Kevin Williamson, who I hold my nose to even quote here:
The suffering of the noncombatant civilians in Gaza is an outrage and an offense against decency—one that is being carried out by the Arab warlords and mafiosi of Gaza, not by the Jewish state. One need not think well of Benjamin Netanyahu (and I think his time has passed) to be perplexed, as I am perplexed, by polite world opinion regarding the Israeli government’s responsibility in this war, which was a war of the Arabs’ choosing, launched by a massacre of civilians accompanied by the torture and rape of civilians. […]
The Palestinians cannot choose war and then pretend that they have not also chosen the consequences of war that are currently on disturbing display in Gaza. You buy the ticket, you take the ride—and that holds true for the acquiescent Palestinian population at large as much as it does for Hamas per se.
There’s just one problem, Kevin (several actually, but let’s pick one that you can’t not know): the utter meaninglessness, let alone exculpatory power, of the phrase “a war of the Arabs’ choosing,” especially given the fact that you are arguing — correctly, I think, from my own armchair — that there is no Palestinian “state” worthy of the title, even if there can and should be.
“To expect the Israelis to proceed as though their own national interests should be subordinated to the humanitarian interests of the people whose political leaders are trying to murder them” is not absurd, Kevin. Subordinating national interests for the sake of humanitarian interests is a pretty big part of the game. It isn’t absurd if you can tie the people directly and meaningfully to the political leaders of a legitimate state, and it’s even less absurd if you can’t. What is absurd is your incessant insinuation that every man, woman, and child in Gaza had it coming. (There’s some deeply troubling kettle logic here that you seem all too content with: “Well, those civilian deaths are tragic, but it’s Hamas’ fault, not ours. And, all those people basically asked for it anyway.”)
As J. Budziszewski (speaking of What You Can’t Not Know) put it in 2001:
The fact that terrorists reject the principles does not justify us in violating them — not even to act against terrorism. By violating them, rather than ridding the world of terrorists we would merely make ourselves the biggest, strongest terrorists of all. Murder remains murder, even when the murdered man might justly have been executed.
Note that in that post he is largely making the case for war. You don’t need to be an anti-Zionist to get here. You don’t need to be a pacifist or an ethicist or a journalist either. A former warehouse worker with a microphone can get it as easily as anyone else.
Jew-hatred disguised as Palestinian support is certainly an ugly problem. But the inability — and here I speak not of Israel but of you, dear journalist — to even want to separate Palestinian civilians and children from Hamas coupled with this cynicism toward anyone who genuinely doesn’t want anyone’s children crushed or mutilated or starved — this is also a massive problem.
I refuse to believe that you can’t find any thoughtful, pro-Israel objectors to the civilian death toll in Gaza. If you can find those folks, it might be the most telling thing of all that you continue not only to write as if they don’t exist but as if they could not possibly exist. I like a lot of your writing and I quote you often, but as I said the last time you peddled this crap, it can only be sheer moral laziness to assume that any milquetoast who blinks in the face of human carnage is just disguising his hatred of Israel.
You once travelled to Springfield, Ohio to diligently counter the bullshit slanders about immigrants there. Rather than assume (and assume and assume and assume), that the whole lot of Palestinian civilians are simply suffering the consequences of a war they “chose,” might I suggest that you close your eyes, lean back in that posh executive office chair of yours, and at least try to imagine traveling to Gaza as you did to Ohio, and just imagine the possibility that you might be overwhelmed by how many people there never wanted this.
And about that Mancur Olson view to which you “very much subscribe” — you should subscribe harder. Olson concludes, by his own theory, “that autocracy is prevented and democracy permitted by the accidents of history that leave a balance of power or stalemate—a dispersion of force and resources that makes it impossible for any one leader or group to overpower all of the others.” You can “face head-on” the conclusion that Palestinians “have not lifted a finger” to improve their plight, that “a single authentic gesture toward real peace” is all that’s missing and all that’s required. In fact, you can headbutt that fact feeling all day if you like, but I doubt your boy Olson would ever have joined you. As far as I can tell, the only “unusually heavy expectations” being thrown around here are yours for the “peace-whenever-they-want-it,” “not-a-lick-of-sense” Palestinians.
So if you can stand to stretch your imagination an inch further, try to conjure up the very noncomplex idea that an internally and externally besieged people without so much as a state to call their home, are no less deserving of unbombed houses than you and your children are.