Hussein Ibish develops his argument carefully. A Palestinian commentator, he is a careful observer. Josh Marshall led me to him. Josh embraces the Amos Oz piece in the times the other day. I like Oz too but he supports the Gaza campaign, arguing that Hamas is like the killer who puts a child on his lap and raises his gun toward you. The child dies by the justifiable self-defensive shot. Ibish parts company from that argument. I do too. For some of the same reasons.
In my opinion Israel is the aggressor, an occupying power. Hamas shelling is unjustifiable because it is random and aimed at civilians. They of course are of the opinion that Israelis are enemy settlers, expropriators of Palestinian land. But conventional morality forbids attacks on non-combatants. Israel is entitled to defend against those attacks. Welcome to the grey area. Ibish takes it from there. - gwc
Israel’s rhetoric exposes some disturbing moral grey areas | The National: "
by Hussein Ibish
Israel insists it “does not target” civilians and civilian sites, even if history tells us otherwise. For the sake of argument, let’s stipulate that Israel really has never or very seldom actually targeted civilians. There’s still a crucial missing category between intention and culpability: that of inevitable consequence.
Israel’s rhetoric focuses entirely on primary intentions, without acknowledging the problem of responsibility for civilian deaths when they are a predictable and inevitable result of voluntary, calculated actions."
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