Here's some ethical principles that seem correct to me: 1. Judge...
· Comment — Archer T. Ships replied to Eva Holtz's comment. · View on Facebook · Markdown source
Here's some ethical principles that seem correct to me: 1. Judge individuals on their own behavior, not on the behavior of others within their group. No collective punishment. That some Jews have committed crimes / evil acts, does not mean that all Jews have committed crimes. Innocent Jews should not be punished for the crimes of other Jews. 2. Murdering a child is evil regardless of murder weapon. Stabbing a child == bombing a child == starving a child to death. 3. Hiring someone to murder on your behalf is also immoral. 4. All humans have equal moral worth. Jewish lives have the same value as Muslim lives (and vice versa). 5. Sometimes you must make decisions where innocent lives will be lost regardless. When facing such a choice, you should try to minimize loss of innocent life. 6. Civilians are not their government. Governments are typically little better than mafias, and force their citizenry to fight (under threat of death), extort money, and otherwise coerce their citizenry to support them. 7. That others behave immorally does not absolve you of behaving ethically yourself. 8. Children are not sufficiently mentally developed to be held fully responsible for their actions. 9. No double standards. You should follow the same ethical standards that you expect others to follow. ----- Yes, many Muslims are in the grip of a pernicious ideology. The behavior of Hamas and other Islamic groups is both immoral and counterproductive. There is no moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas. But they are also not without just grievances. 700,000 Palestinian were forcibly expelled from their homes and into reservations in 1948. If neighboring Arab countries could somehow drive Israelis from their land into small reservations, would they give up without a fight? It seems clear to me that the answer is no. 43% of the Gaza population is under the age of 14. Children cannot vote, and cannot possibly have an influence over the government. They have no hostages to release. The Israeli governmet has cut off food, power, water, and fuel to the Gaza strip. Without clean water, civilians--children--will die of cholera and other diseases. Eventually, they'll die of dehydration and starvation. Starving someone to death, or dooming them to death from preventable disease is ethically the same, to my mind, as putting a bullet in their head. It seems to me that what Israel is doing (threatening / causing the death of innocent women and children to force Hamas to do their bidding) is no different than Hamas holding hostages to force the Israeli government to do their bidding. It's just a more indirect method. Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, 17,000 people per square mile, 140 square miles in area. Practically speaking, there are no places where weapons can be stored without putting civilians at risk from Israeli retaliation. If Jews were similarly trapped in Gaza, they wouldn't be able to avoid using "human shields" much more than Gazans do. (For example, when Jews were trapped in the Warsaw ghetto, they built bunkers and smuggled in weapons and explosives where they were stored near civilians (as they must, by necessity). Now, it may be that taking innocent lives now is the only way to prevent even more innocent loss of life in the future. Hamas is indiscriminately lobbing bombs into Israel, after all, and is willing to kill innocent people on both sides to achieve their ends. However, current behavior doesn't seem like it will reduce future violence. After the Israeli retaliation, there will be a large population (2 million) of young men and women with no homes, no money, no food. Impoverished desparate people with no alternatives seem ripe for radicalization. They will also have a renewed deep desire for revenge, whatever their previous grievances might have been Far from reducing future violence, it seems to me that Israel is stoking the fires for even more violence in the future. What could the Israeli government do instead? 1. Do nothing, for now. I realize that remaining calm is hard when the fires of vengeance are burning so hot. But sometimes doing nothing is the best thing to do. Taking action when you're angry often results in counter-productive behavior. Of course, easy to say, hard to do. And the US is certainly no model of behavior in this regard. But can any rational person say that the war in Afghanistan was a success? That it made the US safer? I would argue that it's a definitive "No". 2. Offer substantial bounties for the capture of all perpetrators of the attacks and the leadership of Hamas. This has been done to some degree for the top level leaders, but it could be done to a much greater degree than it has to date. 2. Bribe other countries to take in Gaza citizens. There are many impoverished countries that would likely take them in if bribed to do so. Not all Gazans would agree to leave, of course, but many of them would, especially if they were given sufficient funds to start their life anew somewhere else.