War is grim, but that does not justify the kind of moral equivalence so many engage in

The first claim is from Ms Duerden’s letter, where she writes that ‘Israel’s establishment as an explicitly Jewish state by its very nature casts non-Jews as second-class citizens’. Now, this strikes me as a strange criticism, not least because Ms Duerden fails to make the same criticism of Hamas, the explicitly Islamist governing body of Gaza. Even so, the assertion that having an ethnically and religiously-defined country necessarily entails the abuse of all citizens which fall outside that demographic group, is one which Ms Duerden has left wholly unsubstantiated. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, people in Israel have equal legal rights regardless of race or religion. Now, I am sure that there are people in Israel who have faced social discrimination and prejudice due to their minority status, but, unfortunately, there is not a country in the world where that is not true. Moreover, Ms Duerden’s claim referred specifically to the state of Israel being discriminatory. This is not so.

The second claim from the letter which ought be addressed is that the situation in Gaza as it was pre- 7/10 caused some Gazans to ‘inevitably lean towards irrationality, extremism, and hate’. This sounds to me like the geo-political equivalent of ‘Her skirt was too short – she was basically asking for it.’ Not only is it victim-blaming – it is false. Israel’s proverbial skirt was not, in fact, too short. Ms Duerden says that, following Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, ‘Gazans did not have complete autonomy over their lives living behind an Israeli blockade’. One might rephrase this as ‘Gazans, who wanted their own autonomous region to govern, were restricted by border restrictions which are standard for countries to implement, especially when they border places with a history of hostility towards them’. Forgive me, perhaps I am being slow, but I do not understand what is inappropriate about treating a hostile autonomous region as a hostile autonomous region. Furthermore, it is not ‘inevitable’ that Gazans would turn to ‘irrationality, extremism, and hate’. They have agency, do they not? They have the capacity to cultivate virtue, do they not? Can they not restrain themselves? Can they not choose good over evil? Can they discern between good and evil? Surely they can. It is about time we stopped infantilising foreign peoples, treating them like children who don’t have the same capacity to reason and act morally that we sophisticated westerners do.

Finally, I will turn to the claim made by Mr Winters that Israel is responsible for ‘the crime of genocide’ by attempting to eradicate a terrorist organisation which seeks to murder Jews. Mr Winters writes that the IDF has conducted the war with weapons ‘targeted at a civilian population rather than soldierly combat between two armies’. This is an utter misconstruction. In violation of the Geneva Convention and basic human rights law, Hamas terrorists have tunnelled their way under densely populated civilian areas in order to use the people they were elected to defend as meat shields. By pointing the finger at Israel, which has repeatedly warned civilians of upcoming attacks to try and minimise casualties, the violation of human rights in which Hamas is engaging is encouraged. How can we now expect other terrorist groups to behave when threatened? The incentive structure being set up is ‘If you hide behind civilians, we cannot possibly attack you! If, in violation of the Geneva Convention, you use innocents as shields, well then, you’re off the hook!’ Does this sound like a desirable incentive to set up? I think not.

In addition, Mr Winters’ objection to the fact that the IDF is not conducting the war as ‘soldierly combat between two armies’ strikes me as rather incredible, since it is impossible for them to do so. There is no legitimate army for them to battle. There is only a terrorist organisation which robs its people of humanitarian aid in order to enrich itself, and uses its civilians as shields to protect itself from the consequences of committing the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. War is grim, but that does not justify the kind of moral equivalence which so many engage in on this topic.

Christina Kennedy