Abraham Miller says that Tocqueville would have recognized what is going on in Gaza quite well:
…there is the constituency comprised of those groups who are so wedded to the embrace of victims — real and imaginary — that the most despicable violence is not an act of evil, but a cause for investigation; a statement written in desperate measures by desperate people. Once a group such as Hamas has been defined as a victim, then its acts have to be explored, dissected, explained, rationalized, put into a context, but never condemned. Victims are, by such groups’ definitions, incapable of evil.
For four decades I have been attending forums on the Middle East conducted by liberal church congregations, colleges and universities, self-anointed peace and justice groups, and the usual gaggle of what are referred to as “the good people.” These people and their groups are intrinsic to the terrorists’ strategy. Their rationales for terrorist violence are vital to the continued use of violence. These so-called “good people” are the conduit to evil, and they are invariably self-proclaimed “progressives” or “liberals.”
All terrorist groups want people who will ask, “Why?” They want people who have long ago forsaken moral judgments for moral relativism. They want the guy who will stand up at the PTA meeting and say, “9/11 is the result of our foreign policy,” and not conceive of the possibility that he is uttering a cliché he could not intellectually defend, but think he is being profound.
It is not just that such people, by justifying violence, contribute to the continued perpetuation of violence, but also by being partisans for evil, they have given up the claim to be honest brokers for peace. In the case of liberal church groups, they have become so supportive of Palestinian terrorism that they would be incapable of being a broker for serious engagements or dialogues for peace. Does anyone think that the leadership of the Presbyterian Church, for example, exudes any moral authority when it comes to the Middle East? They are simply another militia, albeit one that justifies other people doing the killing they tacitly support.
They’re not anti-war. They’re just on the other side.
Can someone be “on the other side” without knowing they are on the other side? If you asked one of these “our foreign policy caused 9/11” people whether they support terrorism, they’ll say no. If you ask them whether they want Hamas to fire rockets into Israel, they’ll say no. If you ask one of them whether he or she is are side of the (pick one or multiples) terrorists/Al Queda/Hamas/Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims, they’ll say “No, I’m on the side of peace.” (I’ve tried this, they say “I’m on the side of peace” so often that you’d think it was distributed as talking points.) It *is* thought-provoking to say “they are on the other side”, but it seems a bit unfair and inaccurate as well.
Being an apologist for terrorism by saying “they did it because they are oppressed” isn’t the same thing as saying “the terrorists have good tactics and I support killing innocent people”. It is wrong, but it isn’t the same.
Sorry for the typos and failed edits.
Oh, and if you ask “why don’t they protest Hamas the way they protest Israel”, they’ll answer two ways: 1) some will say Hamas isn’t listening while Israel is, and 2) many will give the “not in our name” answer, which points out that while they are against violence everywhere, they are especially against violence that their tax dollars pay for or is otherwise conducted on their behalf (violence conducted “in their name”). Israel is seen as a US client state/ally/recipient of US aid/beneficiary of government aid to US aerospace firms, etc, and Israel’s armed forces as well as our own armed forces are singled out for conducting violence “in their name”. To that extent, the church groups realize that they are on our side, and are trying to to change their side’s behavior.
Sometimes they say “Hamas provides daycare” 😉
Well, there’s a simple response to that. You can’t fix a problem by only dealing with one side. If you want to change the behavior of Israel, then you need to change the behavior of the other players in the Middle East as well.
Karl, you’re right. If I was trying to make a counter-argument for their side, I’d say something like “well, truly good religious Muslims will advocate for peace on the Arab side, and we at our church will advocate for peace on our side”. I’ve argued with a lot of the “not in our name” people, and I don’t recall that I’ve ever heard anyone actually make this argument, but I think that’s what they might say. It goes back to the “Hamas isn’t listening and Israel is listening” argument. But admittedly the conversations usually just stay focussed on the USA and Israel.
Can someone be “on the other side” without knowing they are on the other side?
Geez, of course, Bob, just the way you can commit murder (2nd or 3rd degree) without intending to kill.
If merely having good ultimate intentions were enough to get anyone off the hook, scot-free, why, nearly none of us would be sinners. I believe even Hitler and Stalin had good ultimate intentions, in their own minds at least.
Actions are what matter. Your reports of your conscious intentions are interesting secondary phenomena, at best.
Or, to put it another way, we all have an obligation to ensure that our actions have effects consistent with our stated goals. Sort of a Hippocratic Oath for bystanders: if you don’t know what you’re doing, and what you’re doing might cause harm, then keep your mouth shut and sit down.
Carl, doesn’t 2nd and 3rd degree murder (& voluntary manslaughter all concern intent and state of mind? I thought that to be convicted of any of the above, you must intend to at least harm the victim OR to have a completely callous disregard for human life. So, with murder, it isn’t the case that “actions are what matter”.
I hesitate to say this for fear of offending someone, but if actions were the only things that mattered, friendly fire would be equivalent to being on the enemies’ side. So, yeah, liberal that I am, I think intent matters.
Intent matters, but consequences matter more. That’s why even involuntary manslaughter is prosecuted as a crime.
Sure, Bob, if you intend to kill someone, you get put away longer. If you do not intend to kill, but are merely criminally careless — e.g. you fling bricks off a rooftop for some noble purpose, and one of them kills someone below — then you’re still guilty of murder. You just get a lesser sentence.
Similarly, if you kill your own troops by “friendly fire” while supposedly aiming at the enemy, you’re still going to get cashiered, maybe even sent to the stockade. You just won’t get hanged for treason as you would if you’d intended the damage.
So you can certainly look at intentions as aggravating or extenuating circumstances, if you like, useful in enhancing or moderating your response to an action. But the plain definition of the action doesn’t change, regardless of intent. It’s what it does that determines how we label it, not what you intend that it do.
So, yeah, liberal that I am, I think intent matters.
Of course it matters. It just doesn’t matter nearly as much as actions. You need to get that thoroughly straightened out in your head before your children reach the teenage years, let me warn you, or you are going to get teen-lawyered to death and (1) give up all semblance of parental guidance or (2) explode in the other direction and turn into a fascist. Be warned!
…provided certain other factors are found present, if I’m not mistaken.
Bob, as a Marxist might say, they are objectively pro-terrorist, whether they think they are or not.
Bob,
Your intent here is good, but ultimately the consequences of your argument are negative….
OK, seriously…
Groups like the sheep-minded churchies who bleat for peace even as they excuse the behavior of depraved terrorists (got a better description for Hamas?) cannot excuse themselves from the consequences of their behavior simply because their hearts are pure. Unless they are completely oblivious to the consequences of their tolerance/support of such groups (and if they are, that is an excellent reason to excoriate them for abysmal stupidity and ignorance), they cannot deny that their actions have an impact, and often a negative one at that, no matter how noble their intent. If I felt that by blowing up shopping malls I would be making the world a better place (shopping malls are filled with mindless consumers who unfairly monopolize the worlds resources) I would be at best deluded, and at worst evil. That my intentions would be noble (we will assume for a moment that I sincerely believed this) would be irrelevant in the context of any possible defense.
With all of that said, I am not even sure that all of these groups have such noble intents. Some of them are simply in thrall to an ideology that demands that the West must ALWAYS be wrong, and thus tolerate or actively support groups that oppose the West as a matter of belief. Some are simply cowards who unwilling to confront evil, hope that by pretending it isn’t there (and stifling those who know better) that they will be spared the horrors of fighting it. Others are indeed antisemites (NO, not all opposing Israeli actions are antisemites, but some certainly are), and actually think that killing Jewish civilians is a great idea. Peace protestors come in all flavors (go watch an ANSWER rally someday, it is an education), and they cannot all hide behind the respectable ones with pure hearts.
There is a general historical consensus that the appeasers of the 1930s set the stage for the horrors of WWII, and those appeasers (many, not all, of whom had good hearts and noble motives) are regarded as fools at best, and accomplices at worst. Without invoking Godwin’s Law (I wouldn’t insult Nazis by comparing them with Hamas), I suspect that if we are fortunate enough to surive this latest round of barbarity, today’s useful idiots may be seen in the same light.
Intent might matter, but it is not an excuse…
I have an acquaintance who is one of the “…they [terrorists] attack us / Israel / western nations because they are oppressed…” believers. After this current fracas started, he was hide bound to talk to me about it.
After several go arounds I asked him why he was so worried about Hamas and Israel, after Mexican drug dealers had attacked a Border Patrol Office on the border in New Mexico!!!
he:
“they are objectively pro-terrorist, whether they think they are or not.”
George Orwell wrote a famous essay on precisely that point, in which he ripped a big new one for some pacifists who advocated surrendering to Hitler.
wrong button alert!!
continuing from above
After several go arounds I asked him why he was so worried about Hamas and Israel, after Mexican drug dealers had just attacked and blown up a Border Patrol Office on the border in New Mexico!!!
he: WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN!!!
me: About 45 minutes ago, just saw it on CNN.
he: Well what the hell is that idiot Bush doin about it!!
me: He’s going to talk with the Ambassador from Mexico.
he: We oughta go in there and burn down a few a them border towns, then build that damn wall and dare them to do complain about it!!!
When I told him I lied about the drug dealers, and that his response was the same as Israel’s to being bombed by Hamas’ rocketeers, he stomped off.
If I’m lucky he’ll never speak to me again.
For myself, I think that the double standards employed by most pacifists are in themselves enough to demonstrate that they are on the other side.
> Victims are, by such groups’ definitions, incapable of evil
Just follow the rules!
Carl, you wrote:
Sure, Bob, if you intend to kill someone, you get put away longer. If you do not intend to kill, but are merely criminally careless — e.g. you fling bricks off a rooftop for some noble purpose, and one of them kills someone below — then you’re still guilty of murder. You just get a lesser sentence.
The usual requirement for murder, at least in the state of California, is that someone ends another’s life and that there is “malice aforethought”, intent to kill. Gross negligence with a complete disregard for human life, I think, qualifies as malice aforethought. It’s been a while since I had that jury duty and it wasn’t a case of death through negligence. I believe criminal negligence, at least in California is a lesser standard and isn’t considered malice aforethought. I believe the broad categories are similar in most states to California.
Coming to the brick flinging example above, if you had a drunk buddy “looking out” for pedestrians, but failing to spot the poor sap who walked into harm’s way, then there’s a good chance a jury might not consider you to have malice aforethought. Odds are very good though that the prosecutor wouldn’t agree.
What concerns me is idiots in large groups.
Let me explain:
With the internet, like minded people are able to find each other, organize, and are able to direct their energies towards these movements.
The willfully ignorant ones are able to aid the evil ones.
We seem to be moving ever further from a time when stupid actions carried an immediate price.
Suppose the Jews just went away like these groups want them to.
Why are they unable to contemplate what happens next? Or even, the pure evil of what they want to happen to the nation of Israel?
Sorry, just spiraling.
> Carl, doesn’t 2nd and 3rd degree murder (& voluntary manslaughter all concern intent and state of mind?
The reason for doing so is a presumption that folks who don’t intend to kill need less “discouraging”, that they just need to be shown the error of their ways.
When someone persists in doing something that has an effect, it’s absurd to give them the benefit of that presumption. Whether or not they “intend” the result, they’re continuing to produce it.
One might even argue that such folks should get even more “discouraging” than folks who intend evil.