Comments on: Oliver Kamm, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, and the supreme emergency exception

By: Bob

Bob — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 20:24:18 +0000

The view that Sharon is a war criminal is held by people with more direct experience of Sabra and Shatila than either Oliver Kamm or myself: http://www.palestinemonitor.org/israelipoli/why_sharon_is_a_war_criminal.htm In any case, Oliver’s argument about Sharon is a bit of a diversion from my original point. Which is, if Livingstone is to be condemned for meeting with a supporter of Palestinian terrorist attacks on Israelis, should he not be equally condemned for meeting with anyone who supports Israeli state terrorism against the Palestinians?

By: Oliver Kamm

Oliver Kamm — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 19:11:04 +0000

OK, last time, for we are trespassing on the goodwill of our host on an issue extraneous to what he wrote about. Bob was not presenting an ‘opinion’: he was making a claim about what happened in recent history, viz. that Sharon was “the war criminal responsible for” the massacres at Sabra and Shatilla. He presented no evidence for that claim. Neither have you. I hazarded a guess about what Bob was thinking of, and it does not support his claim. I should regard it as equally plausible that he wasn’t thinking of anything, but merely repeating an assertion he’d heard somewhere. In either event, you cannot make assertions of that gravity and be indifferent to the requirements of evidence. You have, moreover, twice made false assertions that you have attempted to obfuscate by asserting that a requirement for precision in the use of language is ‘wordgames’. In the circumstances, I shouldn’t have thought it’s your wisest course to fight on the terrain of honesty.

By: Luc

Luc — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 16:14:18 +0000

Then words have no meaning for you. The proper word being acquittal, instead of winning, but since words are already meaningless, what's the difference. Sharon sued for libel, no libel was found by the jury, Time Magazine was acquitted. There's little to quote from the internet from those days but here's one:

A recent libel trial which resulted in the acquittal of a publisher under the actual malice standard illustrates this point. The trial judge in Sharon v. Time, Inc. [fn132] was lauded for the care and innovation with which he charged the jury on the actual malice issue. [fn133] This charge apparently allowed the jury to appreciate fully the constitutional implications of the actual malice standard and led to an acquittal.

And a newspaper article from 1984:

Ariel Sharon yesterday lost his 2-year legal battle to prove that Time magazine libeled him when a federal jury found “no malice” in a false and defamatory paragraph the magazine published about the former Israeli defense minister.

“… whatever Bob actually was saying, he has a good case.” I must say I find this remark very funny. It has nothing to do with the subject that Chris Bertram raised, however. It had to do with the wordgames you played regarding the meaning of being responsible for. As you know the duties of a minister of defense are such that it is not neccesary that there is a direct order to kill civilians, for establishing responsibility for that fact. And that Time Magazine could not substantiate their claim that there is evidence against Sharon in the so called secret annex B, does not lead to a conclusion, in no way whatsoever, that all allegations of direct reponsibility of Sharon already have been proven wrong. The only thing that has been established as false and defamatory is a single paragraph in Time Magazine. That leaves your use of the Time Magazine trial as a rhetorical device against opinions like those of Bob, as dishonest. But then, words are meaningless to you, anyway. Bob’s claim is factually untrue, unless he can present evidence that Sharon directly authorised the murders (as opposed to being culpably negligent in failing to anticipate and prevent them). As that claim has already been found to be false and defamatory in a court of law, I’m not expecting him to do so.

By: Oliver Kamm

Oliver Kamm — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 08:30:20 +0000

Time magazine did not “win the case”: it was found to have published an article that was false and defamatory, and that certain of its employees had acted negligently. As I mentioned, Sharon’s counsel was not however able to demonstrate that Time had acted maliciously, and thus the article was not judged libellous (US libel law being a lot more stringent in that regard than libel law in this country). If you regard this outcome as a victory for the world’s premier news magazine, whose raison d’etre is ccurate analysis and reporting, then words have no meaning. “… whatever Bob actually was saying, he has a good case.” I must say I find this remark very funny. It has nothing to do with the subject that Chris Bertram raised, however.

By: Luc

Luc — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 02:08:22 +0000

I don’t know why you chose to misrepresent the Time Magazine vs. Sharon case. It did not judge on whether Sharon was responsible or not. For if that were to be the case it would have to do the work of the Kahan commission again. It did not. It judged that Time Magazine used unsubstantiated facts, like the meeting with the Gemayel family and the secret annex to the Kahan report, to state that Sharon was responsible. That was ruled to be wrong and defamatory. It then ruled that this was not libel, and thus Sharon lost the case. And it would be strange if we were to depend on the lawyers of Time Magazine, on the final verdict on Sharon’s responsibility in the Sabra and Shatila massacre. Those lawyers were bound to respresent their client, not the rest of the world. And their client won the case. I might add that, whatever Bob actually was saying, he has a good case. The Phalangists were a militia with a known history of killing civilians. Sharon chose to ally the IDF with them for practical reasons. I don’t know which excuse you can make for allying yourself with known terrorists, and then coordinating a refugee camp raid with them. The Kahan commission thought of that as an indirect responsibility. Other people have judged that as a direct responsibility.

By: Oliver Kamm

Oliver Kamm — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 23:33:24 +0000

But Bob didn’t say Sharon was “A war criminal BECAUSE OF” the massacres. He said Sharon was “THE war criminal RESPONSIBLE FOR” the massacres. If you can’t see the difference between those statements, and that it matters, then you haven’t thought through your comment; if you can, then you’re in no position to level charges of personal dishonesty against me or anyone else. Bob’s claim is factually untrue, unless he can present evidence that Sharon directly authorised the murders (as opposed to being culpably negligent in failing to anticipate and prevent them). As that claim has already been found to be false and defamatory in a court of law, I’m not expecting him to do so. I consequently assumed that his use of the word “responsible” was a deliberate allusion to the Kahan Commission’s use of the term, which is often cited (as in Mayor Livingstone’s dossier) without an awareness of what Kahan meant by it. The alternative hypothesis is that Bob had nothing in mind at all, which I agree is a plausible explanation too.

By: Luc

Luc — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 17:14:33 +0000

Oliver Kamm is quite aware that the Kahan Commission was not a court of law, was Israeli, and was limited in both its scope and means. Therefore its outcome is not a judgement that could and should be accepted by all as definitive. And as Bob didn’t made that reference to the commission, but simply stated that Sharon is a war criminal because of the Sabra and Shatila massacres, it might be inferred that he has made a stronger judgement as the commission. And as he didn’t allude to a secret annex I don’t see the relevance of the Sharon vs. Time Magazine libel suit. How to interpret the Sabra and Shatila massacre and the Kahan commission is a “substantive issue” in the I/P conflict. Oliver Kamm is here the same dishonest self as everywhere. Try reading your Amazon comments on some Chomsky books. And then apply that strictness to yourself once, Oliver.

By: Luc

Luc — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 17:12:31 +0000

Oliver Kamm is quite aware thet the Kahan Commission was not a court of law, was Israeli, and was limited in both its scope and means. Therefore its outcome is not a judgement that could and should be accepted by all as definitive. And as Bob didn’t made that reference to the commission, but simply stated that Sharon is a war criminal because of the Sabra and Shatila massacres, it might be inferred that he has made a stronger judgement as the commission. And as he didn’t allude to a secret annex I don’t see the relevance of the Sharon vs. Time Magazine libel suit. How to interpret the Sabra and Shatila massacre and the Kahan commission is a “substantive issue” in the I/P conflict. Oliver Kamm is here the same dishonest self as everywhere. Try reading your Amazon comments on some Chomsky books. And then apply that strictness to yourself once, Oliver.

By: Oliver Kamm

Oliver Kamm — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 15:38:51 +0000

My thanks to Chris Bertram for a thought-provoking post (on which I am far closer to his approach than I am to Brad DeLong’s), which I appreciate and hope to respond to shortly. In the meantime, I have one one minor point not about the post but about the comment immediately before this one. In referring to “a government headed by the war criminal responsible for Sabra and Shatila”, Bob appears to be alluding to the Kahan Commission, whose report is frequently invoked but rarely cited accurately. The Commission in fact concluded the near-opposite of what Bob claims: “that the atrocities in the refugee camps were perpetrated by members of the Phalangists, and that absolutely no direct responsibility devolves upon Israel or upon those who acted in its behalf”. It then went on to discuss the “indirect responsibility” of Israeli officials to fail to prevent those massacres. It concluded that “responsibility is to be imputed to the Minister of Defense for having disregarded the danger of acts of vengeance and bloodshed by the Phalangists against the population of the refugee camps”. That is a serious finding in itself, which rightly led to Sharon’s departure from government; it is not at all the same thing as Bob’s allegation, which is a good deal more extreme than those made by Time magazine and found to be false and defamatory (though made without malice) in a famous US court case. My observations here have nothing to do with the substantive issues of the Arab-Israeli conflict, on which I have often written, or of the 1982 Lebanon War, which I opposed at the time and on which I have never changed my view.

By: Bob

Bob — Mon, 24 Jan 2005 21:15:48 +0000

The relevant point here is Chris’s argument that “states can use terrorism just as much as non-state actors such as ‘national-liberation’ movements can”. However, rather than Bomber Harris’s slaughter of innocent German civilians, in the case of Palestinian terrorism a more appropriate comparison is to the state terrorism directed by the Sharon government against innocent Palestinian civilians. I note that Livingstone draws precisely such a parallel in justifying his decision to welcome Dr al-Qaradawi to City Hall. He writes: “On suicide bombing, Dr Qaradawi stated the view that, in the specific conditions of Palestine illegally occupied by Israel, where some of the Palestinians, faced with a modern, fully equipped army, have resorted to turning their bodies into bombs, he believes this is justified in these unique circumstances. “My own view is that neither suicide bombing nor the attacks on civilians by Israeli tanks, missiles and planes will provide a solution to this conflict. The only way forward is for Israel to comply with the United Nations resolutions requiring it to withdraw from the territories it is illegally occupying so that a Palestinian state can be established and for the two states to co-exist peacefully within secure borders. “However, if you wish to say that I should not share a platform with anyone who seeks to justify suicide bombing by Palestinians, but that I should be indifferent to Israel blowing the bodies of women and children apart with modern missiles, bombs, tank shells and bullets while illegally occupying their land and destroying their homes – I can tell you that I regard such double standards to be pure moral hypocrisy. “If you wish to say that I should not share a platform with Dr Qaradawi for this reason, to be consistent you would also have to say that I should equally not share a platform with supporters of Israel’s military occupation of Palestinian land. “My view is as outlined above. I will promote dialogue and peace in the Middle East by continuing to speak both with supporters of the Palestinians and with supporters of the state of Israel. Nothing will be served by refusing such a dialogue.” Leaving aside the objection that Livingstone places an equals sign between the violence of the oppressor and the violence of the oppressed, this seems a not unreasonable argument. As Mayor of London, Livingstone engages in dialogue and joint activities with leaders of a range of faith communites, including for example members of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, with whom he has worked in combating anti-semitism. Presumably the BoD includes at least some individuals who justify the killing of Palestinian civilians, and by a government headed by the war criminal responsible for Sabra and Shatila, on the grounds that Israel has “no other means” of defending its existence. Would Oliver Kamm conclude that any representative of the Jewish community who held such views should be described as “a supporter of terrorism and the murder of innocents” and therefore “by definition and without extenuation, an evil man”? Would he further argue that such a person “ought never to have been accorded the reception that Livingstone gave him, and … there can be no justification for allying with him on grounds even of the most amoral Realpolitik”? On balance, probably not.

By: Luc

Luc — Mon, 24 Jan 2005 06:33:32 +0000

I doubt I can make a rational response, given the sound judgement of Brad Delong I’m not sure I agree with anyone on these issues, even myself. But there’s two things, First there’s human rights. The pacifist in me says they should be respected even during war. Since this obviously doesn’t happen there a backup position. I think of ‘just war’ theory as a last desperate attempt to maintain the romantic view of war as uniformed soldiers that go to war for a honourable cause, fight honourable, and maintain honour in victory, defeat or death. Central to maintaining this myth, is that you separate those three phases. If a soldier wants to know whether it is morally justifiable to drop a bomb on target x, and he gets the answer, that depends on whether our war is just, there would be little use for him asking. But a question of “are we targetting a military target or a civilian”, is a question that can be asked and answered. Thus you are right that in the end the morality of some action is determined by elements from all the three phases. But while in war, that is not something that is useful to a soldier. You may thing this is just meaningless drivel, but the military is the biggest fan of this honourable myth. Thus a set of generally accepted rules about how to fight a war would be meaningful and generally (not uniformly) adhered to. And even for the Palestinians it has some relevance. If those rules are widely accepted, the external support for their cause, and the internal support for their actions, would depend on the adherence to those rules. And the suicide bombings that targeted civilians did some damage to that support. But as was noted before the rationale for state and non-state actors are different. [you] are not buying into Walzer’s ‘noncombatant immunity’ concept, not unconditionally at least. According to Chris, Walzer did have those exceptions. That’s what started this. Now I don’t know much about Walzer or Just War theory, I just jumped in to say that exceptions or not, that it wouldn’t alter much for the mentioned Qaradawi case.

By: abb1

abb1 — Sun, 23 Jan 2005 21:14:45 +0000

Sorry, ‘agree’ was obviously the wrong word; what I meant to say is that you, apparently, are not buying into Walzer’s ‘noncombatant immunity’ concept, not unconditionally at least. Non-combatants are culpable. When their side loses, they pay reparations. In extreme cases they may be unjustifiably targeted – or even justifiably targeted, it’s not impossible. They should understand it and try to influence their governments accordingly. And of course it’s uncomfortable to rationalize killings.

By: Brad DeLong

Brad DeLong — Sun, 23 Jan 2005 19:45:11 +0000

I’m not sure I agree with anyone on these issues, even myself. I’m uncomfortable with the position that I think I hold—which is that the supreme emergency exemption applies to the WWII bombing effort if for no other reason than that diverting German soldiers and weapons from the eastern front to home defense was worth doing. And I think everybody else ought to be uncomfortable with the position they think they hold on these issues.

By: abb1

abb1 — Sun, 23 Jan 2005 17:48:55 +0000

Luc, I agree that targeting civilians is wrong, as well as, frankly, targeting those who had a bad fortune to get conscripted. You said before: And if you simply allow none, at least you can aspire to being just. I guess this is what I have a problem with. You want to avoid having to make judgment on the motive (and I agree – sometimes it is a subjective judgment) and come up with a clear rule. I understand, that would be great. But it doesn’t work for me. Those who commit aggression are wrong even when they target soldiers, and those who are victims of aggression – well, I feel they should have a degree of immunity, maybe under that “supreme emergency exception” or something like that. Something like using deadly violence in self-defense. I realize that this makes the rule less simple, but hey, the motive is important; the state of mind, motives are being examined in criminal courts every day. People get acquitted of murder or tried on lesser charges if they are deemed to have acted in self-defense or out of desperation. PS. I’m surprised that Brad Delong agrees with me that some ‘innocent civilians’ are less innocent that others (in his example German civilians in 1945, including children, are even less innocent than Russian conscripts). According to Mr. Walzer, Brad Delong has now “joined the ranks of terror’s supporters”…

By: Luc

Luc — Sun, 23 Jan 2005 16:19:26 +0000

Abb1, The judgments aren’t as much about people but about events. If i’d have to translate that into something abstract: You have a set of events, a moral theory, and the resulting judgements. A good moral theory should deliver acceptable judgements for all possible sets of events. Now back to reality. Human rights are relevant. Translating them into rules is relevant, because then you can use them to judge. There is a European Court for Human Rights that does nothing but that. But these rules and judgements are human made, thus they ain’t perfect. And the part that is currently in dispute, the targetting of civilians during war, is heavily contested. See the followup of Brad Delong. And there you see Chris argue about suicide bombing in a way that you and I probably disagree with. But then I do agree with his conclusion (targetting civilians is wrong), and you probably don’t. To make it simpler, the last suicide attack was against a checkpoint. That is infrastructure and infrastructure used to repress Palestinians, so according to this “rule” it could be justified, even if all the dead were civilians. But targetting a restaurant cannot. My conclusion is that interpreted as such, this “rule” doesn’t deprive the Palestininans of their means of fighting the occupation. And, as part of a theory, see the abstract stuff above, it delivers consistent results, independent of which war or party you apply it to. (Forget about the ECHR above. They ain’t a good example)