No Power? No Excuse
The defense of Palestinian rockets into Israel is based on a morally corrupt view of power.
It has been almost a month since my last newsletter so if you realized just how much you missed reading it but you haven’t subscribed then go ahead and subscribe!
Hamas Attacks Israel
For the last week, the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been agitated once again. Hamas is the group with control over the Gaza Strip, a piece of land that Israel evacuated in 2005. So far, approximately 2,000 rockets have been targeted at Israel by Hamas in the Gaza Strip since Monday. Israel has responded with rocket strikes of their own and has called up military reserves.
I don’t want to get into the entire Israel-Palestinian dispute as there are hundreds of better sources for that. I also don’t necessarily want to adjudicate the specifics of this latest round of violence between the two groups. However, I do want to say that I am immensely pro-Israel and do not believe there is any moral equivalence between the Israel Defense Force’s military-targeted strikes and the untargeted, civilian-directed rockets launched by Hamas.
With that said, many on the pro-Palestinian side would agree with me that there is no moral equivalence between the IDF’s strikes and the rockets of Hamas. However, they believe that the Palestinians are an oppressed group that has been occupied by Israel and are weaker in every way than the Israelis. Therefore, it is morally wrong for the IDF to use its superior power and technology to harm the oppressed Palestinians that are merely expressing their pain. It is this idea that I want to address.
The Powerless
A common trope that is used by many people, particularly more progressive people, is an appeal to a power imbalance in order to justify some sort of behavior and condemn another. In this case, the Palestinians, including Hamas, in the Gaza Strip are in a position of having less power than the Israeli government. Ilhan Omar pointed this out when she recognized in a tweet that Palestinians do not have an Iron Dome (the Israeli missile defense program) as Israel does.
This power discrepancy is indeed a cold-hard fact. The Israeli government has an immensely powerful and capable military that is well-funded by its people and by countries like the United States. Israelis within Israel have a voice in the actions of the Israeli government through their elected representatives.
Palestinians in Gaza, on the other hand, do not have as powerful of a military as Israel, are not funded by rich countries like the United States, and do not have a vote in the Israeli government. The power imbalance between the two is clear and I’m not sure there is really anyone that denies one. The progressive instinct to point this reality out is understandable considering power imbalances are ripe ground for injustices. But, the power imbalance itself does not immediately justify any actions that the “oppressed” group does as progressives tend to suggest.
Take Omar’s tweet above as an example. Omar condemned the killing of Palestinian civilians as a terrorist act (it’s not considering the reality that Hamas purposely hides amongst civilians and the IDF consistently sends out warnings to civilians before striking) but failed to mention that these strikes were in response to rockets being launched at Israeli citizens by Hamas. I understand that her tweet was directly responding to the quoted tweet reporting Palestinian civilian deaths but this is a pretty significant failure to contextualize.
Bernie Sanders reinforced this notion by laying blame for the violence on the Israeli government:
The reason this idea is acceptable in progressive circles is that the actions of the “oppressed” Palestinians are deemed understandable considering their circumstances. There are two assumptions baked into this reasoning that are demonstrably false. First, a power imbalance does not assume oppression is taking place. In the case of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli government completely pulled out of the Gaza Strip and removed all Israelis from the territory in 2005. After the pull-out, elections were held in which the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip voted Hamas into power. Now, Hamas is using its power to launch rockets into civilian-filled areas of Israel. In other words, Israel intentionally left the Gaza Strip alone to rule itself (something oppressors tend to not do) and the duly elected ruling party proceeded to consistently attack Israel in response. Needless to say, I find the argument that therefore Palestinians are oppressed unconvincing regardless of the power imbalance.
Nonetheless, progressives believe this power imbalance inherently means oppression is taking place, and therefore the Hamas response is at least understandable if not justifiable. Again, this assumption is demonstrably false. The “oppression” of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip still does not justify their untargeted rocket launches directed at civilian areas of Israel. Oppression does not give somebody free rein to commit whatever heinous acts they want. The killing of innocent Israeli citizens is simply not morally defensible regardless of how oppressed one believes himself or his people to be. As many parents have told their children, you cannot control what other people do to you, but you can control and are responsible for how you respond. This basic standard applies to children and to groups that are on the weaker end of a power imbalance.
Beyond Israel
Unfortunately, this progressive way of thinking does not apply only to Israel but manifests itself in other aspects of public discourse. The different responses by progressives to riots over the summer and the storming of the Capital on January 6th are prime examples of this ideology at work.
After the death of George Floyd at the hands of Derek Chauvin, protests erupted across the country demanding justice for Floyd and something to be done about police brutality. While it is true that the majority of protestors were peaceful, a significant portion of the protests devolved into rioting in multiple cities. These riots caused significant damage to cities like Minneapolis and New York City with businesses being broken into, looted, destroyed, and public property being desecrated. In response, the Democratic Convention allotted exactly zero time to denouncing or even addressing the riots, Nancy Pelosi said that “people do what people do” in response to a question about a statue being vandalized, and Chris Cuomo said, “Please, show me where it says protesters are supposed to be polite and peaceful.”
Now, fast forward to January 6th when Trump supporters (yes, they were Trump supporters NOT Antifa) stormed the Capitol Building in an attempt to stop what they perceived to be the certification of a stolen election. Democrats were quick to call these people insurrectionists, denounce the violence, and whip up articles of impeachment for Donald Trump who they believed was responsible for the riot.
Many commentators were quick to note the hypocrisy that many progressives showcased by their disparate responses towards violence. The riots in the summer were largely for progressive causes and were popular among the progressive base so no need to vehemently oppose it. The January 6th violence, on the other hand, was done in favor of their (Democrat’s) despised political opponent so it was politically advantageous to condemn it as harshly as possible.
While I understand the charge of hypocrisy, I actually believe progressives were acting consistently with their beliefs about power and oppression that I explained earlier. According to this progressive view of power, the summer rioters were oppressed people (black victims of police brutality) committing against a system that was oppressing them. This kind of behavior is understandable if not acceptable because they are oppressed. Conversely, the insurrectionists on January 6th were largely white, Trump supporters, also known as oppressors, that were committing acts of violence to maintain their position of power in this system of white supremacy. Their position of power is what makes their behavior unacceptable to progressives just like Israel’s position of power over Palestinians makes its behavior unacceptable.
Progressives use this similar line of thinking when they talk about crime rates in high-poverty areas. According to progressives, people who grow up in high-crime, low-poverty areas are oppressed by this capitalist system and can’t be expected to follow the law. When they commit crimes, these crimes are understandable, if not acceptable, because they are powerless in this system.
This is Wrong
This entire way of viewing the world is morally corrupt. It is based on a postmodern view of the world that denies moral absolutes while claiming that only power is real. Power and oppression are real but moral absolutes are not so anything goes in this eternal struggle to free oneself from oppression. That’s why it’s understandable, if not acceptable, for the Palestinian Hamas to fire rockets directed at Israeli civilians, riots in the name of social justice, and crimes in the midst of poverty.
However, this entire ideology necessitates the complete removal of God from the picture. If there is an all-powerful being that created everything, this immediately creates a universal power imbalance. Humans are eternally in a less powerful position to this all-powerful being but no orthodox Christian can claim they are oppressed by God. Furthermore, this all-powerful being has created everything and thus has created the moral order. He has clearly laid behavior that is morally acceptable and morally corrupt. We are held to this moral standard in spite of possessing less power than God in complete contradiction to the progressive position laid out above.
It is untenable for Christians to justify morally corrupt behavior regardless if the person is in a position of power or not. Christians must recognize sin as sin regardless of who is participating in it. Whether someone has power or not, sin dishonors God and leads to death.
God Bless,
Hunter Burnett