The Constant Quest for Redemptive Violence

Watching the current carnage unfold in Gaza and reading the articles, posts, and comments of those bullish about the Israeli strikes in that sorry strip of land, I am struck by the continued theme that if only enough violence is brought to bear, the Palestinians will at last see the error of their ways and will capitulate.  The thesis goes that with enough will and "smart" munitions, Hamas will be crushed, notwithstanding the failure to accomplish a similar goal with respect to the PLO in Lebanon in 1982 or with respect to Hezbollah in 2006.  Whenever objections are raised to the political and military feasibility of this goal, I invariably see commenters point to the Allied subjugation of the Axis powers to finish World War II -- usually with the tone of a nine-year old Martin Peretz -- "oh yeah, if force doesn't work how do you explain what happened with Germany and Japan. And don't fuck with us"

Of course, it is not just Gaza in which the glib analogy is invoked.  A similar line of thought was present in the arguments of Iraq War hawks -- by crushing Iraq and deposing its regime, we will somehow show people there the light, naturally leading to a pro-western, pro-democratic (and preposterously enough) pro-Israel, and, of course, pro-capitalist world view.

To the neo-conservative hawk every failure to use force is comparable to Munich in 1938 and every use of force will prompt a new epoch akin to April and August 1945.  The world can be made anew if we are simply willing to break enough eggs.  

I would like to propose that we consider abjuring the facile use of World War II era analogies in making decisions of war and peace.  I think a fair reading of history suggests that World War II is an historical outlier and of very limited utility in helping our understanding of the world.  Moreover, the glib assertion that the total warfare of World War II definitively solved things (let's put the 70 million or so deaths aside) ignores the ultimate outcome of the War, which led directly to the Cold War, the subjugation of Eastern Europe by the Soviets, the Chinese Revolution, and the Korean and Vietnam wars.  Yes, the War resolved the problems associated with Germany and Japan -- it did not usher in an era free of conflict or complications.

It is not 1938 or 1945.  I do not believe the Israelis can bomb their way to peace.  I do not think the use of American weapons and tax dollars by them in this misguided attempt is in the interest of the United States.  The Bush administration is doing neither the American people nor the Israelis any favor in blindly supporting this folly.  We desperately need some new thinking about this vexing part of the world, rather than resort to hackneyed and erroneous historical interpretation.                               

Comments

[David Samuels]

Hmmm, a sober Sir Charles on Friday night?

"Constant quest for redemptive violence"? "Hackneyed and erroneous historical interpretation"? A reference to Marty Peretz without the word 'fuck' in any of its endless incarnations?

Did you float the entire liquor cabinet ringing in the new year? I appreciate the fact that you are making good and cogent points, but I do miss the typical late-night Sir C. posting style...

Seriously, though - I find it utterly unthinkable that the "serious" commentators fail to understand the differences between confronting Hamas, a non-governmental guerrilla military, in the Gaza strip, and the fight against the Nazis, the government of a nation-state. Hence, I am left to the conclusion that people who could understand the differences just fine choose to ignore them.

Anyhow - keep fighting the good fight, and the countdown to January 20th continues...

[oddjob]

I am struck by the continued theme that if only enough violence is brought to bear, the Palestinians will at last see the error of their ways and will capitulate.

To my mind this is the reasoning that justifies "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". Of course (& as has been pointed out in the Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof), that way the world ends up blind and toothless.

[oddjob]

The fundamental problem with all the WWII analogies is that they are used in places where the underlying conditions simply don't apply. They didn't apply in Vietnam, and for totally different reasons they don't apply in the Middle East.

Americans, especially neoconservatives, apparently have a great deal of difficulty comprehending the blood feud, but without understanding that you won't ever accurately grasp what goes on in the Middle East.

[oddjob]

Hamas, a non-governmental guerrilla military

Weren't they elected to run the Palestinian government (or what passes for that)?

[low-tech cyclist]

Very insightful post, Chas. And great header - that's a phrase that exposes the hollowness of the whole idea.

WWII is an outlier. In a way, it was the last of the medieval wars of conquest, and if you start and lose one of those wars, you just have to take what's coming to you.

Our occupation of Germany and Japan was successful precisely because the occupied populations effectively consented. Their armies were beaten, their infrastructure was destroyed, their own leaders had led them into disasters of epic proportions, they were ready to throw in the towel.

But the Iraqis, the Palestinians, the Vietnamese - these people did not consent. People don't want to be ruled by foreign powers: that's just how it is, and how it has always been since the end of the medieval era.

[drip]

ltc has a point about consent, at least as to a post-bombing period. Another big difference is that the people of Gaza are not a nation at war. They are the equivalent of a part of Israel under occupation according to international law. The Gaza strip is a prison camp run by the prisoners since Israel abdicated its function. There is no voluntary entrance or exit and the bombing is like bombing Angola prison farm in Louisiana. The Israeli action is not disproportionate; it is criminal in itself.

[oddjob]

Is it necessarily Israel's responsibility under international law? I don't know one way or the other, but I don't believe Gaza has ever been considered Israeli territory.

[drip]

OK, oj, they can't confuse us now. Israel retains absolute authority over Gaza’s airspace and territorial sea. It is exercising governmental authority in these areas. Further, the Israeli withdrawal of land forces did not terminate occupation. The fact that Israel refuses to provide security does not allow it to claim that a lack of security justifies a military invasion. This stands the whole notion of occupational responsibility on its head. Finally, the Israeli position as occupier is bolstered by its refusal to deal with Hamas as a government.

Maybe the analogy is to the US bombing the detention center at Guantanamo, rather than Angola. In any event, there appears to be a moral problem in bombing a place when you deny its occupants a place to go. Anticipating an often thrown out red herring, Egypt's behavior does not excuse Israel in this regard, it implicates Egypt and by extension, its patron, the US.

[oddjob]

Thanks for clarifying. I haven't been paying close enough attention and I didn't know. As I have indicated before, I don't believe there are any heroes in this and that there haven't been any for some time now.

[Sir Charles]

David,

That's just the smooth stylings of a man sipping the old single barrel bourbon on the rocks. I promise there will be invective in the New Year and late night rantings and all the fun you've come to expect. But sometimes there are topics where the end result is that you just drink yourself sober.

[drip]

No heroes, and worse, no reason to pay attention to the past. The history leaves one gape-mouthed and bug-eyed, like some cartoon character. Tom and Jerry with human traits and no consciences. There are no lessons except "don't do stuff like this." Honestly, the only solution is going to be to allow one group to pick from a list of places that the UN draws up (a few thousand square miles somewhere (Siberia? Chile? South Africa? Australia? Mongolia? North Dakota?) and the other group decides whether to stay or go. There is no justification for any of the behavior. All of it, on all sides, is sociopathic, some of it, on all sides, psychopathic. For once we must look forward, not back, for a solution.

[Corvus]

Man, it's so hard to comment on this topic. At every turn of phrase, I feel like I am about to drift off into unacceptable discourse. I am pretty sure I have already crossed Commentary's line for antisemitism.

l-t c's point about consent gets at something I tried to post about last night, but gave up as two thorny. Also, it is kind of involved, and I was tired.

This is basically a war between two peoples. it started 40 years ago, and contrary to it's name, it hasn't stopped. But, one side conquered the other 40 years ago. But the other side didn't give up, even though they were vastly outgunned.

Thus, maybe we shouldn't think of things like suicide bombing as acts of terrorism, but as acts of war. They are just acts of war perpetrated by a force without land or money or a civilian infrastructure. It's a war between two ethnicities, and they are trying to harm each other as much as possible. But one side can only fight by strapping bombs to their chests, or firing blind rockets, and the other side has nukes. The more powerful side could easily win, but to do so, in any lasting since, would probably involve committing genocide. So.

This means, I see a moral equivalence between the positions of the Israel far-right (think Settlers, and any who give them any form of support), and Hamas. Both parties want land, and land they didn't have before 1967. And that's all this ultimately is: a war over land. Hamas wants all of Israel for Palestine; the hard-liners want more of Palestine (or all of it) for Israel. And difference between the two sides in terms of the prevalence of hardliners is probably pretty proportional to each sides number of dead; it has nothing to do with culture of ethnicity.

I don't know how wrong-headed, or how banal, this point is, but I wanted to throw it out there.

[Corvus]

Drip, I already said, Montana. Fuck, give them Wyoming, hasn't done us any good. I high school social studies teacher suggested giving the Jews Florida, since all their grandparents are there already (he was kidding, a bit).

But no, really, at this point, I think the only way this can be resolved—both sides are now so far gone that there's no way that the U.S. can resolve this that doesn't violate Israel's national sovereignty. So the question then is, violate Israel's sovereignty? or wash our hands of the matter, which might mean letting Israel getting swallowed up by the desert? (Btw, that's I think why the hard-right toss antisemitism around so much. It's panic. It Israel loses U.S. support, if the opinion of Israel in the U.S. becomes what it is in Europe, Israel will be on it's own, feral and bloodthirsty, and it might very well go down. Of course, I doubt it will go down before launching some of those nukes it doesn't have, so I figure leaving Israel to fend for itself isn't really an option.)

[Corvus]

That should have been "MY high school social studies teacher".

[Sir Charles]

The rich irony here is that it was precisely due to Israel's smashing military triumph in the 1967 war that created the current dilemma in which they find themselves. This is part of my point about those who worship force -- successful use of arms that is not linked to sound political strategy is highly problematic, see e.g. Iraq.

There were those in the Israeli political and military hierarchy who sensed in the immediate aftermath of the Six Day War that they now had the proverbial wolf by the ears. I think a sort of giddiness over the scope of their triumph left the leadership in a position where they could neither conceive of giving up that which they had won, while lacking a viable strategy to come to any sort of accomodation with the captive population.

The notion of either bombing Gaza as some form of solution or, even worse, a ground campaign into Gaza is only goin

[Sir Charles]

oops -- hit post by mistake.

Neither bombing nor a ground campaign is going to resolve the problem of Gaza.

[drip]

Corvus, I give up. All your points are valid, as are those of Commentary and the Anti-Semite Society for West Israel Port Entry. The dispute goes back to at least 60 years, and maybe 6,000. Israel today has little to do with the refuge for the remnants of the holocaust. I tend to blame the British, there There is the failure of religion to provide a bedrock morality, the failure of leaders to protect their subjects. It's just failure after failure. In Ireland, the women started to march; in India, a great moral leader emerged; in South Africa a great political and a great moral leader emerged. I don't believe in leaders and Gaza doesn't help God's cause at all. And the nuclear weapons are so bad.

[Sir Charles]

drip,

It's almost always safe to resort to blaming the Brits. Seriously, it is remarkable to what degree the legacy of empire lies at the center of so many of these nagging conflicts.

[Corvus]

Also, the French. Herzl formulated Zionism in response to the Dreyfuss Affair.

See, I don't see the conflict as stretching back the formation of Zionism, which was rooted in the idealogy of late-nineteenth century imperialism. Instead of nation-states being endowed with the right to conquer the lands of another people, it was a nation with land conquering the lands of another people, already conquered. Palestine was a British colony, and they wanted a state. So they started buying up land from warlords and then attacking the British to get control of the region.

Zionism was wrong. It took advantage of people who were already suffering from colonialism, and justified it with the assumptions European nationalism and their own sense of grievance. That sucks for the Jews, no one likes their nation to be the bad guys, but I'm American. When I go to an ATM I get bills with Andrew Jackson on the top. Nations do bad things. Deal with it.

[drip]

t's almost always safe to resort to blaming the Brits. I'm Irish, you can tell me nothing I don't know. (That's true of everything, BTW, not just things Brit. ha ha.) Except for Viet Nam, their line drawing, ethnic cleansing, divide and conquer sense of civilization has been a major contributor to every major conflict on earth since the Pope gave Brazil to Portugal. About all the world got back was Ghandi, Cajun cooking and sad songs.

[oddjob]

it is remarkable to what degree the legacy of empire lies at the center of so many of these nagging conflicts.

Empire + history of blood feud (& its concomitant values) = endless warfare

[oddjob]

Except for Viet Nam, their line drawing, ethnic cleansing, divide and conquer sense of civilization has been a major contributor to every major conflict on earth since the Pope gave Brazil to Portugal.

Well, if you ever make the acquaintance of folks who grew up in southeastern Europe you'll sooner or later learn about the Turks........

:-)

[oddjob]

(Likewise if you make the acquaintance of a Korean you'll probably sooner or later learn rather a bit about the Japanese and the Chinese. Korea is the Orient's version of Poland.)

[Stephen]

Koreans have far more to say about the Japanese than the Chinese. Bluntly put, pretty much the only country in eastern Asia that doesn't hate Japan is Japan itself. And my friends from Singapore, China and Korea would say that the Japanese have enough love for themselves that it makes up for it.

I'm not trying to hate on Japan; I'm only noting that doing so is a rather common activity in Asia.

As for Israel and Hamas, let me second Corvus's points about this conflict being a war rather than a nation-state responding to acts of terrorism. It's interesting how terrorists become freedom fighters - or for that matter, Founding Fathers - after they win.

IMO, Israel simply has no moral standing for anything. North Korea has a better record of adhering to its various agreements and deals than Israel does. Hell, the USA has probably honored more treaties with Native Americans than Israel has with the Palestinians or anyone else.

[drip]

The Turks post-1850 did what the Brits let them do, before that, my hyperbole defeats me. As for Asia, the Brits were not a big help to China, Russia, or Japan, but I will happily agree to call Japan the England of the East or, perhaps better, England as the Japan of the West.

And I am completely on board with Stephen's description of Israel as immoral. There may be a standard to which their behavior conforms, but it cannot be one that could be regarded as moral. From whence it came, I cannot say, but not from any western or monotheistic system of values that I can identify.

[Corvus]

Drip, I disagree. Israel's brand of immorality is of particularly western brand, but one that (thankfully) most of the West has set aside—that is, imperialism. Of course, this brand is itself merely a form of the kind of ethnic tribalism that you see in basically every corner of the globe. It is only able to flower into imperialism in technologically advanced, affluent societies (like Rome, which gives us the word).

[oddjob]

Hell, the USA has probably honored more treaties with Native Americans than Israel has with the Palestinians or anyone else.

That of course explains why there are still all those settlements in Sinai.

Please.......

[oddjob]

If you want to create an evil caraciture of Israelis don't forget to add the big nose.

[Sir Charles]

I have to say I am not anti-Israel and think there was legitimacy to the Zionist enterprise. I think Israel should be recognized by the Arab world and afforded entry into the community of nations across the world. I do not think Israel is a particularly "immoral" country. (Think about the G-8 -- how many of its members are without pretty significant sin (alright Canada, put your hand down.) I think they have faced substantial aggression along with some very difficult challenges.

I just don't think what's going on in Gaza is desirable, wise, or constructive -- and yes, I find it morally dubious, but I don't think I am engaging in quite the sweeping level of claim that some are advancing here.

[oddjob]

alright Canada, put your hand down

Even they have had their problems with their first nations (& some of the Quebecois also beg to differ - again, the English).

I just don't think what's going on in Gaza is desirable, wise, or constructive

Agreed. It is a recipe for more of the same against them in the future. They have done this before and it doesn't work. There is zero reason to expect a different outcome this time.

[David Samuels]

Sir C,

Glad to hear that we'll be granted to further late-night rantings in the future. That gives me a happy face.

Oddjob,

It is true that an organization called 'Hamas' is the governing party in the Gaza Strip. It is also true that an organization called 'Hamas' is at least partially responsible for the large amount of rockets being launched at Sderot over the last few weeks.

But these two organizations, while related, are not at all identical. There are ties between them, to be certain, but there are also significant ways in which they are separate. The official security services in the Gaza Strip and the people launching rockets are not the same people.

And so, the Israelis aren't really fighting a people, exactly, they're trying to fight a smallish guerrilla force, maybe a few tens of thousands of people, while managing to effectively piss off the million-plus who live in Gaza, not to mention the millions protesting across the Middle East.

[Corvus]

No, Israel is not particularly immoral. Compared to the things the U.S. has done, it's saintly. But, I still think that the original formation of Zionism was unjust. They took their (righteous) anger at European society and shifted its burden onto the colonized (by Britain) people of Palestine (not righteous). This doesn't mean that state has no right to exist, or that the people there are responsible for what happened. Those people are all dead, and the people living there now know no other place as their home, just like I know no other place as home except America. But unless they grapple with the unjust aspects of Zionism, as America has (not completely) grappled with the effects of Manifest Destiny and Slavery, then I don't think it will be possible for any kind of conclusion to come of this, at least not without some external force telling them what to do. The Arab world sees them as a form of Western colonialism, an unjust imposition on their land. And in a sense, that is exactly what they are, and until they do something to show regret for that, the Arab world will never accept them, and never forgive them. And I don't think that's necessarily unfair. Yeah, it would be nice if they did accepted Israel without such gestures, but anything that comes will basically be forced and due to realpolitik concerns. The resentment will stay there, in the "Arab Street," ready to blow up at any time those concerns lift, and the Israel will know it, and be as paranoid as it has been since it's inception.

[low-tech cyclist]

I already said, Montana. Fuck, give them Wyoming, hasn't done us any good. [My] high school social studies teacher suggested giving the Jews Florida, since all their grandparents are there already (he was kidding, a bit).

Corvus, that reminds me of a suggestion I made before the ground-war phase of Desert Storm in early 1991, only in the other direction.

My suggestion was:

1) To explain to the Kuwaitis that, at that moment, they didn't have a country. Saddam had it, and if they wanted us to get it back from him for them, then they had to share it, including a decent share of its future oil revenues, with the Palestinians.

2) To explain to the Palestinians that they could stay in the West Bank and Gaza under Israeli occupation, or they could move to Kuwait (once the war was over), give up any claim to Palestinian lands, and be comparatively wealthy.

3) Anybody that decided to stay in the West Bank or Gaza wouldn't give up its claim to those lands, but they couldn't expect much help from the U.S. in pressing those claims, and they wouldn't get any Kuwaiti oil revenues either. We'd give them, say, three years to think about it.

Unfortunately, the Bush I administration wasn't nearly as creative as I was. :)

[oddjob]

Well isn't this just lovely news!