli government unwilling to negotiate; but attacks on settler families or schools are terrorist acts, murder exactly. (I want to insist that this is not special pleading: I am old enough to have made similar arguments at the time of the Algerian war: FLN attacks on French soldiers or on OAS militants were justified; putting a bomb in a café or a supermarket in the French section of Algiers was murder.) And similarly, Israeli attacks on Hamas or Islamic Jihad fighters are justified; dropping a bomb on an apartment house in Gaza was a criminal act.

The distinctions Walzer makes here are useful to keep in mind when attempting to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  The four different "wars" he describes each work toward different agendas and are fought by different "armies."  I think this offers a useful analytical framework with which to break down assumptions and rhetoric when one is attempting to discuss this issue.

Walzer continues:

Since I have often been a critic of Israeli governments, I am reluctant to call such criticism anti-Semitic. But it does seem to me that there is an oddly disproportionate hostility toward Israel on the European left, which requires some explanation. I know, for example, people my own age who indignantly refuse even to consider a visit to Israel, but who had no trouble visiting France at the height of the Algerian war and have no trouble visiting China today despite its brutal policy in Tibet (which includes a far more massive settlement program than Israel has attempted in the West Bank). Indeed, much of the criticism directed at Israel has more to do with the existence of the state than with the policies of any of its governments – which was, again, never the case with France or with Germany after World War Two or with China today. Something is seriously wrong here.

Folks who've read my blog for awhile might know that I myself am suspicious of the particular vehemence and passion of anti-Israeli rhetoric in Europe.  Whether or not such criticism is justified, it always smells just a little off to me.

Anyway, the interview touches on many, many other issues that have nothing to do with Israel.  I am intrigued by Walzer and will keep my eye open for more.

 


10:54:57 PM    






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Last Update: 8/13/2003; 7:30:38 PM

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