With Jimmy Carter's book a best seller and the Iraq War a top political concern, many Americans may have an interest right now in thinking about Israel and Palestine. I'd like to recommend to anyone with that interest picking up a copy of a short and brilliant book by the British philosopher Ted Honderich called "Right and Wrong and Palestine, 9-11, Iraq, 7-7."
"7-7," for Americans who haven't memorized that number, is the date of the terrorist attack in London's subway. Honderich addresses ethical questions raised by the four topics in his title, but does so after laying out a general understanding of the philosophy of ethics. In fact, it is on page 114 of a 247-page book that he finally gets around to a preliminary discussion of the definition of terrorism and on page 131 that he first touches on the four topics named. The preceding pages may, however, be the most valuable portion of his book.
Honderich provides a compelling overview of the place of philosophy in ethical inquiry, of the standards of human rights, just war theory, conservatism and liberalism, and democracy. He gives a powerful defense of consequentialist and non-utilitarian ethics (and explains what that means). And he sets out in the place of utilitarianism or any other past system of ethics something he calls "The Principle of Humanity." Humans, Honderich writes, desire a decent length of life, the means to support a quality of life, freedom and power, relationships with others, respect and self-respect, and the goods of culture. A bad life is one deprived of some or all of these things. The principle of humanity is that the right thing to do is aimed at getting and keeping people out of bad lives.
I've grossly oversimplified and recommend reading Honderich's position in the original. I think it outdoes the ethical positions of the vast majority of philosophy professors. I also think the rest of the book demonstrates the limited usefulness of having done so. That is to say, my reaction to Honderich's book is one that he has pre-interpreted in his conclusion as based on fear and inconsistency: I accept his ethical premises and then reject one of his conclusions. Of course I do so under the belief that I am not lacking courage, and rather that Honderich is lacking sufficient imagination.
I recently published an article praising members of the U.S. military who publicly refuse to serve in Iraq or simply go AWOL from an illegal and immoral war. To ask every member of the military to take that step is to ask them to be heroes, to set aside their particular concerns of family and friendship about which I know nothing, to encourage the taking of risks that I have never taken, and to do so from a position that I have been privileged to avoid. I cannot ask for such heroism or criticize those who lack it. But I can praise it where it exists and encourage it. In fact I am happy to both endorse and incite it (see below).
I find myself in a similar position toward Palestinians. If you follow Honderich's careful reasoning you end up facing one of two options: either accept his conclusion that Palestinian terrorism against Israel is ethically right and good, or defend a proposal that Honderich fails to even imagine, namely that there are other possible ways by which Palestinians might attempt to secure their freedom and end their oppression. To make such a defense is to ask people being terrorized by Israel not to engage in terrorism in return. It is to ask Palestinians, in the particular sense of loving one's enemies, to be Christians, to be Gandhi, to be Martin Luther King Jr. That's a lot to ask of anyone. In fact, tellingly, it is more than Honderich is willing to ask of himself.
After endorsing Palestinian violence, Honderich draws a ludicrous distinction between "endorsing" and "inciting", and explicitly admits that he is doing so in order to avoid the possibility of going to jail for inciting violence. He then lists other things that British and other Western readers of his book can do to oppose Israel's attempts to seize more Palestinian land: demand withdrawal to the territory of Israel in 1948 (territory Honderich argues Israel was right to seize and is right to keep), urge divestment from the company that makes the caterpillar bulldozers used to destroy Palestinians' homes, boycott retail stores and other businesses dealing with Israel, and use civil disobedience and symbolic public acts.
I'm less concerned that Honderich eschews such civil disobedience himself in drawing his absurd distinction between "endorsing" and "inciting" actions he deems right, than I am that he denies the possibility of such civil disobedience to the Palestinians themselves, reserving it only for well-fed Brits. Here's the lead sentence from an article in November 2006 in the Christian Science Monitor:
"In perhaps the most effective act of nonviolent protest in the six-year Palestinian uprising, hundreds of Gazans forced Israel over the weekend to call off airstrikes on the residence of a militant leader by swarming the house as human shields."
Here is civil disobedience by Palestinians in defense of Palestine, and it's effective. That's something suicide bombing appears doomed to fail at: being effective.
So, why do I recommend Honderich's book so strongly if I disagree with his conclusion? Well, I disagree with one of his four sets of conclusions. I think he gets 9-11, 7-7, and Iraq exactly right. I think he draws the connections between his four topics in exactly the right way. And I think he provides one of the most compelling possible rigorous arguments against a vast array of positions on Palestine that are even more wrong than his own. Until you understand the Palestinians as engaged in self-defense, and understand that as a position that is not anti-Semitic, you cannot even get to the debate over whether the tools employed should be violent ones. Honderich is an author who can guide you to this understanding, and to an understanding of ethics that may be useful in other areas as well.
http://www.davidswanson.org
DAVID SWANSON is a co-founder of After Downing Street, a writer and activist, and the Washington Director of Democrats.com. He is a board member of Progressive Democrats of America, and serves on the Executive Council of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, TNG-CWA. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including Press Secretary for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign, Media Coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association, and three years as Communications Coordinator for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Swanson obtained a Master's degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia in 1997.
the book described poses an 'inconvenient truth', that is that people oppressed do whatever they can to get rid of oppression that is if they decide that they are oppressed. During the WWII the Nazis in occupied Western Europe targeted Jews and minorities and that was OK for the majority, which continued to behave in many cases as if nothing had happened. In the East, though, the Nazis targeted for elimination the whole nations, Jews, Gypsies and Slavs alike, they proclaimed those people inferior (and it is not a secret that the Zionists proclaim the Arabs and other Moslems as inferior) and those people in the East resisted violently by anything they have got. It will always be that way. It is ludicrous to even say that Western society does not condone violence- it is soaked with violence. The recen morbid TV spectacle with Saddam Hussein's death proves it beyond any doubt. What is that about 'asking someone to be Christian?' Christians had been and are the most violent people on Earth. Every German soldier had 'God is with us' on his belt. Every US soldier in Iraq has a cross on his/her neck.
Until people are treated as equals they will react by violence. Until people are respected as individuals they will react by violence. Until we here get up from our tucheses and tell our 'good shepherds' to take a hike that violence will come to us more and more. And yes, civil disobedience is a nice thing if for that act you are not beaten to death, tortured or killed. It surely feels good to tell people to love thine neigbor. Try to love your neighbor down the street for a change.
Malcolm X said once,'You speak softly and be nice but if someone lays his hand on you, send him to the hospital.'
Until Israeli people understand that their government is their enemy and that it puts them in the mortal danger, they will face the consequences. That is the truth. Nothing personal.
Come to think of it: if we here do not condone violence why is that Pat Robertson calls to kill Chaves and that is OK? And why was the Brazilian Technician killed by the British Police gone nuts and British govt does not give a damn? And why do not we remember that what Brits did to Irish was real rape of the country and from the rage of that rape the Irish terrorism emerged and eventually- the Irish Republic? Just look in the damn mirror, folks before talking Palestinians.
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Mark Sashine (44 articles, 19 quicklinks, 228 diaries, 3254 comments)
on Sunday, December 31, 2006 at 8:40:55 AM
western societies are drenched in violence, including the war on Iraq, including ordinary murders, including spousal abuse, sexual abuse, Israel's terrorism against Palestinians, muggings, rape, torture in prisons, etc... But I neither condone nor accept it nor declare it inevitable
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David Swanson (711 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 15 comments)
on Sunday, December 31, 2006 at 10:26:59 AM
Panurg, you sweep with a much too wide of a brush. According to you, Nazis are now Christians. Of course I guess all the non-Jews they murdered were ?????
Wow. I have heard it all from you now.
A German cross on a neck doth not make one a Christian, and Panurg, you know that. If you do not, please tell us what is your definition of a Christian according to the New Testament? You just said that Christians are the most violent people in history. So what is your definition of a Christian?
And you are saying the Nazis were Christians?
What do you do say about Dietrich Bonhoeffer and so many other Christians executed by the Nazis such as Cory Ten Boon's whole family who were executed for simply hiding Jews in the family attic? The Boon family were Jews, but they were Christians. I dare you to read her book, The Hiding Place. Of course you say that Martin Luther King was responsible for murdering tens of thousands of people because he, too, was a Christian minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
If you are saying Nazis were Christians, I will not reply directly to you again because of what the Tanakh teaches me:
Proverbs 26:4,
"Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him."
I do not expect you to answer because you never do, you just hide in jargon.
What the Nazis did was contradictory to New Testament teaching in every single New Testament teaching.
Do you not know most of the American demonstrators in Palestine are Quakers? The last time I checked Quakers are Christians. But according to you they cannot be Christians unless they are there to murder Palestinians.
Your logic is amazing.
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pratliff94 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 940 comments)
on Sunday, December 31, 2006 at 5:49:31 PM
As you know, I have a very high respect of real Christianity and you agreed with my summary later. But our great American HLS Menchken said .' The Problem of Christianity is Christians like a Problem of Communism is Communists'. Nazis, memeber of the Nazi party were alao urdent ritualistic Christians as they insisted. Hitler wedded with the priest. Soldiers, from regular privates to tank commaanders and generals were officially Christians and they celebrated Christian Holidays and wore crosses and there were military chaplains for them.
Italians were Christians, and so were Spanish and Croats and Finns and Lithuanians who burned the Jewish orphanes alive in Vilnus and those Ukrainian police people who performed a line-up beating of the Jews in Baby Yar before those people were machine- gunned were never excommunicated. In fact even after the Nuremburg trials Vermacht, the German army was considered a criminal organization but it was never excommunicated. They ALL considered themselves Christians, those servants of the Anti-Christ.
Christianity did not committ those crimes. But people who were regular worshippers did. And that is the truth, sorry.
You liked my logic before when I praised Christianity. Please, I did not mean to insult it here. But the truth is the truth and it did happen.
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Mark Sashine (44 articles, 19 quicklinks, 228 diaries, 3254 comments)
on Sunday, December 31, 2006 at 7:17:30 PM
New Testament Christianity and Historical Christianity
Panurg,
My answer is very simple: There are those who call themselves Christian who are not Christian. Surely you know that the movement within the Nazi Party beginning with Hitler and embodied with Himmler and the SS was to restore to Germany the Norse gods of Odin, Thor and the likes. The secret rituals of Himmler and the SS are well known.
My point again is very simple: New Testament Christianity and Historical Christianity is not even close to being the same. From the Fourth Century on, with the breakdown of the Wall of Separation of Church and State, it was popular to "put on Christianity" as you would a robe just to cover up the terrible things one really was and wanted to do.
I do not know when the first bishop sanctioned the death of a human being or sanctioned the first war. Whoever it was and whenever it was, it led Christianity in a direction totally contradictory to all books in the New Testament.
If one strictly follows the New Testament, he or she is never allowed to murder, kill, execute, main or hurt anyone for any reason at any time. When one follows Koran, one must kill, murder, execute and maim others if he is to obey Koran.
New Testament Christianity allows no reason for war ever, no death penalty ever, no reason to maim anyone ever; in fact, the Tanakh or Old Testament allows war, allows execution, but strictly forbids mutilation such as burning out an eye, cutting off a hand.
The Koran, Hadith, and Sunna commands death for all the typical crimes of most societies as well as homosexuality, lesbianism, bestiality but they condone pedophilia. Mohammed had sex with his niece whom he married when she was nine years old. Sunna says one cannot have sex with a female until her "periods" commence.
Islam commands death for anyone who refuses to convert to Islam living under Islamic Law except Jews and Christians who are forced to pay a poll tax indicating submission of Judaism and Christianity as being inferior to Islam.
Islam commands mutilation of the body such as gouging out of an eye or eyes, cutting off hands, feet and other body parts. The center of Islam is Mecca in Saudi Arabia which one would think would be the purest of Islamic practice. I noticed in the Washington Post a story of a young woman in Saudi Arabia who had given her picture to a friend when she was in High School. Right after being married, she called the friend and wanted her picture returned. He came by to give it to her in his car. When she sat down in the front seat of his car the Religious Police attacked her and the young man. They raped both of them repeatedly. When she sued the police, the court gave two of the police three years and five hundred lashes, and gave one hundred lashes to the other two men who only raped the woman but did not rape the man. The Islamic Court sentenced the woman to seventy-five lashes for being in a car without her husband present.
To me this is barbaric in the worst way. This case of this young woman is so foreign to the tenor and fiber of the New Testament. When a woman was taken in the actual act of adultery, she was brought before Jesus. He told to go and sin no more. No death, no whipping. Just, "Go and sin no more."
Again, I care not what the Roman Catholic Church did for over a thousand years. It is not New Testament Christianity. What the Eastern Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, and Protestants do is shameful and many other things when they go against New Testament teaching. When Muslims do the things Muslims do. It is commanded in Koran, Hadith and Sunna.
To say Christianity has a history of violence is terribly true if you count those who say they are Christian but do not follow the New Testament. It is terrible wrong if you count those who follow the New Testament as their only "rule of faith and practice. There are such people out there who strictly follow the New Tesament.
Phil.
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pratliff94 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 940 comments)
on Tuesday, January 2, 2007 at 10:58:48 PM
Thank you David for this post,
but one can support human rights for Palestinians and still denounce ALL violence.
My soon to be released
"Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl' in Occupied Territory
THIRD INTIFADA/UPRISING
NONVIOLENT: But With Words Sharper Than a Two Edged Sword"
Documents my interviews and experiences with NONVIOLENT creative peace activists such as Jeff Halper, American Israeli, a Nobel Peace Prize Nominee 2006 and Founder and Coordinator of ICAHD/Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, who has consistently stated:
"Israel is a not a democracy but is an Ethnocracy, meaning a country run and controlled by a national group with some democratic elements but set up with Jews in control and structured to keep them in control.
"Israel has set up a matrix of control; a thick web of settlements guaranteed to make the occupation permanent by establishing facts on the ground. Israel denies there is an occupation, so everything is reduced to terrorism. It is our job to insist upon the human rights issue, for occupied people have International Law on their side."
International Law guarantees the rights of the occupied to rise up with violence against their occupiers.
What ISM/Internationl Solidarity Movement, Anarchists Against the Wall, ICAHD and Sabeel all promote is
Creative Nonviolence to resist the occupation and seek justice.
On May 14, 1948 The Declaration of the establishment of Israel stated:
"On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion and conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations."
When the International community demands Israel uphold its very own words, there will be peace in the Mid East.
A HUGE hurdle is the inherently anti-Semitic Christian Zionist religious and political fundamental movement which is the fastest growing cult in USA.
I deal with that in detail in
Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl' in Occupied Territory
and join the chorus in stating that sixty years of oppression of the Palestinian peoples by the imperialistic and almost irrational Israeli government has caused the terrorism that is their only recourse. I still do not condone such actions but the world has allowed this to continue for far too long and thus shares the blame.
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ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2388 comments)
on Sunday, December 31, 2006 at 6:46:36 PM
