Three years ago today, Gazan civilians – not themselves Hamas, just Palestinians taking advantage of an opportunity – abducted Shiri Bibas and her children Ariel aged four and Kfir aged nine months. They were held in captivity for an unknown amount of time before being murdered. The children were probably strangled. Hamas, wishing to be part of the Bibas story, eventually held an elaborate public ceremony, complete with jubilant children dancing on stage, before releasing coffins labelled as containing their dead bodies, along with a coffin containing the body of another murdered hostage, 84 year old Oded Lifshitz. The ceremony was arranged with much forethought. Somebody even took the time to make little plaques to put on the coffins of Shiri Bibas and Oded Lifshitz saying, “Date of arrest: October 7th 2023”.
Date of arrest. Their own words. That’s how they think.
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Kemi Badenoch MP, one of the contenders to be the next leader of the Conservative party, recently and astonishly caused controversy by saying ‘Not all cultures are equally valid’. I agree with this statement. Some cultures are worse than others. Now that ISIS is gone, Hamas-ruled Gaza is probably the most horrible culture currently present on Earth. Please note that this makes absolutely no difference to the obligation of Israel to adhere to the laws of war, even against an enemy that does not. It just lets the Israelis know what to expect from Gaza if they do not defeat Hamas.
Should we conclude that the Palestinians, or the Gazans, are an accursed people by nature? No. There is a dark mirror to the past in the fact that Shani Louk was half German. In living memory Germany fell as low as any nation in human history. Let us not delude ourselves that the attempted extermination of the Jews was carried out by the Nazi party alone. A brave but tiny minority of Germans who were not Nazis sheltered Jews, a larger minority at least did not report their suspicions that their neighbours were doing so, and the majority obeyed the Nazis so long as they remained in power.
Who would have dreamed eighty years ago that one day the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin would be illuminated with an image of the Star of David to remember Jews murdered in a pogrom? Yes, a mere symbol, but a true symbol – Germany re-joined the family of nations decades ago. What brought about this change? The complete military defeat of the Nazi regime. Cynics observe that the change did not happen until after the defeat. Optimists observe that it did happen after the defeat.
“Leave the occupied territories and there will be peace” – well all Jews left Gaza in 2005, forced out by the IDF (the Israeli military) acting on the instructions of the Israeli government – and there-was-no-peace, just year after year of rocket attacks and terrorist attacks from the forces of Islam – with Israeli officials and politicians talking nonsense about a “heavy price” to be paid for such actions, as if followers of Islam cared about “prices”. And “detering” attacks – as if people who believe that if they are killed by infidels they will go to paradise, can be “deterred”. “But do they not love their children?” – perhaps (perhaps) they do love their children – but, from their point of view, the best thing that can happen to their children is that they be killed and go to paradise (for enternal bliss) – so they are happy to use their children as human shields in conflict. If one understands their assumptions – their actions are logical.
It must also be rememered what Islam means by “occupied territories” – it does NOT a small area of the world (about the size of Wales – Israel is about the size of Wales), it means the whole world (as Allah created the world – the world rightly belongs to his followers) – and it does not just mean just Jews – it means all infidels.
When all infidels have been crushed – then there will be peace. The world will not longer be divided between the “House of Islam” and the “House of War” – as the whole world will be part of the “House of Islam”. Of course, the infidels (those that remained alive) would have to act in a way that showed they “felt themselves subdued” (ritual humiliation – for life), and their children (and so on) would be available for various things, and the different factions of Islam would fight amongst themselves – but technically, by a certain defintion of the word, there would be “peace”.
That “educated” Westerners, including “educated” Jews, refuse to understand Islam is NOT the fault of Islam – its texts and the life of Muhammed himself are not kept secret.
If the “educated” continue to talk nonsense about “heavy price” and “deterring attack” – that is their fault, NOT the fault of Islam.
“But what about the sadism?”
The torturing of children to death, the torturing of the very old to death, the rapes and so on…..
Well this is NOT just a feature of Islam – it is common among human beings (perhaps all human beings) to enjoy inflicting suffering and humiliation, but it is also common among human beings for there to be, internal, resistance to doing this – resistance in one’s self “this is wrong – so I ought not to do it” (no matter how much fun it might be) – “getting an ought from an is” is what people commonly do “this is wrong – so I ought not to do it” – HOWEVER let us say that morality is redefined NOT as the internal voice of conscience, but as a series of external commands from a deity.
In both Jewish and Christian thought “God is good” means that God follows the moral law that can be worked out by moral reason – a cynic would say that Jews and Christians are forced into this position by different parts of the Bible (a series of books written by different people over hundreds of years) being in contradiction to each other – so believers are forced to seek the guildence of moral principles (moral reason) NOT coming from scripture.
But Islam is NOT like this – on the contrary, Islam is a logically consistent faith which holds that all of morality (indeed all of human conduct) is a matter of following the commands of Allah – as delivered by his final messanger Muhammed, and lived out by this “perfect model of conduct”.
Did Muhammed torture people to death? Yes he did. Did Muhammed take young persons for use? Yes he did. Did Muhammed deal in slaves? Yes he did. Did Muhammed promise peace and then attack? Yes he did. THEREFORE none of these actions are morally wrong – NOT if we are define “morally good” as what Allah commands and Muhammed does – and “morally evil” as going against the commands of Allah and what Muhammed did.
It is a form of Legal Positivism – in theological terms “Voluntarism” – where Allah (unlike the Jewish or Christian God) is NOT under the moral law – his hand is “unfettered” as whatever he does or commands is good – by-definition, NOT by being judged against moral reason.
And as long as they are following the commands of Allah and following the example of Muhammed – his followers may have as much fun as they like.
Again it is NOT the fault of Islam if infidels do not understand the above (none of which is a secret) – and foolishly think that the followers of Islam follow infidel rules.
“Raise your hand” called out the followers of Islam to the Jews – NOT meaning surrender, but rather stop using your hand to cover up the interesting bits of scripture – raise your hand, read out the interesting bits of scripture and DO these things, and enjoy doing them. Follow that part of yourself that enjoys doing these things – and crush that part of yourself that says they are morally wrong.
None of this should be taken to mean that the followers of Islam do not believe that reason exists – on the contrary they do believe that reason exists and they are often highly intelligent, they have a great capacity to reason – which they put to use in furthering the cause of Islam.
It is a much narrower point – that MORAL reason (not reason in general) does not exist. That reason is-and-out-to-be the slave (servant) of the commands of Allah and his final messanger Muhammed. NOT stand in moral judgement of Allah and Muhammed.
Also followers of Islam do NOT believe in indulging “the passions” (what traditional moral philosophy – going back to Aristotle and long before him, says is the function of moral reason to control – moral reason controlling “the passions” rather than the other way round) on everyone – only on infidels and people falsely claiming to be Muslim who are not really Muslim.
True Muslims should NOT be robbed or otherwise abused.
And it is a mistake to think that all this was imported into Western throught by David Hume – as a lot of it is in Dr Martin Luther who was writing (for example he wrote “The Bondage of the Will”) centuries before Mr Hume.
Warning – violation of the “you must not mention the Austrian painter on the internet” rule about to occur.
The person who was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 was able, and did, quote from Dr Luther at length – and in context. And it was NOT because the Chancellor was a Lutherian (he was not a Lutherian – he was not a Catholic either, he despised Christianity), he was citing Dr Luther on other matters.
And not just on the Jewish question – but also against the idea that moral reason should stand in judgement of scripture, or of the commands of the state (the latter being what interested the Chancellor).
If it is in scripture – you do it, you have no right to morally judge it. Ditto the commands of the state. “What if the state is an Ottoman Sultan?” – Dr Luther answered that question directly, you-obey.
So you hand over your children for the use of the Sultan (or to be used by his servants) – and you stand aside, whilst the servants kill other people, if they decide to do that.
After all, argued Dr Luther, all human beings are evil – and so how can one human being stand in moral judgement of another, and all actions (again according to Dr Luther) are predetermined – which is how God was able to know, from the start of the universe, who would be saved and who would burn for ever in Hell – not because of any moral choice that they made (according to Dr Luther humans are not beings – humans are not capable of choosing moral good over their passion to do evil, unless God intervenes), but because they are predestined (from the start of the universe) to be tortured for ever in Hell.
“Here I stand – I can do no other” is NOT a statement of moral concience, it is, in the broader context of his teaching, a denial of the existence of moral concience – in-the-sense-of moral agency (free will), it means “I was pre programmed to stand here and say these words ” indeed that the “I” (human personhood) does not exist.
So this is a lot broader than Islam (and Sunni and Shia Islam differ on the point of free will – although not on defining morally good as what Allah and his Messanger command and morally evil as what Allah and his Messanger forbid) – for example Jonathan Edwards, the American philosopher-theologan, held this position.
So did the great theologian and organizer George Whitfield (or Whitefield) – who argued, for example, that slavery can not be wrong because slaves are mentioned in scripture – hence his successful legal struggle to bring slavery to Georgia (the founding documents of the colony forbad slavery – as against moral law), and his argument that even if slavery was wrong, as his actions were predetermined (decided by God at the start of the universe) he was not blame for introducing slavery, or for any of his other actions – as he could not have chosen to do otherwise – a point Jonathan Edwards made much more strongly.
Some people would argue that all this “makes God the author of sin” – but that assumes the existence of moral reason as an independent guide to define what “sin” is, rather than holding that whatever God commands is good (by definition) and whatever God forbids is evil (by definition).
Just this.
NickM
Yes indeed Sir.
Although the international establishment would say you are “weaponizing” these “tragic events”.
Pointing out such atrocities is “weaponizing” them – and these warriors of Islan had no choice about their actions, they had to rape, and sexually mutilate, and so on – their actions were predetermined, they could not have chosen to do otherwise. So fashionable philosophy teaches. Colonel Douglas McGregor (a great defender of Mr Putin in relation to Ukraine) justifies the actions of October 7th in this way – it was predetermined by the “occupation” (there was no occupation of Gaza and had not been since 2005, and nor was the Gaza area ever, at any time in history, part of an independent “Palestine” ruled by a “Palestinian people” – but there were go) and so no blame attaches to the Muslims for doing these things – because they could not have chosen NOT to do them.
By the way – when Spinoza started to teach such things, the rabbis responded by saying that no one should attack him, indeed that no one should interact with at all – that no one should speak to him, or listen to him if he spoke to them – they should just walk away.
Treat him as if he was already dead.
“but technically, by a certain defintion of the word, there would be “peace”.”
That depends on your particular translation of the arabic. What there would be very definitely though is “submission”
I would place this assertion of principle in the same place I put the entire idea of Proportionate Response. Both make the world a safer place for bad people, out of some concern for “fairness”.
A book written by John David Lewis, Nothing Less Than Victory, is worth reading. (The author passed away a few years ago.)
He gives examples such as the Romans’ decisive victories over Carthage, the Union’s crushing of the Confederacy (and that includes praising the importance of Sherman’s tactics) and the USAAF’s destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Romans famously sowed the fields of their defeated foes with salt.
To win, you have to not just win, but that your enemy (or former enemy) knows you won. Germans growing up in the West knew that they’d lost – totally. Japanese people could hardly argue otherwise. Even in the US civil war and its unsatisfactory aftermath in the South (segregation, Jim Crow, and a period of relative decline vs the industrialising North), the idea that the “old cause” would return was never more than a fringe concern, although there is always revision to the rights and wrongs of that terrible conflict (and it was terrible).
Wars need to be won decisively. The loss of life in Gaza is terrible, but Hamas, which used the population as human shields and kept weapons in schools etc, reaped the whirlwind of their savagery of 7 October, 2023. They are damned for eternity.
And far too large a part of what I read about the whole “palestinian” mindset seems soaked in a sort of learned helplessness, violence and nihilism. It needs to be seen to be defeated.
The Pedant-General – yes indeed, I stand corrected.
Johnathan Peace – and that is precisely what Israel has NOT done.
The lies about “genocide” conceal the bitter truth that little has been done.
Recently there was boasting that out of the “six thousand” (it was rather more than that) attackers of October 7th 2023, “four thousand” had now been killed or captured, this was a boast – it was presented as an achievement.
For three years it is NOT good performance – not good at all.
The Israeli establishment, including the traitors (not too strong a word) of the Supreme Court, is rotten to the core – including some of the top brass of the military.
Bobby b quotes me as saying, “Please note that this makes absolutely no difference to the obligation of Israel to adhere to the laws of war, even against an enemy that does not.” and replies,
I said that Israel should adhere to the laws of war, not that Israel should fight fair in the manner of the boxing ring. Contrary to modern popular belief, the traditional Just War doctrine of “proportionate response” does not mean “you are only allowed to kill about the same number of the enemy as they killed of your people.” A proportionate response must be driven by long term objectives. If your objective is to make sure that an enemy who cares nothing for the laws of war never dares attack you again, then a proportional and just response probably should be escalatory and drastic.
I read this Times of Israel report on the heroic actions of IDF members on that most terrible of days.
@Paul, one of the things about the horrors of 7 October 2023 was that the Hamas people took live videos of their brutality; they went even beyond the Nazis in WW2 in so doing. (I don’t think this was just because Hamas has modern tech – I think the level of savagery may be even more insane.) There was exultation in their evil. They told their parents about how great it felt to kill Jewish women, children and old people, and rape and mutilate them.
Now I am sure it is wrong to tar all those in Gaza with the same brush and I know, being an individualist, that generalisations about one’s fellow human beings is usually a mistake. People have free will; each person must be judged on their character. I also know, because I have heard it said by knowledgeable folk whom I respect, that there are Gazans who live in fear of the Hamas fanatics, and that it is not easy to speak out, or even to move away. All that needs to be weighed when assessing the morality of the Israeli counter-attacks on Gaza. Not all Germans were Nazis; not all Russians were communists, etc. But…there is also sometimes only one way to kill an evil culture, which is what exists in Gaza and certain other parts of the world, and that is utter, humiliating, crushing defeat.
@Johnathan Pearce (London)
there is also sometimes only one way to kill an evil culture, which is what exists in Gaza and certain other parts of the world, and that is utter, humiliating, crushing defeat.
Do you think that that has been achieved? I think “utter” applies to both their “humiliation”, their “crushing” and their “defeat”. Except of course those Hamas soldiers who are incapable of humiliation given that their bodies have been vaporized. At some point you also have to stop. We did not execute all the Germans in Germany post WWII, we chose the humanity of the atomic bomb instead of the utter bloodbath of Operation Downfall. We learned the lessons of Versailles and the Marshall plan rebuilt out of the rubble a better society.
At some point you have to stop and try to recraft out of the wreckage you have wrought a new society that has been rid of the vermin and recognizes that most people just want to live in a place where the rats don’t chew on their children’s fingers, where they can actually get clean enough water that giving it to your children is less risky than watching them die of dehydration, and where their wife has a decent chance of getting to one of the few places food is available without being blown up.
I mean at what point does it stop? At what point do we put it back together again better than it was? Israel was absolutely right to have an extreme response to the monsterous events of October 7th. But all wars need an endgame.
And, as a deeply disappointed three time Trump voter, what happened to all his glorious promises?
“But all wars need an endgame.”
But this particular war – going back to the start of the 1900’s – Has had probably 8 or 9 ends.
Each “end” has been the result of another attempt to kill off Israel, followed by a huge loss to Israel.
Each time, the world has basically said, they’re done, that’s enough, they’ve lost, let’s start on on rebuilding so that these decent people can have a life and raise their innocent children in peace.
And each time, islam has waited a bit – re-armed, mostly – and then attacked Israel again with renewed hatred and more and better weapons.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me nine times, . . . .
With all due respect Paul, regarding this war: on the one hand your expectations are utterly unrealistic, and on the other you are not well informed on Israel’s achievements on the ground so far. I’ll leave it at that.
@bobby b
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me nine times, . . . .
So the solution is to keep pounding and bombing the place for all eternity? The solution is to make sure every Gazan is dead, and the place is pounded to dust?
Perhaps instead we can understand that just because you have been unsuccessful before, or eight times before, does not preclude success in the future. What is needed is a better plan. The simple fact is that religious extremism only comes from a combination of a toxic culture and an ugly religion. The culture there will continue to be toxic when the word “Israel” is associated with the death of your brother, or your kids or your mother. In Gaza the people have nothing to lose, and so an eternity rewarded in the bosom of Allah may well sound a step in the right direction. However, when you have something to lose in this world, the next world becomes much less appealing. Hope is one of the reliable antidotes to hatred.
So for sure when Israel left Gaza originally in 2005 and it went to seed it was not good. I do think Gaza needs an occupying force for a while and investment to rebuild it into a place where people can live and prosper. And do so not out of any benevolence to Gazans but simply for the sake of self preservation. I don’t think Gaza needs a democracy, not right now, it probably needs a military dictatorship, but one that understands that restoring the place to a successful society is the only long term solution to Israel’s problems. That and very tall walls.
Of course Trump’s adventure in Iran has not at all helped the situation. Trump was making amazing progress on the Abraham Accords and this Iran war has utterly destroyed that, that which could have been one of the greatest diplomatic achievements in human history. And an achievement that would have been a deep, long term solution to the problems in the Holy Lands.
Three times enthusiastic Trump voter — deeply disappointed. I mean the promise of Trump’s presidency was so great, but the failure of DOGE, a renewed obsession with foreign adventures and a complete neglect of the things government can do to improve the economy, has just brought about ruination. I was talking to one of my kids who was traveling through central Ohio. He called to tell me he really scored because he found gas below $4 a gallon. I mean if that is a win, I don’t know what a loss is.