The Banality of Justification

"If you prick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"

- Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare

"You should thank us for trying to remove Hezbollah."

- An Israeli acquantance

A large proportion of people whom I have been in touch with have attempted to justify Israel's response to Hezbollah capturing those two soldiers. We can each argue that there is a history to this conflict, and argue ourselves to death concerning who FIRST committed injustice, but that is not my concern for now.

There have been quite a few variations of this attempt to justify; averaging all those responses results in "Israel had to defend itself from Hezbollah, which had been terrorizing Israel for some time."

That is then followed by "yes, I feel sorry for Lebanon and its misery, but this is for the best, and people will understand that Hezbollah directly brings harm to them."

In other words, there is an indirect advocacy of collective punishment.

On September 12, 2001 - one day after the notorious 9/11 - there were people who attempted to justify the attacks. "The US had for decades oppressed and attacked certain regions of the world, and such a reaction is expected." Such people tried to rationalize that killing of almost 5000 people, and it was disgusting to listen to.

However, according to the current Israeli opinion (and I understand that not all Israelis agree with their governmental stance), if consistency was a fundamental human trait, then 9/11 would also have been justifiable.

But it isn't. And rightly so.

Such justification of the various massacres that have occured are also harrowingly reminiscent of the excuses certain groups of people develop for rapists. "Oh, but the girl was dressed provocatively. She smiled, winked, and even blew him a kiss. And that mini-skirt! You can't really blame him for doing what he did."

A rape victim may eventually get over the rape (highly questionable though), but she will always be scarred. Likewise, Lebanon may eventually get over this rape, but it will always remain scarred.

So can Israel's actions really be justified?

However, let's ignore all that for a moment. Let's assume that Israel was fully justified in doing what its doing. The problem is that with all the recent "incidents", something like Hezbollah - even if it isn't Hezbollah as we know it - will always exist. Indeed, Israel may eventually completely destroy Hezbollah, although I doubt that will happen - and I'm sure you doubt that as well, otherwise Hamas would have already been destroyed some time back.

More importantly, Israel is also destroying any chance for peace. The only accomplishment Israel can be "proud" of in all this is the eventual creation of a fertile ground for more extremism.

Anyway, Lebanon is grateful to all those who donate to help relief organizations:

Light for Lebanon: www.lightforlebanon.com
Relief Lebanon: www.relieflebanon.com
Save Lebanon: www.saveleb.org

posted by Lazarus, 5:54 PM