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Yehoshua Versus Levy
By Josh Strawn / January 16, 2009
Despite the gracious and fraternal tone of A.B. Yehoshua’s letter to Gideon Levy in Haaretz, the concluding paragraph has a curious effect on the letter’s contents:
Please, preserve the moral authority and concern that you possessed, and your distinctive voice. We will need them again in the future, which promises further ordeals on the road to peace. In the meantime, it would be best for us all – we and the Palestinians and the rest of the world – to follow the simple moral imperative of Kantian philosophy: "Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.
Curious because, well, one may as well condescendingly remind an astronomer of the Ptolemaic model of the solar system, and implore them to apply it across the board. Kant was a great thinker on the limits of reason and a compelling enough moral thinker on many fronts, but the categorical imperative is only his famous, not the most useful of his contributions. Most have heard of it, but few have heard of the Problem of the Enquiring Murderer. It goes like this: according to the Kantian imperative, we should all tell the truth all the time. So what if a murderer asks you to disclose the location of a person he wants to kill? The imperative neglects the fact that two notions of the good can often conflict. Many of our most fiercely debated issues of the day hinge on how adamant one is about the correctness of his or her judgment regarding which of several conflicting goods is greatest. Take Iraq, for instance. It can hardly be disputed that civilian casualties and a five year occupation are bad and that it would have been good to have avoided both. And yet, the discontinued existence of Saddam Hussein’s regime is a good thing, too. Tempers rise and explode over this question of conflicting goods. Kant is of no use to us in these moments…unless one hopes to lend the sheen of universality to one’s own assessment of the good. Perhaps it is to my slight advantage that I’m not familiar enough with Levy’s coverage of the current conflict in Gaza to make a fair assessment of whether Yehoshua’s criticisms are fair. To read only the letter, I’m led to conclude that the two have agreed on many key points in the past with regards to Israeli wrongdoing, but that now Yehoshua feels Levy has overstepped the bounds from rational critic to unfair detractor of a just war. He goes on to note several instances where Levy’s omissions or judgments have undermined his once-laudable moral authority. But there is sleight of hand here. Despite the fact that many of the most honest pro-Israeli intellectuals doubt the ability of the current military campaign to effectively deter future missile strikes, Yehoshua writes:
All we are trying to do is get their leaders to stop this senseless and wicked aggression, and it is only because of the tragic and deliberate mingling between Hamas fighters and the civilian population that children, too, are unfortunately being killed.
just moments after he points out that he has asked Levy whether he
truly believe[s] that if they fire missiles the crossings will be opened, or the opposite. And whether you truly believe that it is right and just to open crossings into Israel for those who declare openly and sincerely that they want to destroy our country.
The consistency Yehoshua demands of Levy would require the realization that the tactics are either both futile or they are both justifiable. But then Yehoshua implies something of great import in the latter statement without coming right out and saying it: Hamas can’t be persuaded or dealt with because it its ideology is genocidal and irrational. But if this is so, as I believe it is, then one must also accept that, unless Israel plans to oust Hamas and occupy Gaza (the America-in-Iraq model), no amount of force can be truly thought to be accomplishing forseeable objectives. It is, then, as pointless and doomed to impotence as are Hamas’ rocket attacks designed to "open the crossings." The most depressing thing about the current conflict and the coverage of it is that time and again we are offered two competing visions of the good and treated as if we must be categorical about one or the other. And always the implication from each side rings, as Yehoshua’s letter does, of sanctimony and myopia. But Kant had a better lesson. His second formulation of moral law suggests that we treat each individual rational being as an end in itself, never as a mere means to an end. By adhering to this formula, one is permitted to insist on both supposedly competing visions of the good, while also insisting that no rational being be treated as merely a means to that end. One can argue for an end to dual stranglehold on Gaza by Hamas and Israel, remain opposed to Islamist fanaticism as well as colonialism, while remaining opposed to every casualty inflicted as players on each side cynically treat Israeli and Palestinian civilians as means to their supposed end.
POST A COMMENT
If Levy had also supported an end to the rocket bombardemnt in Sderot,
it might have helped halt the rockets which are the cause of the
current war.
Yes, I’m sure a big consideration for Hamas in deciding whether or not to let the rocket fire continue was, "what does Gideon Levy think about it?"
That seems quite likely to me.
Gideon Levy’s refusal to condemn a single episode of terror against Israel demonstrates that he is a foe of the Jewish state. I would place some of the blame of the current violence in Gaza upon Levy, by giving moral support to Hamas. If Levy had also supported an end to the rocket bombardemnt in Sderot, it might have helped halt the rockets which are the cause of the current war.
Gideon Levys feelings toward Sderot have previously been stated in history
1954, Chaim Cohen, attorney general of Israel "And lo, they were meant but to be taken like sheep for slaughter, for killing, for destruction, for crushing and shame. There was no spirit in them. The Jewihs masses in Warsaw were in the same condition"
1943, Joseph Goebbels "In our attitude toward the Jews, there must be no squeamish sentimentalism"
1937, Chaim Weizmann "They are dust in a cruel world. They must meet their fate. Ony a branch will survive. They must accept it"
What if we dont want to accept the pronouncements of Levy et al?
is a weak argument. To honestly believe that Palestinians should be dying now for a choice they made in 2006, you’d have to willfully disregard all of the following:
* Fatah was (and, by the way, still is) an incredibly corrupt organization, inheriting its habits of embezzlement and fraud from Arafat’s own PLO. Though it’s not for anyone to say why Palestinians voted for Hamas, it’s not as if they were voting on a referndum which said "choose yes or no: israel should be destroyed."
*Hamas won the election by a mere three percentage points, or about 30,000 votes — they didn’t even gain a plurality. What do you say to all of the Palestinians who voted for Fatah? I sense you’ve slipped too easily from "Palestinians who voted for Hamas are guilty" to "Palestinians are guilty," which may betray something about your real feelings in the matter.
*Finally, Gazans are currently ruled by military fiat. The democratic elections held in 2006 have been discontinued, with no hope in sight for their reinstatement. So, with no recourse to collectively change their minds, (should they want to — again, we can’t know) how long do Gazans deserve punishment? At what point does their vote expire?
As for what you see on your tv screen…I guarantee Palestinians and people around the world are treated quite often to images of Israeli soldiers (whom you and I know to be frightened young people in difficult situations) resorting to unnecessary violence all the time. It’s in the media’s interest to display those sensational images. But I bet, like me, you hope that people around the world will take them with a grain of salt, and not extrapolate that Israelis are monsters. Would you not extend the same courtesy to Palestinians?
As for force, when it comes to the West Bank I don’t know what you’re talking about. As for Kosovo…time will tell, but I don’t see many parallels between that situation and Gaza beyond force itself.
The Palestinian people elected Gaza knowing that Gaza’s charter openly calls for the destruction of Israel and murdering of Jews. Do you and the commentors thaink that they are mentally incompetent? They made a choice and must live (or die) by it. Do you think that they didn’t know what they are doing?This is gross paternalism.
These same "innocent" civilians are the same ones who we see on our TV screens celebrating when Israelis buses are blown up or children or murdered. I personally find it very hard to pity them.
As for the force option it worked very well in the west bank and recently in Kosovo also.
I’m not a Kantian for all sorts of reasons but I don’t find the enquiring murderer thought experiment terribly compelling.
Under the categorical imperative, one is prohibited from lying, but it doesn’t follow from that that one is obligated to say anything at all. Indeed, given the way you set up the thought experiment — i.e., the responder knows the questioner is a murderer — the responder would be categorically obligated to keep silent.
Further, ideas of the universalisability of ethical theory aren’t restricted to Kant or even to deontological meta-ethics, and they are of invaluable use to us precisely at such times as these. A bit more reflection on what is entailed by genuine commitment to an ethical proposition might have spared us the disgusting rationalisations of torture we’ve been inundated with these last few years.
It’s funny you call an occupation of Gaza the "America-in-Iraq" model. There is, of course, an older and more accurate model: the "Israel in Gaza" model.
 I appreciate your desire to get beyond two simplistic and competing visions of the (now perhaps concluded) Gaza war. But isn’t it another oversimplification to refer to Hamas as uniformly "genocidal and irrational?"
It’s true that so far Israel has been unable to reach a ceasefire with Hamas. But Hamas has been to the negotiating table a few times, to weigh its options. Is this the act of an "irrational" entity? Maybe it’s only rational from a tactical perspective, and there is no moral rationality underlying it (although I find it unlikely that such a rare attitude could have been absorbed by an entire organization). Regardless, to open and close the book on Hamas with such a short description isn’t really doing the organization justice.
If you do think that Hamas only has rational foresight for political or strategic objectives that still lead toward annhilation of Israel, why does it necessarily fall out that only a re-occupation of Gaza can achieve peace? It’s telling that you say that "no amount of force" can persuade Hamas to lay down arms — without mentioning that so far, Israel has only tried varying degrees of force. Now that Israel has reestablished credible deterrence with Hamas, isn’t there a window of opportunity to use something besides the (as you say, unworkable) "force" option? If sealing the border reinforced Hamas’s support amongst Gazans, is it worth opening the crossings somewhat to see whether this might not weaken Hamas?
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