What happened to all your other posts MJ?

Just War theory works best when you analyse conflicts between Western or Westernized states.
When you compare different civilizations whose peoples have basic value differences you are liable to get it wrong.
The problem with Just War theory between incompatible civilizations is that it makes no room for the tragic. The tragic unfortunately is real, it does not bend to our will.

The confrontation between islamic civilization and the west as represented by Israel and Hamas, belongs in the realm of the tragic. Just War theory will not help you here since the very understanding of War and Justice by both parties are so different as to void any real rapproachment of the minds. Only the others behavior can speak the truth here.

Our problem, as Western intellectuals, is that we always presume a western understanding of war and justice onto the Palestinians. It is blind arrogance, if for the noblest of reasons - we assume the best in others because our culture tells us to.

Still, it was a noble exercise on Sullivans part and is a good read.

No war is just. But I have questions that I have not seen satisfactorily answered.

What did Hamas think they would gain when they indiscriminately started lobing rockets at Israel? What did they think would happen? Why, as their comrades, and innocents are dieing all around them do they continue to lob their aimless rockets? Since, the 2006 Lebanon "war" how many rockets have been fired into Northern Israel?

To me, the Hamas rockets are like the German V2s or the Japanese balloon bombs at the end of WWII. Desperate random killing machines sent by desperate killers who want nothing but war and death.

Good column by Nadav Shragai in Ha'aretz explaining why the disastrous policies that MJ's "peace camp" brought on Israel (2 wars in 2-1/2 years and 3 wars in 9 years-quite a record for "men of peace" including Israel's Nobel "Peace Prize" winner President Shimon Peres) must be ended and those who brought this disaster on Israel and the Palestinians must be ousted from office:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052993.html

MJ, I see you are still misrepresting yourself by writing columns in the Jerusalem posing as a "concerned friend of Israel". If you insist on doing that they you should include gems that you posted here like "Russian immigrants to Israel should go back where they came from since they support the 'wrong' political camp". However, you don't have the guts to do it, so you save your true beliefs for your blog.

This also via Cole yesterday is very disturbing.

CBS News broadcasts an interview with a Norwegian physician on the scene in Gaza.

He says he has seen one military casualty come into the hospital. Of 2500 wounded, 50% are women and children. Doing surgery around the clock. There are injuries you do not want to see-- children coming in with open abdomens, with injured legs, we had to amputate both of them. This is a war on the civilian population of Gaza. It is a very young population. They cannot flee. They are fenced in. They are bombing one and a half million people in a cage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev6ojm62qwA&eurl=http://www.juancole.com/&feature=player_embedded

Reports today that a Merkava flattened a UN school in which civilians were taking shelter - 40 dead

Of course this leaves out what has gone on at Andrew Sullivan's place subsequent to his initial take on whether just war theory could condone the Gaza military action.

In fact, he has aired many letters from readers and others that call into question the applicability of just war theory to this conflict. He also acknowledges that just war theory is deeply rooted in the Catholic catechism, and may therefore be removed from other religious and philosophical traditions.

Sullivan's views are far more nuanced than Rosenberg would have you believe, although to be sure he is troubled by the Gaza action. And his thoughts about this are also influenced by the Iraq debacle. As he sees it, Israel runs the risk of making the same mistakes the US made in launching a war without clear aims against an irrevocably hostile population that will kill a lot of innocents and not accomplish much. No doubt Israel runs that risk. But where Sullivan, unlike Rosenberg, is uncompromising is his understanding of the nature of the terrorist jihadist mindset of Hamas. Indeed, he has acknowledged the possibility that classic just war theory may be inadequate precisely because it doesn't anticipate the nature of conflict with an enemy like Hamas.

So it is not quite as simple as just saying Andrew Sullivan is the dove MJ Rosenberg makes him out to be. I doubt very much he would count himself as part of the J Street crowd.

One letter posted by Sullivan in dissent from his initial position on just war theory struck a chord with me. I think it is just brilliant:

The problem with the doctrine of Just War, I would submit, is that it can only be applied in retrospect. In prospect, it is at once too restrictive and overly permissive. It requires an unachievable degree of certainty. But when leaders or their population nevertheless convince themselves that a conflict meets its standards, even though it cannot, it tends to grant them a sense of moral absolution that leads to callous indifference to the loss of human life.

No, the Israeli assault on Gaza cannot be said to be Just. Declaring it to be so is a manifestation of moral cowardice, of an unwillingness to face up to its awful price. It is merely a war: a messy, dirty conflict that injures all who are involved. It will exact a terrible toll on soldiers, militants and civilians, and there is no possible set of justifications which should blind us to that fact.

But that does not necessarily mean it merits moral condemnation. It does not mean that Israel was necessarily wrong to launch it, nor wrong to finish it. Those judgments tend to become clear only with the virtue of hindsight.

Take Israel's 2006 invasion of Lebanon. In its first week, many saw that invasion as justified. By the time it ended, it was widely viewed as a catastrophic, destructive, and unnecessary fight. Now, after two years utterly devoid of violence along the northern border, some are more ambivalent. If the conflict resumes where it left off, it will reconfirm its futility. But if Hezbollah and Israel arrive at a modus vivendi, it will be seen as having been the necessary precursor to peace. How are you supposed to know such a thing before you commit to fight, when years after the last shot, the consequences of the conflict remain unclear? Think of it, if you will, as a morality of doubt.

I am equally suspicious of the rectitude of those who unequivocally support this conflict as I am of those who sweepingly condemn it. The future is uncertain. The four conditions of the Catechism each point us in the right direction, and correctly suggest that the burden of proof must always rest with those who would resort to force. But three of the four demand absolute certitude: that the damage be "certain"; that "all means" be shown to be ineffective; and that it "must not" produce greater evils. Anyone who pretends to be able to answer these questions in the affirmative in advance of conflict is either a liar or a fool. No damage is ever certain, all means are never exhausted, and we never know in advance what toll a conflict will exact.

You have eloquently expressed your skepticism that the Israeli assault on Hamas will be seen, in retrospect, to have crossed these thresholds. I continue to believe that, if it meets its objective of clearing the way for a renewed ceasefire that is viable over the long term, it may well prove to have been justified. But I would be the first to admit that I am uncertain. I simply do not know what will happen.

The rhetoric that you and I find most abhorrent is spouted by those who experience no doubt, who see no uncertainty. It is dangerous. It lowers the threshold to initiate conflict, and leads to brutality after its onset. But the answer is not to identify a standard that would endow us with certainty; it is to recognize that certainty is always elusive, and to humble ourselves before that conclusion.

Of course this does not mean that one should suspend judgments completely. People must apply their philosophical leanings on war at the time, not just years after. For pacifists, no war could ever be moral, regardless of whether the outcome is positive or not and regardless of the cost. What is interesting is that while few people of the left would openly admit to being true pacifists, in effect that is what many are, given that they reach conclusions about conflicts immediately and focus exclusively on the costs and never on the benefits. I respect the pacifist tradition in that it helps raise awareness of war's costs, which is something we sholdn't ever gloss over or take lightly. But pacifism for Israel is tantamount to national suicide. It is, to paraphrase Orwell, objectively pro-Hamas.

Funny, the warriors here -- YBD and Shlomo and the one or two others -- are so damned determined to win the rest of TPM readers over. But those of us who can't abide this war have no interest in winning the war's few defenders over.
I don't write to convert the defenders of this war but to share grief and anger over the slaughter in Gaza. I don't ever want to be on the same side of people who can justify away the killing of children. And I never will be.
So, armchair warriors, forget about lecturing us until you come to terms with your own consciences.
We understand your anguish -- if we were defending these killings, we'd be anguished -- but we don't share it. Thank God. Although our heartbreak over the slaughter is painful, it is clearly less excruciating than yours is in justifying dead babies in morgues.
Oh yeah. I'm a self-hating Jew! And Hamas is responsible because it allows its people to live in apartment houses near spots the IDF will target. I forgot.

Ah yes, now neocon SholomA is lying some more - this time about the mythical wonderful deal that the Palestinians mythically turned down. If anyone still doesn't know the truth about this lie, they should watch this TPM clip (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2008/12/zbig_smacks_dow.php) where another soul-less neocon (Joe Scarborough) gets properly put in his place for brainlessly repeating this favorite Israeli lie.

Of course no Israeli neocon will talk about the ACTUAL deal that has been on offer for years but that Israel refuses to even consider: namely to get actual peace with Palestine and the rest of the Arab middle east by returning the settlement lands Israel has stolen since 67 and withdrawing to the 67 borders. This is also known as the Arab Peace Initiative and was endorsed by all 22 members of the Arab league as well as the PLO and Hamas.

But instead of talking about the real world and real world attempts to find a just and long-lasting solution to the Israel/Palestine quagmire, the Israeli neocons like SholomA just lie and quote the National Review and cry about how everyone who doesn't cheer when Israel kills babies is antisemitic. To repeat the words of MJR above, "I don't ever want to be on the same side as people [like SholA] who can justify away the killing of children. And I never will be."

There needs to be some common sense here. If the Israeli government ever wants to live in peace, it is going to have to allow its neighbors (this includes Gaza and any other Israeli held or managed lands) to have enough commerce with the rest of the world to survive at something a great deal more reasonable than starvation levels. This it seems entirely unwilling to do.

All humane request for redress from the refugees (and all the displaced are refugees) have been met with conditions from the Israeli government that make life for the refugees to be some level of poverty.

You can't have an economy in Gaza without outside trade that is significantly less fettered than the Israelis want it to be in order to insure that no one is smuggling in armament. Period. Eventually, the Israelis are going to have to take that gamble.

Nothing settles a people down more than a full belly, a warm permanent place to sleep and decent treatment. And nothing will substitute for it, either.

YBD,

When someone like SholumA comes on TPM and quotes the National Review as the absolute unvarnished "truth", then I think I'm justified in calling them a neocon. And your BS about "Peace Now" supporting this action is pure BS and you and I both know it. So I guess I have to include you as one of the lying neocons on this site.

And not surprisingly you deny and lie about the Arab Peace Initative, because if any reasonable person were to read it, it would be clear to them that it is Israel who is choosing to perpetuate the violence by walking away from a just and honorable real solution. For anyone who hasn't read it here it is, you can read it in about one minute: http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/AllDocsByUNID/5a7229b652beb9c5c1256b8a0054b62e.

As is obvious from one minute of reading it, it states "Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines" in exchange for all members of the Arab league to "Consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel" and "Establish normal relations with Israel".

So what's your next neocon lie, YBD?

Normally, I wouldn't respond to someone like you who uses vile epithets against people they disagree with, but in this case I must because you are the one who is lying.
The Arab "Peace" Initiative was published in several Israeli newspapers. IT EXPLICITLY DEMANDS ISRAEL ACCEPT THE PALESTINIAN RIGHT OF RETURN according to UN General Assembly Resolution 194.
Also I note you did not even bother to respond to the things I pointed out that Israel was giving to the Gazans upon their withdrawal in 2005. Obviously you don't care about the facts, which is typical of anti-Israel propagandists like yourself.