On Morality and Restraint

‘Israel’s campaign isn’t a police action to arrest criminals—it is war.’

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Fans at the UEFA EURO 2024 European qualifier match between Israel and Romania on November 18, 2023 hold banners depicting hostages taken by Hamas last month. The match was held at Puskas Akademia Pancho Arena near Budapest, Hungary. (Photo by David Balogh/Getty Images)

Allow me to let my inner hawk off his leash for a moment. I did not think that the conversation about Hamas’ brutal—ongoing—massacre of Israeli civilians could get any more banal or dishonest, but it has.

A few points: 

The moral test for Israel is not whether its leaders can show superhuman restraint in their response to the massacres and outrages inflicted on their people by Hamas. In light of the kidnapping, the hostage-taking, the rape and dismemberment of children, the burning to death of babies, the beheadings, the theatrical sadism inflicted on women, children, the elderly, it is remarkable how much restraint the Israelis have shown. They have, in my view, shown incommensurate restraint, if I may be forgiven some friendly criticism at this ghastly moment.

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  1. Dscranester

    Did you get even read the essay. Time after time they say in different words: “ October 7 is not the same as the Holocaust. . . .It might be a trivialization of the Holocaust to simply label Hamas as the “new Nazis”

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  2. Jonnyd7606

    I've never been creeped out by anything Mr. Williamson wrote until today, but saying "Hey, creaky one-term embarrassment, I'm sorry your wife died" crossed that threshold.

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    Jmacdonster

    This essay is just so dumb. Comparing Hamas, and by extension the Palestinians to the Third Reich is just silly. Hamas is a terrorist organization with very little firepower that is able on occasion to kill a certain number of Israelis. Do they want to obliterate the Jews? Or do they want to obliterate the Israelis? For someone who picks at nits, I would imagine KDW would grasp the difference. The Third Reich, in addition to killing six million Jews, steamrolled many of their neighboring countries. These two groups are not remotely similar things.

    If two groups of people lay claim to the same piece of land, they will fight as best they can until one is vanquished or obliterated. One might notice the sparsity of native Americans in these United States. The Palestinians will not stop until the Israelis are gone, and similarly the Israelis will not have peace until the Palestinians are gone. That's a tale as old as humanity and not likely to change. The Palestinians don't want a two state solution, they want a one state solution. You (we) may not like that, but it's the truth nonetheless.

    In addition, there is no chokehold on US energy production. Both oil and natural gas production are at all time highs. This is something that can be looked up by simply going to eia.gov. In addition, the Biden administration has opened up oil leases in Alaska as well as public lands out west. But conventional oil plays are multi-decade commitments that require a forecast that there will be buyers for that oil, and currently there's little evidence for increased usage, so the leases might be purchased, but it's unlikely that there will be any drilling. That's an economic issue rather than a permitting issue, but if one wants to make a certain point, it's ready enough to ignore I suppose.

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    1. Jonnyd7606

      "Do they want to obliterate the Jews? Or do they want to obliterate the Israelis?" The former. It's part of their religion.

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      Peter_Shalen

      In case you are interested in actual facts, I will give you one bit of information that bears on something you have said. Hamas's charter explicitly states the organization's purpose to be to kill Jews everywhere.

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        Jmacdonster

        Huh. When I google Hamas Charter, the closest I can get to what you are saying is this.

        Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.

        But maybe you have other information?

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          Peter_Shalen

          Technically you are right. Hamas revised its charter in 2017, saying that its aim was not to murder Jews in general, but only Zionists. So when they burn a baby alive, then according to the revised charter it is no longer because the baby is a Jew, but because the baby is a member of an occupying army.

          If you want a perspective on the meaningless changes in the charter, you will find one here:

          https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/hamas-covenant-israel-attack-war-genocide/675602/

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          Jmacdonster

          BTW, I found that here.

          https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full

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      2. Dscranester

        As I said, once the Nazis are invoked, discussion is over.

        I will give Ehud Barak full credit for making the offer he made. But, I believe he knew that it was a proposal Arafat would never agree to. Here are the words of Aaron David Miller, who was at Camp David: "What Barak was prepared to accept at Camp David was this: Israel would be allowed to annex 9 percent of the West Bank. And in exchange, Palestine would have sovereignty over roughly 1 percent of pre-1967 Israel, but with no indication of where that 1 percent would be. On the very highly sensitive issue of refugees, the proposal only spoke of a satisfactory solution to the problem. Even on Jerusalem, where most of the detail was provided, there were a lot of gaps. So no Palestinian leader — I’ll repeat it — no Palestinian leader could have accepted that proposal and survived.

        Remember what Arafat’s models were. Sadat, 100 percent of Sinai and the dismantling of all Jewish settlements. And Barak is offering Arafat 91 percent and the 1 percent territory, which would have been taken out of Israel proper but not defined where it was or what it would be. Arafat could not have accepted this. The notion — and I’ve said this a million times to anybody who will listen — the notion that we were this close, thumb and first finger, a quarter of an inch, a 1/16 of an inch apart, the notion that close at Camp David and that Arafat walked away is simply wrong. We were this close. And I extended my arms out as far as I possibly could."

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          Peter_Shalen

          Missing the point again. Of course they weren't close, because Arafat, like every other Palestinian leader, had no interest in a state. His only goal was to destroy Israel. That is why your mantra about "two groups of people lay[ing] claim to the same piece of land" is so far off. One side has always been willing to divide the land, in spite of the views of a small number of fanatics. The other side rejects coexistence completely. I don't know how to make it any clearer than that.

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          1. Dscranester

            Look, I'm not going to dissuade you that Palestinians are horrible people who hate Jews because they are Jews. My main point is that nothing the Western world has experienced over the last 80 years has come anywhere close to the suffering and horror experienced by the nearly 10 million people who died at the hands of the Nazis not to mention the millions more who survived only to carry the scars of that treatment for the rest of their lives. Comparing anything we have experienced to the holocaust is a shanda. It is disrespectful to the memory of those who were lost and who suffered .

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    3. Dscranester

      You said it so much better than I could. Once someone evokes the Nazis, the discussion is over.

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  4. Dscranester

    Thanks for taking the time to explain your thinking. I am also a Jew & the son on a WWII vet. The two sides are locked in an existential battle that, from their perspective, calls for no-holds-barred resistance. No progress will be made until both sides give up on the belief that their fight is righteous & the other’s evil.

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  5. Carolyndavid7757

    Classic Kevin.
    Thank you.

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  6. Dscranester

    Is there a pill I can take to see the grayest of grays in Kevin’s unflinching blacks & whites? How comforting would that be!

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      Peter_Shalen

      This comment reminds me of the cartoon in which the Hamas terrorist was holding a paper that read “Charter: Kill all Jews,” and John Kerry, the mediator, was asking Netanyahu “Can’t you meet him halfway?”

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      1. Dscranester

        Peter- Did you see my reply? I’m not sure I posted it as a reply to you. In addition, pls see David Marchese’s interview with Phil Klay published last week in NYT.

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        1. Dscranester

          Oops, here it was.

          Thanks for taking the time to explain your thinking. I am also a Jew & the son on a WWII vet. The two sides are locked in an existential battle that, from their perspective, calls for no-holds-barred resistance. No progress will be made until both sides give up on the belief that their fight is righteous & the other’s evil.

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          Peter_Shalen

          Do you mean your nasty reply about westerns, which I already replied to, or something else? If you post a "reply" in the wrong place, I can't very well run all over the internet looking for it---in spite of my deep respect for you.

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          1. Dscranester

            Not used to posting in comments sections.

            Oops, here was my reply.

            Thanks for taking the time to explain your thinking. I am also a Jew & the son on a WWII vet. The two sides are locked in an existential battle that, from their perspective, calls for no-holds-barred resistance. No progress will be made until both sides give up on the belief that their fight is righteous & the other’s evil.

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      2. Dscranester

        Yep, I guess if your worldview was formed by watching American westerns rather than studying history, you’d see the world in terms of good guys & bad guys. Carry on!!

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          Peter_Shalen

          The point of my comment was that, unlike most situations in life, the horrors of October 7, and the subsequent decision that the only way to prevent such horrors in the future was to eliminate Hamas, did not present any moral ambiguity. This explains why this decision was made with near unanimity by an Israeli population that a day before had seemed hopelessly divided.

          I most certainly have never had any interest in Westerns, but as a Jew and the son of a veteran of the Second World War, I did grow up with the understanding that that war, another struggle against a political entity whose central goal was the extermination of Jews, was a fight between good and evil. For all I know, you may have a more nuanced view of that conflict. Of course the point of the cartoon that I referred to is that a nuanced position is not necessarily a morally defensible one.

          In any event, if you disagree, you might try to explain why, rather than answering with a personal insult. I notice that your original comment was a personal insult directed at Mr. Williamson, so unfortunately there seems to be a pattern here. It's not one that is likely to lead to useful communication.

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          1. Dscranester

            Nope, this one. And I seriously do recommend the Marchese NYT interview. Far more articulate on the subject than I.

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    Jewls444

    Kevin, another great article. Looking at some of the comments is eye opening. I know there is antisemitism in the US, but I had no idea there was the amount we are exposed to lately. I can only assume it is because of poor education of history.

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      Brian

      It really is shocking, isn’t it? And much of it from the same fragile, guilt-ridden people who’ve made every single thing about racism and all manner of -ism’s and -phobics. Someday maybe they’ll wake up and be ashamed. Right now I’m ashamed of them.

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        Peter_Shalen

        I don't think they will wake up.

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  8. Ddjhls

    I like my complements to be in the K.I.S.S. format. Keep it simple, stupid. Mr Williamson, power writing, inarguable logic. Full stop. Happy and healthy Thanksgiving, you and yours. Best, Dan Stevens,N.Y.

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    This comment has been deleted

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    Greg Hurley

    Thank you

    I’m a soccer fan. I had to sit out the 2018 World Cup because it was in Russia. Didn’t watch a single game. To be honest, the US didn’t make it, a small gift from God. In 2022 the WC was in Qatar. I was really torn. I watched. But I was perplexed by the silence, even complicity. I also think, however, that when your country is run by a petty tyrant that dismembers journalists because he doesn’t like what they said about him that one should keep that in mind.

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