Israel

A slight tangent, an anecdote I wanted to share. It is in no way meant to paint with a broad brush, but something that really struck me as unsettling and shocking.

If you don’t desire to read this, just don’t. Scroll on past. It’s just something interesting I wanted to get out. It’s not meant to be anything other than a subjective experience.



This weekend while hiking a few of our beautiful 11,000 foot peaks, I had a civil but heated discussion with a friend of mine the other day on this topic (he has brought up his anger with Palestinian protestors).

I had asked what sets someone who engages in terror as a terrorist. Is it size of the group? I asked “if a Hamas leader goes into Israel and slaughters Israeli people peacefully trying to enjoy their lives - are they a terrorist “

Yes, obviously was the feedback.

I then asked if an IDF leader launches a rocket at a home where a poor family in Palestine lives, blowing that family and children to bits - are they a terrorist.

Uneasy scoffing. “They’re trying to target Hamas. War is not always pretty”.

He said there was “no evidence” that Israel was purposefully targeting civilians. I asked him if he meant in ANY case to which he responded “no, of course there are bad apples”.

I then asked what evidence it would take to convince him that Israel was doing this as covert policy while overtly claiming to “simply be targeting Hamas” and “something something human shields”. He didn’t seem to want to get into this, and just responded with “war is hard” and made mention of what “we had to do to Japan” and again - sometimes war isn’t easy.

He even confronted me a bit and asked “Do you not think we shouldn’t have done what we did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki?? Look at what they did to US in Pearl Harbor”. I acknowledged that it was not an easy choice. However, I insisted that knowingly slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent people is a criminal act.

He scoffed.

I asked him if he’d feel the same about his “war is war” feelings if it were Hamas wiping out Israel and killing Jewish people at will. He came back with a question of “well which one do you want existing - a democracy or theocracy?” - seeming to invoke a very binary choice between the existence of human beings - as if both couldn’t because of decisions their radical leaders had made. Not to mention the clearly morally inept exercise of pitting the deserved existence of people based on their culture. The idea that certain people aren’t deserving of the same right to life — because of stories of faith healers and gods thar some people thousands of years ago had conjured up. And because those people are simply part of a (his words) “barbaric religion”.

I pressed him “Why should any child be convicted and deserving of death based on a group they belong to, of the choices of their culture, of even their relatives “.

“Look man”, he said “I’m just a pleib. We all really know nothing. I’m uninformed and so is everyone else “.

I asked “Well do you think it’s ever right to kill 40,000 innocent people? To mutilate children ?”

A bit of silence.

The conversation stopped when he mentioned “I think we should just wipe Gaza clean, level it.. that’s the only way you get rid of Hamas”.

I stood there, dumbfounded, looking at a guy who claims to be against the worst parts of religion (very big into Sam Harris’ ideas), of wanna be dictators, someone I thought was more of an enlightened individual than most. Ivy League grad. All that. Maybe someone I had assumed didn’t have ideas like this.

And to be clear, I’m fine if someone doesn’t agree with my view of how a situation should be handled. What I’m not fine with is clear moral inconsistency. The idea that certain people should have a right to live in peace and free of terror or hardship. Others? Well “life, war etc is hard” and “who are we to know how hard it is - have you ever been in war?”

There has to be some consistency. It reminds me a lot of people cherry picking verses in religion to fit what is culturally acceptable at the time, then “context away” or play the argument from authority when challenged on that consistency. Maybe I just found it keenly ironic. For example:


Appeal to Complexity fallacy:
Gaza situation:
“You don’t know the history of this conflict, there’s so much we don’t understand”
Religion:
“Well yes god killed innocent people. But it was a different time back then. Things were complicated. I don’t think you have the right to judge a different time period like that “.

Argument from Authority fallacy:
Gaza situation:
“In war things are hard. You have to hill people. What’s your plan? Are you in the military? Did you serve? You don’t understand unless you did.”
Religion:
“Are you God? We are not. We are but flawed man, sinners. We can’t judge God because God is above us, we can’t know his ways “

Back to our conversation - I asked him:

“So to be clear, do you mean in the process, potentially killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people to root out Hamas? What about the IDF executing civilians in front of their families and burying them with dumpsters? Of internment camps of physical abuse - amputations, burning, and humiliation? Of starvation? “

A bit more silence. Some anger in his body language. Shaking his head.

He responded:
“War is hard, how would YOU get rid of Hamas?” He dejectedly retorted, seemingly offering only a binary option in this conflict he’d claimed to know nothing about earlier.

“I don’t know”. I said “But they need to be gotten rid of in some way without killing innocents. The evidence shows that the IDF and their leaders are killing innocents frequently. It shows that the IDF plan is to occupy Gaza. Their religion tells them that these people are (paraphrasing) infidels.

“Remember Amalek” - Netanyahu

I pressed him back - “How would you get rid of the IDF members who have killed innocent Palestinians for sport?”. I mentioned former Israeli leaders from the Nakba laughing about the fact that they had killed children at will and raped them. I questioned why he so deeply believed this was something that only one side did .

He shook his head again. “Hamas wasn’t prepared, were they?” He said with a sarcastic jeer.

Hamas, Hamas.
Human shields.
War is hard.
Etc