Jonathan Rauch: Israel's War With Hamas Is America's, Too
April 26, 2004

Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi believed it was his job to kill Israeli civilians, and he did so to hundreds in thousands of attacks. The Israeli government knew its fundamental duty was to stop him, and it did so two Saturdays ago. The main issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – Jerusalem, refugees, borders – are complicated, but not this one. Israel and Hamas are at war, and by no stretch of international law are those engaged in terrorism accorded due process. There can never be a peace process with Hamas – only a war process. That Hamas, no doubt working furiously, still has not been able to avenge Sheikh Yassin, suggests that Israeli is winning. Every government has an elemental responsibility to defend its citizens, and certainly not any less when confronting groups committed to its destruction.

Some argue that even if Rantisi was a terrorist, so is Israel, because Israel kills too. The definition of terrorism, however, indicates otherwise. Terrorism is the indiscriminate targeting of a civilian public in order to cause fear, intimidation and death (see the United Nations definition). It has nothing to do with the means employed – whether suicide bombs or Apache helicopters – but whom you target. Terrorism is in a special class of violence because it makes no distinction between a state and its civilians, or between combatants and non-combatants. If Palestinian fighters employed suicide bombers against Israeli soldiers, they would be guerrillas, not terrorists. If the Israeli army fired missiles not at terrorist militiamen, but into Palestinian nightclubs or school buses, then they would be terrorists. But they do not. If Israel genuinely sought to terrorize the Palestinians, Ramallah would look more like Grozny. Considering the years of terrorism – the stresses of which have brought down democratic governments in the past, like Uruguay in the 1960s – Israel has been conducting one of modern memory’s most ethical engagements.

The Battle of Jenin in April 2002 demonstrates Israel’s battlefield probity. Israel did not have to send soldiers on foot into Jenin to root out the militiamen holed up there. Instead, it could have sent Apaches or rained shells like the Russians in the Caucasus or Indians in Kashmir, at less risk to its soldiers but resulting in indiscriminate killing of innocent Palestinians. Israel sent in troops, and the result was fierce street battles that left twenty-three Israelis and fifty-seven Palestinians dead (all of whom but three were combatants). During the fighting, Israeli Arab parliamentarians, alleging a massacre cover-up, demanded an injunction to prevent the IDF from removing dead bodies. The Israeli Supreme Court obliged and ordered the IDF to stop (Israel is one of the few countries that allows it judiciary to override the military during a time of war). But this is still war, and innocents are killed in war. This is a sad reality that the laws of warfare recognize.

In order for peace-minded leaders to figure out what to do right, they must at least acknowledge what is being done wrong. The basic sin of the Israeli side is continued occupation, and that of the Palestinians is continued terrorism. In more euphemistic honest times, Israeli officials spoke of their “administration” of Palestinians. But now Ariel Sharon has formally stated that the occupation must end, and he is serious. We are still waiting for a Palestinian leadership that admits the terrorism of its side, instead of using whitewashing terms like “resistance.” No peace can emerge until they are stopped. Calling some violence terrorist and other violence not is intended to diminish the civilian lives lost. But it is to insist that there is a moral and legal distinction between those who target innocents and those who do not, between those who seek to avoid civilian casualties, and those who seek to maximize them. Our own domestic law also makes a distinction between intentional murder (first degree) and accidental murder (manslaughter). If one refuses to admit that the nature of the target matters, then all violence can be terrorism. And then the designation of terrorism as an unacceptable form of violence, in the same class as genocide, piracy and organized rape, loses its meaning.

The article, "Like It Or Not, Israel's War With Hamas Is America's, Too," is from Jonathan Rauch, and appears in the National Journal. Without a doubt, he is one of our nation's top journalists.