On The Complexities and Moral Issues of Middle-Eastern Conflicts

By Scott Lazarowitz (from January 11, 2010 post)
Copyright.2010.Reasonandjest.com

Glenn Greewald wrote this column on Israel and the motivations behind terrorists’ violence, and the jihadists’ anger at Israel’s killing of innocent civilians in Gaza, and the US government’s possible partial responsibility for terrorists’ violence directed against us.

Greenwald:

…It’s truly astounding to watch us — for a full decade — send fighter jets and drones and bombs and invading forces and teams of torturers and kidnappers to that part of the world, or, as we were doing long before 9/11, to overthrow their governments, prop up their dictators, occupy what they perceive as holy land with our foreign troops, and arm Israel to the teeth, and then act surprised and confused when some of them want to attack us. In general, the U.S. only attacks countries with no capabilities to attack us back in the “homeland” — at least not with conventional forces. As a result, we have come to believe that any forms of violence we perpetrate on them over there is justifiable and natural, but the Laws of Humanity are instantly breached in the most egregious ways whenever they bring violence back to the U.S., aimed at Americans…

There are several issues that I’ve wanted to address, and I know I’m going to annoy all sides on these issues. In the case of the US government’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, innocent non-combatant civilians have been killed. That is an atrocious immorality. I agree with the late economist Murray Rothbard, who has written that it is immoral to kill non-combatant human beings during a conflict, whether a just or unjust conflict, between states or between groups of people. Some people believe that, in a “war,” certain exceptions should be made. I do not buy that “unfortunate casualties of war” crap. It’s immoral to kill innocent human beings, period. The US government has been responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocents, and that’s immoral. It can’t be rationalized. As Rothbard noted,

…It is legitimate to use violence against criminals in defense of one’s rights of person and property; it is completely impermissible to violate the rights of other innocent people. War, then, is only proper when the exercise of violence is rigorously limited to the individual criminals. We may judge for ourselves how many wars or conflicts in history have met this criterion…

Some may bring up President Truman’s ordering of the atomic bombings of Japan in 1945, which killed over 200,000 people, mostly civilians. Some may argue that such actions were “strategically necessary,” to prevent further deaths of US and other allied troops on the ground.

Civilian deaths? Strategically necessary?

Hmmmm. If you have a family there in Nagasaki, Japan in 1945 who are just minding their own business, and not even necessarily supportive of their government’s actions (as are many US citizens not supportive of our government’s actions in Iraq, etc.), I can’t see how killing them (for any reason other than those specific civilians’ being a threat to your life) is morally acceptable. Likewise, the family in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc, innocent women and children there getting killed now, that’s morally acceptable?

In dismissing the civilian deaths in Iraq or Afghanistan as “casualties of war,” one would have to dismiss possible deaths in any US territorial location caused by possible Al-Qaeda (with whom we are at “war,” supposedly) attacks as “casualties of war,” or, if not, one is just advocating a double standard.

And before I continue regarding Israel, Gaza and Hamas, I want to make this note about the separation between the American people and the US government. This “the government is we the people” stuff is a lot of malarkey. The US government is politicians, bureaucrats, war mongers and gangsters. This is where I had a big criticism of Ron Paul during his 2008 presidential campaign. Paul had said several times that the terrorists hate the US because “we’re over there.” Well, I’m not over there. It’s the US government that has been invading and occupying and destroying the Middle-East for many years, NOT the American people!

Now, on to Israel and Gaza. Here is the situation during the last 3-4 years as I understand it. If someone wants to correct me, please do. Hamas was elected to rule the Gaza region in ’06. Then in mid-’07, as a proxy for Iran, Hamas began firing rockets, unprovoked, into Israel, and continued to do so. Between then and late ’08 there had been some back and forth between the two forces, and several cease fires. There were conflicting reports as to which side initially broke the June-December 2008 cease fire, when Israel vigorously escalated the conflict. Despite the ghastly little cowards of Hamas deliberately using schools and children and other non-combatants as “human shields,” the Israeli military claimed that it tried to avoid killing innocent civilians in their retaliation against Hamas’s initiation and continuation of violence. I think some people have been under the mistaken impression that Israel is the one who initiated the violence against Gaza. No, it really was initiated by Hamas in 2007, following its electoral mandate to rule the area. My question is, what do you expect the people of Jerusalem to do in this situation, when Hamas fires rockets unprovoked into Jerusalem? Should they just sit there and take it? I believe very strongly in the right of self-defense.

There is another issue here, that of US government funding of Israel, both in financial aid and military aid. George Washington warned Americans against any “foreign entanglements” between the US government and other governments (although he encouraged the American people to trade freely among themselves and with people in other countries—but not governments). There should not be any US governmental aid to any foreign governments or groups. (There really shouldn’t be a “public treasury” either, but that’s a topic for another post.) That’s not why we have a US government, especially when such an institution is funded through wealth expropriated by force (i.e. theft) from its citizens. That’s immoral. Muslims in America should not be forced to participate in the funding of Israel, Jews in America should not be forced to participate in the funding of Jordan and Pakistan, etc, just as people who are pro-life shouldn’t be forced to fund abortions, and people who oppose these unconstitutional and expansionist US wars and occupations abroad shouldn’t be forced to participate in their funding.

Why any Jews would willingly live in a region surrounded by millions of people who have a much more negative view of Jews and Israel than do those in Western nations is beyond me. I’m Jewish and I wouldn’t live in Israel or anywhere in the Middle-East, or in Europe for that matter. Pamela Geller has this update at American Thinker on the ongoing Islamization of Europe.

And Stephan Kinsella wrote this article in 2001 suggesting that the Jews of Israel relocate to government-owned lands in America:

…Yes, I’m serious. Consider: the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) currently administers 264 million acres of public lands – about one-eighth of the land in the United States. Most of these lands are located in the western United States, including Alaska, and include extensive grasslands, forests, high mountains, arctic tundra, and deserts. The federal government has no business owning millions of acres of public lands. These resources should be put into private hands, not hoarded by government.

Combine these insights – we should not be involved in the Middle-East; the feds have no business owning public forests – with the political reality that we cannot simply abandon Israel and allow it to be overwhelmed by hostile Arabs, and an obvious solution presents itself: offer to Israeli Jews a new homeland, carved out of BLM-administered public lands…

I take cabs. Sometimes I feel…uncomfortable…when I see a Middle-Eastern-like name on the cab driver’s ID, when they do have their ID in public view. I wouldn’t tell any of them that I’m Jewish, not that such a conversation is likely to occur. And not that people in America who are of Muslim Middle-Eastern background are anti-Semitic, but after all the surveys I’ve read in these last 8 or 9 years, it may be more likely, especially given the conflicts between Israel and the Gaza region these last several years, and the Bush War on Islam.