Taking Sides: Why Gaza?

Introduction

The latest stage in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is being played out on newsfeeds and timelines as we speak. Free from the curatorial process of professional news editors, who decide which views and perspectives get aired to a captive audience, subaltern perspectives are now able to reach a wide audience.

The loss of life and devastation of infrastructure experienced by the people of Gaza is both too visceral and too widespread to be denied. In response, a new apologetic tactic has emerged: an affected neutrality that recognizes, to some extent, the human rights violations committed by the Israeli government but attempts to minimize them by dehumanizing the Palestinians and promoting easily debunked myths about them, by depicting the conflict as inevitable and intractable, and attempts to deter activism by concerned citizens by either a ‘pox on both your houses’ stance or by engaging in concern trolling by bringing up other international conflicts that have higher death tolls or less morally ambiguous combatants. There are three compelling arguments that can be made against this studied indifference and for activism by Americans on behalf of the people of Gaza.

The American Role

The first is that, unlike many other human rights disasters, the US plays a direct role in the form of military aid and political support that it gives to Israel. The same is not the case for ISIS, the Taliban, the Assad regime and its opponents (with some exceptions). As US citizens, we have a chance to influence policy and create a better, more just outcome, even if it is a small one. We also have an obligation to use that influence in an attempt to prevent injustices committed in our name or on our dime.

The Nature of Israel

The second argument is that Israel is a liberal democracy that can be swayed by public opinion and is very conscious of its image both abroad and internally. ISIS and the Assad regime couldn't care less and Saudi only cares to a small extent. Similarly, we hold liberal democracies to a higher standard than rag-tag terrorists groups, brutal dictatorships, or absolute monarchies because they represent the will of a sovereign people and ostensibly stand on a moral foundation of consent, consultation, and justice.

Part of that standard is proportionality in military response. This does not mean that casualties on either side have to be equal or nearly so, but that it is illegal when “an attack is launched on a military objective in the knowledge that the incidental civilian injuries would be clearly excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage” (Moreno-Ocampo).This is clearly the case in regard to the current operation in Gaza where the military goals include stopping rocket fire that has resulted in less than three dozen casualties over the course of a decade and collapsing tunnels alleged to be used to smuggle parts for the rockets (but are also known to be used to smuggle food and medical supplies as well). The military response has killed over 40 times more civilians than the offense that ostensibly provoked it. That is the definition of disproportionality.

It might be objected that Israel is showing great restraint and that they don’t intentionally kill civilians- why would they when it hurts their image? Israel IS sensitive to how it is perceived abroad but it is even more sensitive to internal Israeli opinion and nothing makes that go sour like military casualties. As Norman Finkelstein has pointed out during a recent speech, “Israel’s first rule is to minimize combatant casualties.” One way of achieving this goal is by indiscriminate bombing that leaves little standing in its wake. He also mentions other motivations such as revenge for IDF casualties and a strategic goal of using widespread bombing to cow the Palestinians into submission. The argument that Israel is showing 'great restraint' has been ably debunked by P.Z. Myers. Needless to say, the good intentions of the IDF will not bring back the civilians they have killed.

It may be said that holding the Israeli government to a higher standard than the Arabs is an example of the 'racism of lower expectations.' I have to disagree with this. Israel is a state with a liberal democratic form of government. The Arabs are an ethnic group with a vast degree of differences among them in terms of forms of government, language, and cultural features. It's an apples to oranges comparison. My argument is not that Arabs are not/should not be held to a higher standard, it's that liberal democratic states are and should be held to a higher standard than non-state terrorist groups, authoritarian dictatorships, and absolute monarchies. A state, and especially a liberal democratic state, enjoys the monopoly of the legitimate use of force in a given territory. In order for that monopoly to remain legitimate, it must observe certain moral standards and maintain the rule of law. Not observing them actually degrades the rule of law, the enforcement of which is one of the main justifications for the state's existence.

Tolerance and even receptiveness to criticism is the strength of an open society. Nobody does Israel (or the United States, for that matter) any favors by attempting to shield it from criticism. It is a virtue that Israel does care about the opinions of its citizens and, to a lesser extent, it's image in the rest of the world (especially the West). Assad couldn't care less. Putin couldn't care less. This means that we have some small means of influencing Israel's actions towards a less destructive path that we do not have in relation to conflicts elsewhere in the world.

The Siege

The third argument is that the siege of Gaza, which constitutes an ongoing act of war that has cause far more death and suffering than the rockets fired by Hamas, makes it impossible for the civilian population to flee. This makes the situation different, and far more dire, than is the case in Syria, Pakistan, Iraq, Nigeria, and other countries. There is no safe, neutral ground to which refugees can flee and receive aid to ease their suffering. This makes a direct political/social intervention in the conflict more pressing because it is the only alternative available if a truly staggering amount of death and suffering is to be avoided. For example, according to a UN report, by 2020 Gaza will be incapable of supporting its population. This is a direct result of Israeli policy aimed not at an organization but at an entire people.

There are some who maintain that the occupation of Gaza ended in 2006 with the withdrawal of Israeli troops and the dismantling of the settlements there. This is erroneous. An ongoing siege that confines a population to a small territory cut off from the rest of the world and that is repeatedly punctuated by bombardment and invasion is indistinguishable from an occupation, a view with strong support in both International and Israeli law.

Conclusion

The claim that the conflict is insoluble because of the tribalism on each side and the purported religious roots of the conflict obfuscates the actual material goals of each side, goals that can at least be partially met via compromise. The settlements, the confiscation of land, the network of checkpoints that impede free movement by Palestinians, control of the borders between the territories and their Arab neighbors, seizure of valuable natural resources, most especially water, all have a clear, material goal: increasing the level of control that Israel has over the Palestinian people and increasing Israel's own strategic depth vis-à-vis its neighbors. Hamas also has outlined clear material goals (based on international law) the satisfaction of which would lead to a long term truce. A treaty that met the material goals of the Palestinian people while at the same time giving Israel security from its neighbors would make the settlements and checkpoints unnecessary and would allow the Palestinians to rebuild their lives, undermining calls for further violence on both sides. The Palestinians have a clear record of supporting a resolution to the conflict on the basis of international law. It is Israel that remains recalcitrant in regards to its obligations and we have a duty, as Americans whose government has given so much support to Israel, to hold it accountable.

It has been pointed out that a great deal of the outrage over the conflict in the Middle East is selective and that the focus on Israel is due not to a concern for human rights but to a hatred of Jews. Even if true, this is beside the point. Haters gonna hate. People quite often do the right thing for the wrong reason. The question is what motivates you to take notice and take sides. And have no doubt; not taking sides when a civilian population is facing siege and bombardment IS taking sides- against them.

Why I am Against the Drone War

For the current policy of drone war against suspected terrorists around the world to be morally justified it must, as a necessary condition, pass muster before the bar of at least one of the commonly accepted moral theories: consequentialism, deontology, and virtue theory.

From a consequentialist (i.e. 'ends justify the means') perspective, the drone war is justified if and only if it will result in the deaths of less people than would die if it were not pursued.  This saving of lives would occur via a combination of having prevented terror attacks that would resulted in mass casualties, saving infrastructure that is vital to the well being of people, and allowing a higher level of education in the targeted countries (this consideration would primarily apply to Pakistan and Afghanistan).  The administration and its supporters have not presented a convincing case for this net saving of lives.  There is, in fact, good reason to be skeptical that the drone war is even having a significant effect in reducing terrorism, let alone creating a net surplus of saved lives, as described in this article.  

Someone may object that the drone war costs less lives than either a full or partial invasion.  But this is a false dichotomy.  There are other options besides the drone war, including complete disengagement (i.e. dealing with terror related issues as law enforcement problems within the targeted countries) and special forces operations of the type that killed Bin Laden (which resulted in far fewer civilian casualties than a drone strike).  Both these options would likely result in less civilian casualties than are being created in the drone war.

Someone may object that the Pakistan army cannot handle the problem of terrorism by itself.  First, it is questionable whether it cannot handle terrorism or it simply will not, given the ties between Pakistani military intelligence and various extremist groups.  Second, the US cannot sustain the beat of being the policeman of the world.  It does not have the material resources nor does it have the necessary sophistication to carry out this function while avoiding large civilian casualty tolls.  Besides this, the primary goal of the drone campaign is not secure civil society in Pakistan.  The goal is to secure the US and its citizens at home and abroad.  If the moral calculus is thus narrowed, it is extremely difficult to make the case that the drone war is saving more lives than it is taking.  Pakistan, if it is to survive, needs to take care of its own security needs.  The negative social and political consequences of US military intervention are already being felt and will only worsen as the drone war continues. As long as America is giving aid to that army it should, of course, insist that certain goals are met (i.e. actually protecting its civilian population), but these goals must be met in a manner consistent with international human rights agreements that both countries recognize. Apart from that, aid aimed at revitalizing the Pakistani economy and providing for a more prosperous and educated citizenry is the best that America can do to help Pakistan in the long term.

From a deontological, or duty/rights-based, perspective, there is little that can be said in defense of the drone war.  It certainly cannot be made a universal maxim that all males of a certain age in a kill zone be treated as targets. The civilians who are killed in the course of the drone war are not being treated as ends in themselves but as mere things ('collateral damage').  The drone war has even adopted the 'double-tap' tactic long associated with terrorists in order to target aid workers and thus discourage the natural human instinct to help victims of a disaster.  The targets themselves are also denied the procedural rights that they are guaranteed by universal human rights conventions and, in some cases, by the US constitution.  This is a situation that cannot be justified by invoking the categorical imperative, the golden rule, Felix Adler's ethical maxim ("always act so as to elicit the best in others and thereby yourself"), or other accounts of ethics in terms of duty.

What can virtue theory tell us about the drone war?  In Aristotle's account, a virtue is the mid-point on a continuum of behavior the ends of which are vices.  If you donate too much to charity (i.e. to the point that it harms you and those dependent on you) you have manifested the vice of prodigality.  If you give to little, you are miserly.  If you consistently give the maximal amount that you can sustain without harming yourself or those dependent on you, you have attained the virtue of liberality.  

This scheme can be applied to the policy response to the problem of terrorism.  There is a continuum of such responses, the poles of which represent inaction to the point of criminal neglect and total destruction of the civilian areas in which terrorists pursue their campaigns.  It goes without saying that both of these poles are vicious.  The virtuous mean on this spectrum is identical to that policy that will achieve the goal effectively hampering terrorism while minimizing to the utmost civilian casualties.  The question to be asked is: Does the drone war meet this criteria?  With at least two other viable options (criminal investigation and special operations) available, both of which are likely to result in less civilian deaths than drone strikes, it is very difficult to answer that question in the affirmative.

To sum up: if the drone war is to be justified, it must be acceptable according to at least one of the generally accepted ethical theories.  A justification on deontological grounds is unlikely if not impossible, a justification on consequentialist grounds hinges on evidence that is, at the current time, doubtful at best, and a justification on the grounds of virtue theory could only be obtained after experience shows that less violent strategies have failed.  I therefore cannot support the drone war and must reject it as immoral.

Islam and Race Relations

Towards the end of my first marriage, my soon-to-be ex told me that she should have married another Pakistani because he would understand her better. We never had disagreements directly about race, so I assume this is a judgement about the overall trend of my behavior. Because I was consciously adopting a Pakistani identity I no doubt engaged in too much essenctializing, reducing the complex phenomena of Pakistani culture to easily adopted symbols. The increased intensity of my commitment to Islam which followed upon my trip to Lahore and Islamabad also contributed to the deterioration of our relationship, for related reasons. I fastened on to the Islamic identity of Pakistan while that aspect of Pakistan was what she disliked the most. She favored the elements of continuity with the shared culture of India, even learning Bharatnatyam.

I've had to struggle with this issue since I first converted to Islam. I always felt bad when my brothers (or my then wife) would call me "the white guy?" Didn't they get the message that I wasn't white anymore? Didn't they see my long scraggly beard, my kufi, my shalwar-kameez? Didn't they see the kafiyyah I wore in solidarity with my Occupied brothers and sisters in Palestine? I got called the same names they did, "rag-head," "sand-nigger," and what not. Why couldn't they get with the program? Now, of course, I see how pretentious and narcissistic this was. I think the comments that I received that I was more Pakistani than Pakistani people may have been a good-natured attempt to get me see the reality of my position. In the end, I could shave my beard and switch back to jeans and a t-shirt. They were stuck with their skin-colour, facial features, and names. It's not good to humour someone with an obsessive "Dances with Wolves" complex.

While not a major problem in my current marriage, there have been some flare ups. There has never been an argument over specific things that I have said, but my comments here and there left her with a nagging feeling that I look at her in a paternalistic way. The problem for me is two fold: I have to look at myself, my actions, my words and determine what truth there is in her statement and I have to express my reply in a way that will not strengthen the very suspicions that it is meant to alleviate.

Zizek mentioned the need to get beyond the paternalistic multicultural bullshit that keeps us from connecting as individuals (the my culture is great, your culture is great syndrome). But it is sometimes that connection that leads to a more intense racial feeling; when we feel connected, we express ourselves more freely. When we express ourselves more freely, we are more likely to say something that will be misconstrued or that becomes demeaning due to the social position of the person making the statement. Should I then retreat into the multicultural bubble, expressing my admiration for her culture or, to be more precise, for the strength of Indian women? Is that not patronizing as well? Zizek's answer to this conundrum was to form a new solidarity based on struggle. It may not be a panacea, but I think it will be an effective response not just to the problem of inter-cultural or inter-racial marriages, but to solidarity within the Muslim and American communities. We can unite together in the struggle to build a strong family, to deal with the serious issues facing the Muslim community,to confront the flagrant injustice that constitutes the social fabric in America.

Who am I?

I am a white convert to Islam. I have written elsewhere of my conversion to Islam giving the rational arguments I found persuasive, describing my experience as an activist against the Occupation of Palestine and against the Iraq War as essential in framing the emotional structure which made my conversion posible. These considerations are true as far as they go, but they are incomplete. I am a white convert to Islam. That needs to be foregrounded to understand the innerworkings of the process of deliberation that resulted in my choice. My conversion can be fruitfully interpreted as a fetishistic disavowal of my own whiteness. Filled with rage at the rank injustices perpetrated against the “third world” abroad and against people of color at home, I sought to distance myself from the cultural and social order that were responsible and, if possible, acquired oppression. Michael Muhammad Knight has written on this phenomenon in his articles for Muslim Wake Up!, so this may not be surprising to some of my readers. I do think that there was something deeper going on here than a case of bad conscience. I never, for example, disavowed my Appalachian heritage or my Irish heritage or my German heritage. I think that I was attempting to give up my status as a pure cartesian subject, a universal man, and embrace a new particularity. The category of white, in western culture at least, is the category of the cartesian subject. It alone is universal, free from history but engaged in the conversation of ideas. All other identities, black, Arab, Indian, Muslim, Jewish, are particular, contingent, bound up inextricably in their specific histories and struggles. The problem, of course, is that this transforms white people into rootless cyphers with no history, no sense of the past while at the same time making it possible to exclude those assigned a particular identity from category of universal humanity that are recognized as the bearers of human rights. It doesn't just suck to be you. It sucks to be. I think this phenomena is profoundly illustrated by the late history of Judaism. From the enlightenment until the rise of the Nazis, the Jewish struggle was to define themselves a cartesian, universal men, as members of a cosmopolitan society free from the particularities of their religion and ethnicity. Judaism itself began to take on this character, transforming, in the guise of Reform Judaism, into a universal monotheism. The Jewish mission then became of one of being the apostles of universality. The failure of this project, culminating in the rise of the Nazis, launched the Jewish people onto a new trajectory: they now seek to particularize themselves, their culture, language and religion. The acme of this particularization is the State of Israel, the ultimate state of exception.

I am a white convert to Islam. I fell in love with a woman of Pakistani descent. This sustained my interest in Islam and, along with my inability to accept the sordid fruit of Zionism, resulted in my rejection of Judaism as a viable religious choice. This is ironic, given that, like many Pakistani women born in this country, her relationship with Islam was and is strained at best. Regardless, I loved her madly, she reciprocated in her own way and we married. The following years were varied in their emotional texture but I recall them as happy. I desperately embraced a Pakistani identity, learning Urdu, reading up on the history and culture of Pakistan, enjoying urdu poetry, listening to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Junoon. I even embraced the appropriate even-handed apologetic stance when the subject of the 1971 civil war was brought up. Despite all of this, there were fundamental illusions underpinning are relationship and failings of character on both sides. We divorced and I had to come to terms with my immediate lack of identity once Pakistan had been subtracted from me.

For a time, I seriously considered leaving Islam. I stopped using my muslim name, flirted in my quiet way with non-Muslim girls, didn't pray very much, etc. My Muslim identity was saved by the fortuitous advent of Ramadan and the considerable amount of time that members of the Muslim Student Association spent with me. I swallowed my doubts, completed my degree, went to work in the community. I got married again. But a doubt deferred, like a dream, explodes.

And that brings me to this current project. The only way to find closure, one way or another, is for me to write about and explore the cracks I see in the edifice in Islam. To explore also my own inner life and the hidden springs of my intentions. Some of this blog will be political, some philosophical, some polemical, some personal. I welcome your comments, for and against, Muslim, Atheist, Christian, Hindu, Jew.

I will say, quite clearly, that I am not Irshad Manji. I am not Ibn Warraq. I am not Ayan Hirsi Ali. I still love my Muslim friends and I still see good in the community and beauty in the religion. I am categorically and unequivocally against imperialism, sexism, and racism in all of their forms. I am a hard-core anti-Capitalist and unrepentent Leftist. What brings me to this present venture is my growing feeling that this is simply not enough. To quote Rage Against the Machine, “I'm a truth addict, oh shit I gotta head rush.” I need to reconcile the contradictions I see, in the intellectual edifice of Islam itself, between the ideology of Islam and empirical reality, between the ideals and the practice of the Muslim community. This last is complicated; it is not that Muslims fail to live up to the perfect ideals of Islam. Often, I see Muslims behaving virtuously and courageously in spite of Islam. This especially true when it comes to the rights of women, where I see many people desperately seeking justification in texts for the upright actions dictated by their hearts.