zdenekv, the very definitions and analogies you apply to label Hamas as “terrorists” when applied in a [non-Foxian] fair and balanced way leads to the same label sticking to Israel on more occasions than the current one.. The various tactics used to argue that one is and one isn’t serves only to to perpetuate the problem to the advantage of the main actor.

But all these analogies are silly aren’t they? We have a perfectly real situation to discuss. And you don’t seem willing to address straight on the various conflicts between the morality you propose (only) Hamas should follow, and your implied support of the fundamental Palestinian goal of living freely and free of ethnic cleansing. So can you explain to me a) how Hamas can use non-violent methods successfully b) how they can use violent methods against a force they can’t reach c) how they can get their land back without removing the people currently on it d) whether they are justified (as Walzer claims) in breaching basic laws of morality if they face a national emergency and e) how the laws of war can be applied in an illegal (colonizing) war, when the colonisers military objective is the destruction of civilian life?

We are asking whether Hamas are a terrorist outfit and the only way to show that they are not, is to argue either that they do not in fact systematically and as a matter of policy violate the Principle of Discrimination ( in other words that they take care to attack only combatants who don’t have immunity against lethal force ) OR that Hamas is indeed a terrorist org. but their terrorism is justified / excused( one could also argue that the concept ‘terrorist ’ is empty and useless but lets set that approach aside ). You are arguing for the second claim, I take it, but this cannot be established by the argument you are using . That is , you cannot establish that Hamas are justified using the tactics they do, by showing that Israel does too. Why ?

Take an example : you are aggressively and unjustly attacked by a man with an axe and you are forced to reach for a gun but during the struggle the gun faces towards a small child across the street who is staring at the struggle in amazement. You are tempted to shoot the child thinking that her screams will distract the attacker and maybe save your life . Can you shoot the child ? No, because she is a perfect bystander. What you tried to argue is that because the axe man ( Israel ) is wrongfully attacking you, you ( Hamas ) are released from moral obligation not to harm the child. But that is false.

But let’s suppose for a moment that Hamas have to follow the rules of war that their enemies don’t. Then let us suppose further that they somehow achieve their military objective of regaining their land, i.e. the settlements. Now they have to evict from those settlements all the women and children (the “perfect bystanders”). How do you propose they do this non-violently? In short, how can Hamas (or any other Palestinian force) achieve their political redress without violence towards “perfect bystanders”? Those perfect bystanders need to have their “property” taken from them by force.

Sure, a political settlement could potentially avoid this. But political settlements can’t be made with colonising states. You may not like it, but the best way to avoid this unrestrained war is to stop the colonising state, which after all is the Leviathan in this Hobbesian world. I don’t see much evidence of anyone except Hamas trying, however, and I do see a lot of evidence of zdenekv-style commentators trying to avoid recognition of the true nature of Israeli aggression, thus continuing to abet their ethnic cleansing.

You don’t seem to be able to follow an argument : Hamas are terrorist not because they kill soldiers or armed settlers ( I conceded that some settlers are best seen as ancillaries and hence do not have immunity) . The argument you continue to duck is that Hamas are terrorists because they don’t distinguish between combatants and non- combatants. They dont distinguish between or aim to kill “perfect bystanders” ( babies , small children who are totally innocent of knowingly and freely intending harm ) and “outright fighters” ( these freely choose to fight and understand the nature of the war ).

This is wild & desperate stuff. You are so eager to excuse and justify criminal and vicious behaviour of Hamas that you are willing now to claim that morality and law do not cover the Palestinian -Israeli war; you are suggesting that the conflict is not taking place in a moral space because Israel and Hamas operate in Hobbesian world in which morality and legal conventions have no traction.

Even if this weird idea made sense it cannot be usefully invoked to defend Hamas for two reasons : first if Hamas cannot act wrongfully , because it and IDF are waging the war in a Hobbesian world, they by the same token cannot act virtuously . Second and more serious problem is that with this move Israel is completely off the hook because you are giving it a licence to do whatever it chooses on the battle field . There are simply no moral rules now that apply to it on your view : killing non- combatants ? No . Committing genocide ? No . Committing host of other war crimes ? No, does not apply etc. Can you see that this way of “defending” Hamas against legitimate criticism is not doing them any favour and is the last thing you should want to fall back on?

I think your view of the role of these settlers is extremely rosy.

The simple problem here is that the laws of war – either just war or the protocols – were not invented to handle the case of a colonising state in conflict with its marginalised victims. These wars aren’t meant to happen anymore. In such a war the “military objective” of the victims is to turf their oppressors off their land, which one way or another is going to involve a lot of civilian terror (at the point where they successfully turf people out of their homes). And the military objective of the colonising state is the extinction of all claims to its new land, which can only be achieved by terrorising or destroying a civilian population. You will have noticed that that is what Israel is doing.

With those as the military objectives of this war, the protocols were shredded from the start. The only way we can assess this war is in terms of who is in the right from the start, and it’s that basis of assessment which makes the Israelis look so evil.

What then is wrong with terrorism ? It is condemned under the moral principle—as I have been arguing—of discrimination which is part of just war doctrine. ( jus in bello to be more precise ). Hamas obviously is a terrorist organization according to this definition because it explicitly flouts the principle of discrimination ( this is obviously the core of force behind the claim that Hamas is a criminal organization ).

see my # 219 which deals with very much the same question. Hidari raises similar defense you are now mounting viz. that the Hamas is not targeting civilians actually but rather colonists who do not enjoy immunity. See my reply to him.

The question you should be asking yourself is how an armed settlement on Gaza’s borders could constitute a civilian target in this colonial context, i.e. how can Hamas actions be construed as terror?

They are entitled to use arms of course and resist Israel etc. Again you are running two different things together : what they cannot be allowed to get away with ( they must either renounce terror or be defeated ) is to use terror . Why are you confusing armed resistance ( just )with terrorism ( unjust )? What is so hard to understand about this distinction ? The way you think about this issue makes it clear that you don’t take Just War Theory or international law seriously and that is why your defence of Hamas cannot be taken seriously .

As for your idea that I am denying “agency” by suggesting we shouldn’t be so quick to judge palestinian militants locked in their ghetto – what piffle! What would you suggest they do? Demonstrate? Send angry letters? That’s a complete crock . I have no doubt that you in their position would be doing the same thing. In fact, your main justification for Israel’s continual war crimes is exactly the same : they face exterminatiom from a real threat, etc.

Either you seriously believe that a couple of rockets from Hamas constitute a serious threat of extermination, while a nuclear armed Israel corraling starving Palestinians into a strip of overcrowded city does not; or you are selectively applying your moral framework. And why the latter? because you refuse to accept that Israel in becoming a colonising state has lost its ability to fight a “just war”. There are no just war’s where colonisation is the goal.

“… are the colonists ‘civilians’ in the pure sense of that word? Given that Israel has no intention of eliminating the colonies in the West Bank (they have made that very clear) and are probably now regretting demolishing the colonies in Gaza, and (this is a big assumption) assuming that military action is justified in that colonists are de facto aggressors, are the colonists legitimate targets (this is complicated by the fact that some colonists are/were relatively peaceful: this is hardly the case with many/most Israeli colonists)?”….

This is a good question. The colonists don’t seem to be “perfect bystanders’’ who enjoy complete immunity ( babies , small children ,as well as objectors who take no part in the conflict ) and nor are colonists like “imperfect bystanders” who support the war in their harts but do little or nothing to exhibit their support. Colonists are more like “cheerleaders ” or “willing ancillaries” who explicitly support the war effort. If colonists are indeed type of ancillaries then using lethal force against them may be justified but of course Hamas does not try to distinguish the perfect bystander from imperfect bystanders or from the cheerleders / ancillaries. That is why their tactics are without any doubt criminal.

Very good and I hope that if they have committed war crimes this can be pinned on them. The point I want to make is that if we take the Principle of Discrimination ( including the rule of non combatant immunity ) seriously and say that civilians enjoy robust and unequivocal protection during armed conflict we cannot apply these principles only when it jives with our political convictions ( see sg’s and Hidari’s line ) and say that Israel is guilty of wrongfully killing non combatants but then go on to excuse Hamas from doing the same.