Israel loses claim to moral high ground

Emon is a graduate student in the history department.

By Avner Emon

This past weekend, Israeli forces invaded the West Bank in what
has been called the largest Israeli invasion in 20 years. This
invasion follows a smaller one earlier in the month during which
Israeli troops occupied Ramallah.

With this re-occupation of what are already the Occupied
Territories, schools are closed, roads are closed, and Palestinian
movement has been severely, if not entirely, restricted. Tanks
have surrounded Yasser Arafat’s compound in Ramallah, laying
him under siege, cutting off electricity, communications, and
supplies. Hundreds of tanks and Apache helicopters have moved
into the streets and air of what were residential neighborhoods;
streets now glisten with the shining black of American-made assault
rifles, strapped across the chests of Israeli soldiers.

This is all out war, as Ariel Sharon declared, by a government
that is perhaps destined to victimize the Palestinians.

The last time Jews held sway over a region of land was nearly
2000 years ago during the period of the second temple. But by 70 AD
that came crashing to an end with the Romans. Since then, and until
1947, Jews have been a community in diaspora, whether in the West
or the East. And in the West, their history has been marked by
pogroms (organized massacres), violence, and persecution, with the
most recent instance being Hitler’s holocaust in Germany.
Jews have been a victimized people, and as such, it is not
surprising that they would develop a communal conscience of the
persecuted victim.

However, since 1947, things have changed. For the first time in
nearly two millennia, Zionist Jews established power and
recognition for themselves in the form of the nation state of
Israel. With the combination of religion and nationalism, as is so
often the case in the Middle East, Israel is the victor after two
millennia of persecution and victimization. But just as the
victim becomes the victimizer, so too do we see the cycle of
violence continuing. With it comes an immorality that is
undeniable. 

Alan Dershowitz, a respected, Jewish law professor at Harvard
Law School, has suggested a policy for the Israeli government in a
recent editorial, saying that the Israeli government could
forewarn all Palestinians, terrorists and otherwise, that in the
case of a terrorist attack Israel would destroy an entire town in
which terrorists are suspected to operate. The entire populace of a
city would lose their homes and livelihood in the case of a
terrorist strike. “The residents would be given 24 hours to
leave, and then troops will come in and bulldoze all of the
buildings.” Dershowitz’ logic is that since
Palestinians would be forewarned about the Israeli policy, the
fault for the destruction would fall upon the terrorists.

This past weekend, we witnessed Dershowitz’ plan put into
action, albeit with some modification. No notice has been given,
and Palestinians are prisoners in their homes as the Israeli
military occupies their city streets and invades their homes and
stores. Dershowitz’ and Sharon’s logic only shows the
immorality of their respective consciences. Dershowitz hides behind
the legalistic notions of notice, “fair” warning and
non-discretion. But he ignores the fact that such a policy can only
be instituted from a position of totalitarian fascism. He ignores
the immorality of disproportionate reprisals, the inhumanity of
destroying the lives of the many because of the actions of a few,
and the dialectic of violence to which Israel has been party.

And with Sharon’s most recent offensive against the
Palestinians, we see that immorality playing itself out with deadly
and devastating effects. In Israel’s pursuit of Arafat and
suicide bombers, the lives of innocent Palestinian civilians are
destroyed. For how long will we indulge the fantasy that we can
wage a war on terrorism without imposing indiscriminate destruction
and humiliation on civilians? In the war on terrorism, the very
idea of the protected civilian has come under attack. If anyone can
be a terrorist, then who is a civilian?

Sharon likens his offensive to the American war on terrorism.
The transparency of Sharon’s political opportunism only
highlights the moral degradation of his policy. While
Americans are in Afghanistan rebuilding the infrastructure,
rebuilding schools, and liberating men, women and children from the
absolutism and tyranny of puritan ideology, Israel is bent on
demolishing Palestinian infrastructure and destroying Palestinian
lives.