Over at The Debate Link, David, discussing the kidnapping of BBC reporter Alan Johnston, writes:
An interesting article in the UK’s Telegraph asks what the media would do had Israeli forces, rather than Palestinians, abducted a BBC crew. Suffice to say, media coverage would be rather different.
Well, the phrase “Israeli forces” usually refers to Israel’s armed forces, part of the Israeli government. I would hope that if the Israeli government kidnapped a journalist, media coverage would be rather different, compared to the coverage of an obscure terrorist splinter group kidnapping a journalist. These are two very different news stories, and they shouldn’t be treated alike.
And they aren’t treated alike — but not in the way David is implying. Judging from the article David approvingly links to, David expects that the press would pay more attention to, and be more condemning of, Israeli forces kidnapping1 a reporter. David provides not a single fact or example to support this belief.
So what would happen? For a start, when Israeli forces kidnap a journalist, no one calls it a kidnapping: it’s called an “arrest.”
Palestinian journalist, Awad Rajoub, a reporter for Al Jazeera’s Arabic-language Web site was held by Israeli authorities for close to six months [in 2006] after being accused by the military of “threatening state security.” Rajoub was arrested on 30 November 2005, at which time his computer and mobile phone were seized. He was released on 24 May after an Israeli court ruled there was insufficient evidence to send him to trial.2
Rajoub, who also writes for the Qatari-based Al-Sharq newspaper and the Islam Online Web site, said that he was beaten during his detention.
I did a Nexis search and found that in the two months following his arrest, Rajoub was mentioned exactly twice in major newspapers; neither mention was over 150 words, and neither mention was at all disapproving of Israel’s action.3
In contrast, Nexis found 248 mentions of “Alan Johnston” in conjunction with “Gaza” in the two months following Johnston’s kidnapping. These stories are far longer and more substantive than the stories about Rajoub’s arrest, and are not written in neutral terms (nor should they have been). For example, the Washington Post’s story on April 13, 2007 bore the headline: “Hundreds Rally for Captive Reporter; International Effort Mounted for BBC Journalist Abducted a Month Ago in Gaza Strip.”
Contrary to David’s expectations, it’s clear that the press is far more interested and far more critical when a Palestinian terrorist group kidnaps a journalist than when the Israeli army does.
I’m sure that some folks will be quick to point out that there is “no moral equivalence,” as they say, between the Israeli army jailing a journalist for six months and the terrorists who are holding Alan Johnson, because with the Israelis, there is a possibility of a court looking at a case. I am happy to agree the Israeli system of kidnapping journalists is morally superior to terrorism, however, so please leave that particular strawman in peace.
More importantly, I’d argue that the moral equivalence David implies between “Palestinians” and “Israeli forces” doesn’t exist either. To quote Pendantry:
Now, remind me, exactly how many troops does the Palestinian army have? Oh yeah, none whatsoever.
There is a very simple notion in political science, one that goes back to Max Weber: A state possesses, by definition, a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, and it protects that monopoly. When a state is unable to protect that monopoly, it isn’t a state. There is no Palestinian state, and a non-existent state can not have a monopoly on violence.[…]
However, it seems that there are quite a few people who seem to think that “the Palestinians” are responsible for terrorism, and that making concessions to them is giving in to terrorists. This article, for example, by an author who appears to suffer from the double stigma of being both a Likudnik and a Randroid, suffers from this sort of thinking. It is just like believing that “the Jews” control the banks. This kind of thinking derives not so much from a false belief as from a confusion between ontological categories.
To explain this, I need to talk a bit about the basic theory of collectives. Margaret Thatcher once said that there is no such thing as society. She was right, although unsurprisingly for all the wrong reasons. Society does not possess the ability to have mental states, goals, intentions or to undertake cognition. Society is just a collection of people.
Any bunch of things can be a collection. Collections may not have clear definitions. They may be fuzzy or ambiguous. They need not be Aristotelian sets. The Americans are a collection. The Israelis are a collection. The Jews are a collection. I need not be able to identify precisely who is an American, an Israeli or a Jew to identify those things as collections. I just need to assert that there is more than one person or thing that is American, Israeli or Jewish.
Collections are not entities capable of cognition or coherent action. They do not plan, consider possibilities, have needs or goals, or take responsibility for things. There are, however, groups that can have needs and goals, that can plan, undertake cognition and take purposeful actions. They are called collectives.
Firms, armies, states, governments, unions, churches, clubs and many other kinds of groups are collectives. They can be identified as collectives because they can be recognised as having needs, goals, and intentions, a capacity for cognition, and the ability to undertake coherent, meaningful action. Collectives can, therefore, be responsible for the actions they undertake. Collections can not. […]
Now, this is the key point of this whole post: The Palestinians are a collection, and are therefore incapable of being responsible for terrorism. Hamas is a collective. Fatah is a collective. Al-Qaeda is a collective. They are capable of bearing collective responsibility for terrorism. The Palestinians are not.
That is why there is no moral equivalency between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel is a collective. It is an entity capable of cognition, intentional action and responsibility. The actions of the IDF, the state of repression that prevails in the West Bank and Gaza – Israel is responsible for those things, whether justified or not. The Palestinians, because they are not a collective, are not responsible for terrorism, even when it is undertaken in their name by some collective entity.
The Palestinians are not even a member of the same category as Israel, and thus no moral equivalency is possible.
It’s tragic that a terrorist group kidnapped Johnston, but attributing the acts of a terrorist group to “Palestinians” is inaccurate, unfair and bolsters the worldview of anti-Palestinian racists. (If someone said that “the Jews were caught trying to blow up the al-Aqsa Mosque,” that would be be wrong for similar reasons; the Makhteret is a Jewish terrorist group, but it doesn’t follow that Makhteret’s acts can be fairly attributed to “Jews”).
David seems to think that “Palestinians” (his phrase)4 are getting off light in the press compared to “Israeli forces,” but his own chosen example shows that the reverse is true. Israel is, by and large, given a pass by the mainstream press when they kidnap arrest reporters. This is opposite of how the press should act. It’s legitimate to expect the Israeli government (or any government) to act with much greater moral decency than a terrorist group; and the press should be willing to hold governments to higher standards, and to make it a big deal when a government stoops to arresting reporters. Too many of Israel’s supporters seem to suggest that it’s wrong (or even anti-semitic) to expect Israel to act better than the scummiest governments and terrorist groups in the world. I disagree.
By the way, David also linked to a good Martha Fineman Nussbaum essay arguing “Against Academic Boycotts.” Fineman Nussbaum makes a good case that academic boycotts are both useless and morally dubious.
- Not that kidnapping is the worst Israeli forces have ever done to a journalist; remember the British journalist James Miller, who was shot to death by Israeli forces while wearing a helmet and jacket marked “TV” and waving a white flag? [↩]
- I should note that at least in this case, the Israeli system — in which Rajoub was freed after six months due to lack of evidence — is superior to the US practice. [↩]
- Here is the complete text of The Washington Post’s coverage of the Rajoub arrest, published on December 5, 2005: “JERUSALEM — Israeli forces have arrested a reporter for the Web site of the Arabic satellite television channel al-Jazeera in the West Bank town of Hebron. An army spokeswoman said Awad Rajoub, 29, was being held ‘for security reasons.'” [↩]
- And yes, the title of my post is intentional irony. [↩]
For a start, when Israeli forces kidnap a journalist, no one calls it a kidnapping: it’s called an “arrest.”
Talk about strawmen – equating an arrest with a kidnapping. Amazing.
More importantly, I’d argue that the moral equivalence David implies between “Palestinians” and “Israeli forces” doesn’t exist either.
That’s a fact. One is the duly constituted armed force of a sovereign nation operating under the control of a government of laws that do everything they can to limit their activities to opposing forces that are trying to destroy them. The other is a group of terrorists operating under no laws whatsoever and that are actively and quite successfully resisting any attempt by the government of their area to control them while targeting civilians and then callously using civilians by hiding behind them when force is brought to bear on them.
The Palestinians are a collection, and are therefore incapable of being responsible for terrorism.
The last time I checked there is a Palestinian government and Hamas is part of it. It does have control over forces. The problem is that, unlike in Israel, not all the armed forces in the field claiming to act on behalf of the Palestinian nation are under the control of that nation, and the Palestinian government is unwilling to commit the political capital needed to opposing such forces, since to do so will be construed as being a friend of Israel. When one of your basic tenets is the destruction of a sovereign neighbor, it’s hard to oppose someone else whose expressed aim is just that.
My guess would be that if the Palestinian government cooperated with the Israeli government, even just by providing what operational and organizational information they have about Hamas, etc., the amount of terrorism that such organizations commit would go way down. However, Hamas and the rest would then turn on Palestinian government forces (as we are now seeing) and seek to destroy it. It’s a no-win situation for the Palestinian government; they have to preach hate against Israel in order to appease the terrorists, but they have to work with the Israeli government if they want to gain access to money and to allow their population to lead normal lives. They can’t renounce terrorism, but embracing it does them no good either.
Too many of Israel’s supporters seem to suggest that it’s wrong (or even anti-semitic) to expect Israel to act better than the scummiest governments and terrorist groups in the world. I disagree.
Hear, hear. So do I. But when you are fighting groups of people who know absolutely no moral bounds whatsoever and who are dedicated to your complete destruction, expect that excesses will occur.
That is a really good article.
But when I look at how the article defines “collective” versus “collection”, how do you fit that into the question of individual rights and responsibilities? The article suggests that Palestinians as a group, who are not members of a particular organization, are not capable of being responsible for terrorism unless they are a member of an organization that practices terrorism.
However, that seems to draw too bright a line between “responsible” and “free of responsibility.”
Look at the parallel to feminism. Need someone be a certified card carrying member of the Men’s Rights Anti Woman Pro Life Advocacy Group to carry some responsibility for the bad state of gender relations in this country? I sure don’t think so.
That is because there are many things that people can do to help (or hinder) any cause that go far beyond active membership in an organization.
Most Palestinians are not in Fatah; this article suggests they would therefore bear no responsibility for Fatah’s actions. But do the ones who voted for Fatah bear any responsibility? How about the ones who attended street rallies for Fatah? Who lobbied hard against Fatah’s competitors? Who taught their kids to follow them?
Now move to terrorism. It is obvious that only a few Palestinians are actually, personally, physically, responsible for terrorism. Is that the only group that bears responsibility? How about the people who celebrate when the bombs go off? How about those who promote it in words?…. And so on.
It’s not only Palestinians, of course. Under that theory you can blame Israelis, too. Or, perhaps, you can absolve the citizens of both countries, and just blame the respective groups/governments, without assigning anyone responsibility for how those groups/governments got and retained power. But I don’t see how that makes sense.
I mean, we’re all about group responsibility here, right? I’m supposed to have responsibilities of my own. One of my responsibilities, generally put, is not to do a lot of things that encourage others to act badly towards various groups.
This is a global responsibility, not a “US White Male” one. Palestinians who encourage violence or hatred towards Israelis; Israelis who encourage violence or hatred towards Palestinians.. BOTH of those groups are responsible for the ultimate effect of their actions, whether their sanction is official or not.
So yes: If Jews in general* supported Mahkteret, and acted on their support, then it would be reasonable IMO to hold “Jews” responsible. It’s reasonable, similarly, to hold the majority party (and those who voted for it) responsible for its actions.
The article is by Martha Nussbaum, not Fineman.
***
I too register my objection in calling a legally constituted arrest, reviewed (not a “possibility”, Israel has due process, a process which seems to work in this case) by the judiciary, as the equivalent of kidnapping. It isn’t just “less bad than terrorism”. It’s on an entirely different moral plane. No other democratic, rule-0f-law state would you call a legally constituted arrest a “kidnapping”–even if the targets end up being released or shouldn’t have been charged in the first place. Did the Durham police “kidnap” the Duke Lacrosse players? Would they have kidnapped them if they had denied bail during the investigation?
This is a problem for your analysis, because you’re not establishing what would happen if Israelis actually kidnapped someone. The conflation is bogus; it’s comparing apples to hockey pucks in a manner that appears to be unique to Israel alone (the American case you cite, by contrast, was in fact apparently extra-legal and is thus not analogous). And this discursive disjuncture is, I believe, evidence of the structural anti-Semitism I’ve been trying to impress (here I offer a hearty second to Sailorman’s commentary, which dovetails nicely into my own work about how normal modes of analysis used by advocates for oppressed peoples (which should include Jews) seems to fly out the window when we’re talking about issues of anti-Semitism). Here, it’s not about asking Israel to be merely better than the scummiest terror groups and governments (though it would be nice if the latter, at least, got half the criticism from the international arena that would seem to merit its “scummier” status, and in the former case it would be nice if we could get a universal agreement that these folks are, in fact, “terrorists” and not “the resistence” or “freedom fighters” or otherwise legitimate). It’s asking it to be treated fairly as a comparative matter vis-a-vis its neighbors.
Now, I think the analysis would still fit if a far-right settler group kidnapped a journalist, not the government. But the Pedantry quote you have suffers from an old debate flaw–it’s outdated! S/he wrote that post in 2003. Since then, Palestinians have been to the polls, and voted in what was considered a relatively free and fair election to install Hamas as the leader of their government. I’m willing to concede that the voters were primarily motivated by issues of corruption and social services, not terrorism, in their choice–but only because they didn’t have a major party choice (Hamas or Fatah) that is seriously against terrorism. There was no way to vote “against terror”. That itself establishes something seemingly important about the current state of the Palestinian political system, though what that is is debatable. Nonetheless, at what point can we hold people responsible for their own votes? I believe over 90% of Palestinian voters cast a ballot for either Hamas or Fatah. Both are deeply implicated in terrorist strikes and activities. If that isn’t a case of collective agency, I don’t know what is.
No recognition that the word “arrest” means different things under different circumstances?
I disagree. I believe that how we’ve treated many of the prisoners at Guantanamo bears a striking resemblance to kidnapping.
But the point, which both you and RonF are missing, is that when a government chooses to kidnap someone (and it’s public knowledge that that person is in their custody), of course they call it an arrest. Why on earth wouldn’t they?
It’s a basic difference between our government or the Israeli government and a non-governmental political organization. When we want someone, we don’t need to kidnap, because we can arrest.
—Myca
In practice, there’s no such thing as Israeli forces “kidnapping” a journalist; it’s not the IDF’s practice to kidnap people, because they can arrest them. If the P.A.O.I. was a government, they’d say they had “arrested” Johnston, but that wouldn’t make it justifiable. The exact same act — grabbing an innocent journalist and imprisoning them — is called “kidnapping” when terrorists do it and an “arrest” when governments do it.
The comparison that was suggested by David is not possible to make unless you compare arrests to kidnapping, because by definition Israeli forces don’t kidnap. And when you compare arrests (and note, I’m talking specifically about the arrest of a journalist who was arrested without evidence and brutally beaten) to kidnapping, David’s comparison is dead wrong; contrary to his claim, the press clearly ignores the Israeli government arresting and beating opposition journalists without any evidence, while writing 100 times as many articles about a journalist kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists.
(By the way, I have no objection to the press writing a lot about Alan Johnston’s case. But I think they should be giving comparable ink to cases like Awad Rajoub’s.)
Arrests aren’t by definition morally acceptable. Governments are not always in the right. Arresting people because they’ve committed a crime is fine; arresting and beating an opposition journalist for being brown-skinned and working for a TV station whose politics Israel doesn’t like is a contemptable violation of human rights.
Is it better than a terrorist kidnapping? Yes, it is. But it’s also scummy as hell, and that you and David are ready to make excuses for it suggests a deference to government authority that is both naive and morally irrational.
1) I can’t emphasize this strongly enough: “Palestinians” are not “a group of terrorists.” Although some terrorists are Palestinian, not all Palestinians are terrorists. Please get this right from now on.
2) I think you’re giving Israel much more credit than it has earned. Human rights groups have documented dozens of times over that Israel does not do “everything they can to limit their activities to opposing forces that are trying to destroy them”; the IDF has acted with callous disregard for civilian lives and human rights again and again and again.
* * *
Although I realize the post I linked to is a bit out of date, it remains true that the Palestinian government does not have an effective monopoly on the use of force. (The word “monopoly” is an essential part of the phrase, by the way). And until it does get a monopoly on the use of force, it’s really not an effective government.
The belief that the Palestinian government could wipe out all of the violent groups apart from itself is mistaken. The Israelis, with public opinion (their own public) on their side and a far larger and more capable force (indeed, with what might arguably be the single best armed force in the world, and certainly in the top five), wasn’t able to do it; what makes you think a relatively wimpy group like Hamas can?
* * *
Sailerman and David, I do intend to respond to you both, but real life interferes so it’ll have to wait until later. :-)
1) I can’t emphasize this strongly enough: “Palestinians” are not “a group of terrorists.” Although some terrorists are Palestinian, not all Palestinians are terrorists. Please get this right from now on.
I’m glad that you responded to that. That comment so utterly missed the point of your post that I couldn’t respond to it without out going outside the bounds of civility. The paragraph you quoted was, in particular, mind-boggling to me given the long explanation of “collection” vs “collective.”
Isn’t the key difference between kidnapping and arrest that arrest involves due process? If the state arrests you wrongfully you have legal options? (I know there are many cases where the state abuses it’s power. In the US that often leads to a lawsuit for violation of civil rights.)
Calling arrest a “kidnapping by state’ seems like a direct correlation to ‘taxes are armed robbery by government’.
How about it Brandon? Is amp going libertarian here?
Although I realize the post I linked to is a bit out of date, it remains true that the Palestinian government does not have an effective monopoly on the use of force. (The word “monopoly” is an essential part of the phrase, by the way). And until it does get a monopoly on the use of force, it’s really not an effective government.
The belief that the Palestinian government could wipe out all of the violent groups apart from itself is mistaken. The Israelis, with public opinion (their own public) on their side and a far larger and more capable force (indeed, with what might arguably be the single best armed force in the world, and certainly in the top five), wasn’t able to do it; what makes you think a relatively wimpy group like Hamas can?
As much as I adore Max Weber, the idea of a state as simply being the entity with a “monopoly on violence” strikes me as misguided. For one, it seems to exclude many places we’d consider to be states (Sudan, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Columbia–basically any place where there is a rebellion or paramilitaries operating outside government control). Perhaps a state might be defined by being the group with a monopoloy on the legitimate use of violence, as was modified later–but that’s still present when other groups who use violence illegitimately exist, as in Palestine (and Sudan and Sri Lanka and etc). But in that case, why isn’t the duly elected Palestinian Authority the “state” for the purposes of this conversation? I agree that there are pragmatic problems that prevent the PA from wiping out violent terrorist factions in its midst (not the least of which is that it is currently controlled by one of them, namely, Hamas). But that’s not germane to the question of whether or not it is “collective” (to use your parlance) that we can indict. It is, and it should be, and by voting for them and for Fatah, there is a link between the Palestinian political body and the terrorism I speak of that is not insignificant. This doesn’t make the Palestinians all terrorists–and they shouldn’t be treated that way–but as Sailorman notes, the nexus between the Palestinian polity and anti-Semitic terrorist violence is significantly stronger than you make it out to be (and more importantly, is one that I think you’d be far quicker to recognize in other contexts). But I’ll throw it back to you. Given that the Palestinian people (or approx 90% of them) voted for parties that support terrorist actions, how would you characterize the relationship between the Palestinian polity and terrorist activity?
I agree that a state will always call its seizure of a person an “arrest” (because it can), and I agree that some arrests are more accurately term kidnappings. What America did to Lakmar Boumediene, for example, was a kidnapping. The reason is because Boumediene had been arrested, tried, and acquitted of the charges we had against him in a Bosnian court–at which point we sent special forces into his country to, well, kidnap him and hold him without trial in Guantanamo.
But context matters, and there is a lot of context missing in your account. Arrest implies being held to face certain legal processes. Are those processes present? Are they real, or just for show? Arrest also implies being suspected of committing a crime. Is the person being accused of a crime? Is the accusation pretextual? Is there any supporting evidence to back up the supposed crime?
The IPI report you link indicates that the Israeli case was indeed a bona fide arrest, albeit of someone who might not have deserved to be arrested (but that’s not the threshold for whether or not something is arrest or kidnap. We arrest innocent people all the time). Documented procedures were present, and followed. There was a suspected crime. It doesn’t seem to be pretextual, although possibly selective prosecution. Evidence was weak, but present.
Does this mean I approve of the arrest? Based on the evidence presented, no. It seemed to be selective, had a significant chilling effect, and not been based on particularly strong evidence. But does it rise to the level of a kidnapping? I think not. We can talk about bad things Israel does without talking as if they are simply a better organized version of Islamic Jihad. It’s possible to condemn Israel on its own terms, without insisting on consistently characterizing it in the worst possible light or in a manner that tries to draw it into the same circles of terrorist organizations. Arguing in that manner is also “inaccurate, unfair and bolsters the worldview of [anti-Israel anti-Semites].”
1) I can’t emphasize this strongly enough: “Palestinians” are not “a group of terrorists.” Although some terrorists are Palestinian, not all Palestinians are terrorists. Please get this right from now on.
Fair enough; I wrote in haste and I apologize for the generalization. You are quite right to correct me. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded, but that’s what I wrote and it was wrong.
Having said that; there are armed forces under the direction of both the Palestinian government and the majority party of the Palestinian government that do act in the fashion I described. What I was thinking of was “Palestinian forces” vs. “Israeli forces”, not “Palestinians” vs. “Israeli forces”. My error in not making that clear when I wrote made it look as though I was equating “Palestinian” with “terrorist”, which was not my intent.
Joe is quite right on the difference between arrest and kidnapping. An arresting body has a legal authority to detain someone in the name of the law, even if (as we have seen) they abuse that authority or exercise it mistakenly. Kidnappers have no such legal authority, are not acting in the name of any law, and there is no legal appeal to their actions.
The belief that the Palestinian government could wipe out all of the violent groups apart from itself is mistaken. The Israelis, with public opinion (their own public) on their side and a far larger and more capable force (indeed, with what might arguably be the single best armed force in the world, and certainly in the top five), wasn’t able to do it; what makes you think a relatively wimpy group like Hamas can?
Well, for one thing, Hamas itself is the executor of a great many terrorist acts, so they could put a stop to a lot of terrorism on their own. But I’m not claiming that the Palestinian government could bring terrorism to a halt. I’m saying that they could contribute to stopping it a great deal than they do now, and make the Israeli efforts a lot more effective.
I keep getting mentioned here, so let me restate: I haven’t yet come to a personal conclusion on the degree to which “ordinary” (non terrorist) Palestinians are, or are not, responsible for the acts of terrorists. My main protest is that the article seems to suggest it’s a clear cut line, and I think that it’s far from such.
But it seems to me there are really three issues going on in this thread:
1) The question of whether ordinary Palestinians are at all responsible for the acts of Palestinian terrorists, and if so to what degree;
2) The question of whether those acts are similar/equivalent to the “legal” acts of other governments (esp Israel) and if so to what degree;
and the one that actually interests me the most:
3) The question of whether this discussion should be had via a generally applicable framework (like those we use to discuss other responsibilities and government acts) and if not, why using a “special” view is justified.
Anyone else interested in #3? :)
The question of whether ordinary Palestinians are at all responsible for the acts of Palestinian terrorists, and if so to what degree;
Depending on whether you’re talking about acts committed by individiual Palastinians or Palastinians associated with (acting for?) the Palastinian government, one could ask one of two analogous questions:
1. To what extent are ordinary Americans responsible for the acts of American terrorists such as Timothy McVeigh? I’d argue that the answer to that question, whether for Americans or Palastinians, is “not at all.” Any group can have psychos in it.
2. To what extent are ordinary Americans responsible for acts of terrorism committed by Americans associated with, particularly acting for, the US government. Are ordinary Americans responsible for acts such as extraordinary rendition, torture by American officials, bombing of civilians, etc and, if so, to what extent? Consider two extremes: An American who protests these acts, votes against the government that committs them, actively tries to aid those who are being persecuted (ie lawyers providing aid to prisoners in Guantanamo, reporters uncovering abuse, etc), in short, does everything he or she can to stop the abuse short of violence but who does not leave the country or renounce citizenship. Is he or she culpable? What about a person who votes for the government that committs these acts and does so knowing that they are responsible for torture, bombing, etc, writes letters to the editor or blogs stating that the victims “deserved” it, and generally supports the acts but never lifts a finger against a fellow human being personally?Are they equally responsible?
PS: I’m using the US as an example out of convenience: it’s the country I know best, not out of feeling that it is in any way the worst actor on the international scene or that it is a terrorist organization through and through or anything like that. All governments have their evil side and the question of to what extent a country’s citizens are responsible for its governments’ evil acts is an interesting one.
O.K., let’s ask about a specific situation:
Peaceful inhabitant of country “A” lives in his own home, working at a legal job and minding his own business. One fine evening, 3 guys with masks on show up and start setting up a missle launch point to shell peaceful inhabitants of country “B” a mile away across the border. Masked guy informs country “A” peaceful inhabitant that he will be killed if he tries to obstruct them or if he moves out or otherwise gives any indication to anyone that anything out of the ordinary is going on.
Is peaceful inhabitant morally required to risk his life in opposing masked guys? If he does not, does he bear any responsibility for masked guys’ actions?
Dianne,
re:
2. To what extent are ordinary Americans responsible for acts of terrorism committed by Americans associated with, particularly acting for, the US government…?
As I implied initially, I think that the answer can be “not at all,” “somewhat,” or “a lot,” depending on circumstance.
My opinion (for the little it’s worth) is no, she’s not culpable.
Your second example IMO involves some responsibility/culpability, yes.
Obviously there are rarely clear cut examples. I deliberately talk in generalities on this subject (we should all be used to that here.)
I think it’s important to focus on the delineations between boundaries when we need to. But in the case of the Palestinians I don’t know if that’s necessary yet: the question of whether, say, “voting for Fatah” can in any way be considered supporting their terrorist acts, or whether “failing to be a member of Fatah” completely absolves folks of responsibility for Fatah’s acts, is what seems to be on the table.
IMO, the distinction between “voting for Fatah voluntarily”* and “voting for Fatah because Fatah threatened to kill you if you didn’t” is not relevant to the discussion until we have agreed on whether or not we are paying any attention to the vote at all. If the vote doesn’t matter or change an individual’s culpability, then the motivations for the vote don’t really matter either.
*this is just an example, I’m not trying to focus on fatah specifically.
Is peaceful inhabitant morally required to risk his life in opposing masked guys?
Yes, but very few people would condemn him for failing to live up to that (perfect) morality. I would not, particularly if he had a family or other vulnerability.
If he does not, does he bear any responsibility for masked guys’ actions?
Nobody bears any responsibilities for anyone else’s actions, under any circumstances. This is axiomatic. We bear responsibility only for our own choices.
However, he does bear some fraction of the responsibility for the consequences of the masked guys’ actions, if he knew of a way he could stop them and did not do so.
“Calling arrest a “kidnapping by state’ seems like a direct correlation to ‘taxes are armed robbery by government’… Is amp going libertarian here?”
No, Joe. The libertarian equivalent would be to call ALL arrests, regardless of the circumstance, ‘kidnapping by state’ by definition – largely because those arrests that are the most justified in most people’s eyes are precisely those that our hypothetical friend finds the most abhorrent.
(Note that I’m adopting a ‘libertarian-is-as-libertarian-does’ approach here, as many who take up the libertarian banner for themselves are little more than Rudy Giulianis sans the institutional connections. For the record, I find that the most extremist right-libertarians tend to be the most sincere.)
Conversely, everyone else can see how an arrest can amount to a kidnapping depending on the circumstance, just as taxation can amount to theft depending on the circumstance. In both cases, the two corresponding concepts do not exist on ontologically separate planes of existence.
“then callously using civilians by hiding behind them”
Are we talking about Israeli use of the expansion of residential zones into West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, and using retaliations that occur within the same terrestrial biome as these ‘residential zones’ as pretext for retaliation against ‘terrorism’?
“Nobody bears any responsibilities for anyone else’s actions, under any circumstances. This is axiomatic. We bear responsibility only for our own choices.
However, he does bear some fraction of the responsibility for the consequences of the masked guys’ actions, if he knew of a way he could stop them and did not do so.”
I don’t want to be a stickler, but in what sense can someone be responsible for a certain action, if not to be responsible for the consequences of those actions? I don’t understand the distinction you’re making here.
For the distinction to be meaningful, there’d have to be a sense in which one can be responsible for actions that have NO consequences, and the concept seems unintelligible. The closest I can think of is responsibility for actions that can have POTENTIALLY have consequences (but obviously, none in that particular situation), but that’s a result of living in a world where those consequences do exist, and the need to be mindful of them. It seems to be you’re abandoning consequentialism for some mode of deontological ethics.
Are we talking about Israeli use of the expansion of residential zones into West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, and using retaliations that occur within the same terrestrial biome as these ‘residential zones’ as pretext for retaliation against ‘terrorism’?
No. We are talking about people who launch rockets and other attacks (generally on civilians) from residential areas and other locations that non-combatants gather in so that any retaliation will kill civilians. This is not something you’ll see Israeli forces doing; it’s a common tactic of terrorists, however.
“No. We are talking about people who launch rockets and other attacks (generally on civilians) from residential areas and other locations that non-combatants gather in so that any retaliation will kill civilians. This is not something you’ll see Israeli forces doing; it’s a common tactic of terrorists, however.”
As opposed to using residential areas as a bulwark to colonize areas that they should not be in from international agreement?
It’s inspired me, I’ll tell you that. I’ll send a little kid to enter your house and steal your CD collections and silverware. Make a move to stop him and it’s child abuse.
While I agree with most of your analysis, I will make one point of disagreement:
Actually, Israeli forces are currently detaining several Palestinians without giving them due process. And while it’s almost certainly the case that a British journalist would be treated differently from Palestinians, the fact is that Israeli forces are currently holding civilianswithout have a court look at their case, and many of those currently detained were arrested simply for being Palestinian. So it’s not quite fair to imply that the Isreali forces/government never practices acts of terrorism.
–IP