In the next piece under this heading I examine the question of Hezbollah tactics, which are the same as those used by Iranian-backed movements elsewhere. In this piece the title question should be interpreted as addressing the issue of moral responsibility, not material authorship, and so I will not be submitting evidence. My purpose here is to examine the logical and moral implications of taking one position versus another when assigning blame for the deaths of Lebanese civilians in the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict.

Let us begin with three things that we can stipulate as true.

1) It is true that some Lebanese civilians are dying as a result of Israeli firepower.

2) It is true that Hezbollah is an antisemitic terrorist army of extermination (for the demonstration of this point, see here).[1]

3) It is true that Hezbollah attacked first, and that it directed its attacks against Israeli civilians.

Now the question: Who is to blame for the deaths of Lebanese civilians?

A common strategy of argument that I have seen in the media and on the internet is as follows: by point 1, if the immediate material cause of the deaths of some Lebanese civilians is Israeli firepower, then Israel is guilty.

And since Israel is guilty, goes the corollary, the Israeli response is ‘too harsh.’

I will argue, however, on the basis of point 2 and point 3 that such arguments are morally insupportable.

My argument
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Hezbollah is an army created in Lebanon for the purpose of killing every last living Jew.[1] What does this mean?

Perhaps it helps if we produce the same structure for non-Jews. So let us imagine that Canada allowed within its borders and even sponsored the flourishing of a large terrorist army dedicated to the extermination of all US citizens. I think a crushing majority of US citizens would agree that this amounted to a declaration of war, providing ample reason to attack Canada before this terrorist army under the protection of the Canadian state became strong enough to exterminate the US population. In fact, many US citizens would probably agree that the US government, under such circumstances, has an obligation to attack Canada. But if this terrorist army should attack innocent US citizens first, then all debate would end: the US government must defend its citizens. Why? Because to disagree that the US has a right to defend itself from a large terrorist army that wishes to exterminate the US citizenry, and which has attacked, amounts to calling for the extermination of US citizens.

If you now perform the same thought experiment from your own perspective, using your own country and a neighboring one, you are almost certain to agree.

The structure is the same with Jews, though a culture of antisemitism prods us to resist the obvious: Whoever takes the position that the Jews do not have a right to defend themselves from genocidal enemies who have already attacked is, naturally, calling for the extermination of the Jewish people.

Now, the claim that Israel’s response has been ‘too harsh’ -- which is everywhere -- is difficult to distinguish from the claim that Israel does not have a right to defend itself from its genocidal enemies. I suppose it is possible to react too harshly against an enemy that is seeking the total extinction of your people, but you can see how this is nevertheless an awkward argument to defend. Unless of course everybody is an antisemite, in which case everybody agrees without examining the merits of the argument, and then one does not even have to defend it.

But let’s examine the merits. The argument that the Israeli response is ‘too harsh’ says that some Lebanese civilians are dying as a result of Israeli firepower, and this means that Israel is guilty for their deaths and hence ‘too harsh’ in its response.

To see whether this is a valid argument, let us conduct another thought experiment.

Suppose that a criminal is shooting at you and your family. You shoot back in self-defense, to protect your spouse and children -- your life. Accidentally, you shoot dead a bystander. Question: Who is morally responsible for the death of the bystander? Morally responsible. You were not aiming for the bystander, and you would not have used your gun if this criminal had not been shooting at your family in the first place. And you do have an obligation to defend your family; you cannot simply turn your family over to anybody who is prepared to use violence. Therefore, the moral responsibility for the death of that bystander belongs to the man who decided to shoot at your family and in so doing forced you to perform your moral duty and defend it. If the bullet that killed the bystander came out of the barrel of your gun, that does not absolve the man who attacked your family, and neither does it convict you.

Now, consider the situation of Israel.

Hezbollah is growing fast inside the Lebanese state across the border. It means to kill all the Jews. It attacked. Thus, when the Israeli government retaliated against Hezbollah, this was its moral obligation. No such army can be allowed to exist, and recruit, and arm itself to the teeth, because if we tolerate such armies, we tolerate genocide. And if this army has already attacked, there is simply nothing to debate. Hezbollah must be destroyed. This is the morally correct thing to do.

In the effort to reduce Hezbollah, the Israeli government has not been able to keep casualties of Lebanese civilians to zero, this is true. It is a terrible thing when anybody dies, but we are not discussing whether this is good or bad -- we agree that the deaths of civilians are a terrible thing, and the same goes for the deaths of soldiers. What we are trying to do is decide whose fault this is.

Hezbollah’s core doctrine is to seek the total destruction of the civilian Jewish population, and it deliberately targets Jewish civilians. The Israeli government, by contrast, is not trying to kill Lebanese civilians: it is dropping leaflets to warn civilians before it strikes a place. And the Israeli government would not be shooting at all if Hezbollah had not attacked Israeli civilians in the first place. Since the Israeli government, in attacking Hezbollah, is discharging its moral obligation to Israeli citizens, precisely in the manner that you protected your family in the above thought experiment, the Israeli government cannot be guilty for the deaths of the bystanders when it is obviously trying to limit civilian casualties. It is to Hezbollah that you should account these deaths, because Hezbollah forced the Israeli government to retaliate against Hezbollah, and the Hezbollah ‘soldiers,’ like the cowards they are, hide among Lebanese civilians, thus endangering them.

How to interpret the calls for ‘restraint’
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The accusation that the Israeli response is ‘too harsh’ because there have been casualties of Lebanese civilians, the ‘intellectual’ basis behind the call for Israeli restraint that one is hearing all around the world, is the same as asking the Jews to lie down and die. It is immoral.

Those who sincerely mean to defend the unfortunate Lebanese civilians -- as opposed to those merely looking for a stick with which to beat the Jews -- should join the many Lebanese who already call for the destruction of Hezbollah and for kicking the Syrians out of Lebanon.

And don't believe everything you hear about what the Israeli army is supposedly doing. They will tell you they are monsters, like they did in the Middle Ages, when they told you that the Jews were stealing young Christian boys to murder them in Satanic rites and eat them. Or like when they told you that the Jews were poisoning the wells of Europe, and causing the plague. Or like when they told you that the Jews were a secret political world conspiracy in charge of everything, and poised to destroy Christian civilization.[2] Every time, it was a fraud. Let's see if we can show that we are learning something here.

Many people ask themselves, "I wonder what I would have done in the Holocaust. Would I have bravely defended the Jews?" We are all getting the opportunity to answer this question. It is being attempted once again. What are you doing?

Take me to the

in this series.