The nature of war is that people are unfortunately killed. At best you hope its only your enemy’s soldiers, but inevitably non-enemy combatants are also caught up in the carnage. Israel's current anti-terrorist operations in Lebanon and Gaza sadly are no exception.
Israel's usual armchair bashers equate this unintentional killing of non-combatants with state terrorism. The underdeveloped intellects of some intellectuals, particularly those on the Left, consider the degree of criminality for killing civilians equal no matter what the circumstances. Where Israel is concerned, they seem to be stuck in the lowest stage of Kohlberg’s moral development theory.
Lawrence Kohlberg, a pioneer in the field of ethical psychology, conceived 6 stages to explain the development of moral reasoning in children. In the first stage, the most primitive, the morality of a person’s behaviour is judged only on its consequences. This can be illustrated by the simplistic response typically given by very young children to the following moral dilemma.
If one man intentionally spills a small amount of juice on a carpet, but another man unintentionally spills a much larger amount on the same carpet, who should receive the harsher rebuke? A child with stage 1 moral reasoning would respond that the one who made the greater mess should receive the greater punishment. At this level of development the child cannot yet identify intention as a significant factor in culpability. He sees only the consequences.
Much of the intelligentsia in South Africa has exhibited the same level of reasoning in their excessive and disproportional castigation of Israel. Just because Israel has caused the greater destruction (in lives and infrastructure) does not make it guilty of the greater crime. The context of this destruction is crucial in arriving at a moral judgement of Israel’s actions.
Forces of an internationally outlawed militia, operating illegally in Lebanon, crossed a U.N. designated border and deliberately kidnapped and killed Israeli soldiers. This attack was totally unprovoked (The usual resisting occupation justification is not applicable this time as Israel withdrew completely from Lebanon in 2000). It subsequently transpired that Hezbollah had been amassing a stock pile of over 12 000 missiles that makes 2 million Israelis cannon fodder for their reign of terror.
Any sane and responsible government would have used whatever amount of force was necessary to neutralise this threat. The situation has however been complicated by the fact that Hezbollah has been using Lebanese civilian areas as launching pads and storage sites for their rockets in contravention of international law. Thus Israel is faced with the difficult moral dilemma of destroying these rockets and potentially killing innocent Lebanese civilians or not responding militarily and potentially allowing Hezbollah to kill thousands of innocent Israeli civilians. To limit the potential loss of Lebanese life Israel called on Lebanese civilians to leave their homes. But in many cases this call was not heeded and they paid the ultimate price.
What else could the Jewish State have done short of capitulating in this difficult situation? Anyone with a reasonably developed moral reasoning would be able to see this. Israel’s bombs may not be as smart as we would hope but its critics are far more dense.
Comments