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Monday, April 22, 2024

Guest Post: Moral Equivalence Hamas and Israel


A guest post by a reader on Kiwiblog:

There has been much outrage this week over the deaths of aid workers from western countries in Gaza.

I use the word “outrage” deliberately to reflect the moral element of the stance of Arab nations, many western governments and much of the media. The outrage is predicated largely on the assumption the act was deliberate or highly negligent and that therefore it is demonstrably true that Israel is a morally degraded and aggressive state and that ……… moral superiority resides with the Palestinians (the dots indicating that we are usually left to deduce that last point rather than it being explicitly stated).

But as commentators continually wish to remind us, context is everything.

So let’s do a little simplistic analysis around whether or not Israel or Hamas is more morally reprehensible by asking a number of questions:

1. If the acts of barbarism of 7 October were deliberate and those of Israel this last week were also deliberate, is Israel less virtuous than Hamas?

2. If the acts of barbarism of 7 October were deliberate and those of Israel this last week were accidental, is Israel less virtuous than Hamas?

3. If the acts of barbarism of 7 October were accidental and those of Israel this last week were also accidental, is Israel less virtuous than Hamas?

4. If the acts of barbarism of 7 October were accidental and those of Israel this last week were deliberate, is Israel less virtuous than Hamas?

It can be seen that only under option 4 is moral outrage at the actions of Israel when compared to those of Hamas actually justified. And of course Option 4 is off the table because it is clearly not possible for thousands of fighters to stream across a border to rape and kill “by accident” as that particular question would have us accept.

Moreover if as Israel contends the deaths were actually accidental then the moral element of continued outrage as between one side and the other in large part evaporates.

None of this is to detract from the tragedy of those recent deaths or the events as a whole. None of it either is intended to make morally repugnant actions less so. But it does help challenge the way in which the noise of moral outrage is so often deployed in unbalanced ways reflecting subtle or overt biases.

One final note to those who wish to contextualise Israel into moral opprobrium beyond the above snapshot of recent events; in other words those who say Israel got what was coming to it on 7 October for what has happened over many decades. Exactly the same kind of analysis as above is possible with all the major wars and other actions fought over all those years. It’s never been a morally one-sided conflict. Fact is that at worst Israel is morally on the same page as the Palestinians and at best (as I would argue) it’s in a significantly better place. But whichever way one wants to cut it, one-sided versions of Palestinian victimhood and moral superiority as a consequence do not wash.

David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.

4 comments:

Basil Walker said...

The very same analysis could be done over Maori being appropriated Budget funds under a Maori requirement and the same funds being appropriated for All of NZ .

All of NZ would be the better option and the fiscal cliff we face would be gone if Maori funds are stopped being appropriated on an ethical basis.

Anonymous said...

Netanyahu privately shared in 2019.

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” Netanyahu told Likud Party legislators, according to Haaretz, Israel's longest-running newspaper. Doing so would help prevent the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) from ruling Gaza and giving Palestinians a relatively moderate, unified voice at the negotiating table. “This is part of our strategy -- to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”

Israel’s reckless exploitation of Hamas is as old as the group itself. Hamas was registered with the Israeli authorities in 1978. The Israeli government pushed Hamas into its initial prominence, with direct and indirect financial support. Israel "cynically, intentionally funded and propped up" Hamas "so they wouldn't face external pressure to give the Palestinians their freedom.

As a former senior CIA official told UPI’s Richard Sale in 2001, Israel’s initial boosting of Hamas “was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative."

Anonymous said...

Two things can be true at the same time: Hamas and the IDF and the Israeli government are terrorists. It is possible to condemn both. That’s why we are seeing Jews standing in solidarity with protesting against the Palestinians.

The real moral questions this Kiwiblog reader fails to ask is this:

1. Can you be truly innocent if you set up house on expropriated land - land forcibly taken off innocent people that was and is a clear breach of international law?

2. Can you be truly innocent if you not only live on expropriated land, but stand by while your innocent neighbours are harassed, brutalised, tortured, bombed, raped, imprisoned and murdered?

4. Does benefiting from crimes against humanity make you complicit in such crimes?

5. Does a righteous/biblical claim to land justify the murder of your innocent neighbours, including children?

6. Why is one Israeli life worth 20 or more Palestinian lives?

This entire conflict has been a crime against humanity since 1917. The righteous claim of the Israelis to this land does not invalidate that of the Palestinians. They both belong there. It is home to both and it is abhorrent that the basic human rights of the Palestinians have been simply discarded as if they are of no consequence, just so the West could try and win WW1 and later, absolve their guilt over enabling and courting the Nazis in the 1930s. They all enjoyed tea with Hitler. Remember that.

Anonymous said...

You sound sort of indignant / hurt/ outraged that people care about seeing hospitals smashed, ultrasound equipment in a maternity ward vandalized, cables cut, children bombed, healthcare workers and journalists killed (all of this being conducted way beyond defensive needs). Before the Gaza bombing, Israel got a free pass on many atrocities committed against Palestinians - Israel is the eternal victim in their own story. I see Israeli actions and cannot applaud this brutish behaviour anymore than I can applaud Hamas or Iranian behaviour. The IDF has actually been shown to be using snipers to kill children (proof of single bullets causing death)- this is just shameful. Israel attacking the UN., BBC and so on just demonstrates how much Israelis do not espouse Wesertern ideals at all. Israel has armed and entitled the settlers to brutalise people on the West Bank - sickening.

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