Wrestling with the moral dilemmas of Gaza: Martin Buber’s ‘Hebrew Humanism’

I’ve argued in a previous post that our challenge during Israel’s war in Gaza is to sustain our solidarity with the Jewish people while simultaneously expressing our commitment to the Jewish value of human life and the idea of universal human rights.  Now I want to explain why this challenge is so difficult, and – perhaps – to suggest a way through the dilemma.

The problem is harder to negotiate than many of Israel’s advocates would have us believe.  Let’s assume for a moment (and I think this is a correct assumption) that it’s legitimate for Israel to defend its citizens by attacking Hamas’s rocket launch sites and tunnels in the Gaza Strip, even when Hamas intentionally locates these in densely populated areas.  Let’s also assume that Israel does its best to comply with international humanitarian law by not targeting civilians, giving warnings before each attack, and trying to minimise civilian casualties. 

None of this means that a Palestinian civilian whose home is destroyed or who is killed or injured has not had her human rights infringed.  This is true even if we argue that Israel’s actions are legitimate specifically because their aim is to protect the human rights of Israeli civilians.  And if Palestinian human rights are being infringed as the result of Israeli actions, then Israel has to take responsibility for this, even if every act carried out by the IDF is morally and legally justifiable. 

(The same goes for Hamas, of course, the difference being that no-one could argue that Hamas makes any effort to avoid civilian casualties of Israelis – or of their own people).

The internet is awash with one-sided, simplistic responses to this dilemma.  Half the responses justify Israel’s behaviour and, as a logical next step, either deny Palestinian suffering or blame it on Hamas.  The other half bewail the abuse of Palestinian rights and draw the conclusion that Israel’s actions are therefore morally illegitimate.

To me it’s clear that both sides only have it half right: it’s entirely possible for legitimate actions to lead to terrible suffering.  This is the paradox: the fact that Israel’s actions may be defensible does not absolve us from responsibility for their indefensible results. (Disclaimer: I’m not making a moral judgement about specific Israeli actions as I don’t have the necessary military or legal expertise to do so.)

So how should we respond?

The religious philosopher, Zionist and peace activist, Martin Buber, has profound advice to offer on this difficult topic.  In his essay ‘Hebrew Humanism,’ published in 1942, Buber argued that the Bible is the most important moral and spiritual resource for the Jewish national movement.  But the function of the Bible is not (as most Zionists had it) only to teach us about our history and our right to the Land.  Rather:

“What it does have to tell us, and what no other voice in the world can teach us with such simple power, is that there is truth and there are lies, and that human life cannot persist or have meaning save in the decision in behalf of truth and against lies; that there is right and wrong, and that the salvation of man depends on choosing what is right and rejecting what is wrong; and that it spells the destruction of our existence to divide our life up into areas where the discrimination between truth and lies, right and wrong, holds, and others where it does not hold, so that in private life, for example, we feel obligated to be truthful, but can permit ourselves lies in public, or that we act justly in man-to-man relationships, but can and even should practice injustice in national relationships.”

For Buber, Judaism teaches that morality is absolute.  There is a difference between right and wrong, and this difference holds in every area of life, the political and the military no less than the private and the interpersonal.  But Buber is not naïve about the difficulties of this position.

“It is true that we are not able to live in perfect justice, and in order to preserve the community of man, we are often compelled to accept wrongs in decisions concerning the community.  But what matters is that in every hour of decision we are aware of our responsibility and summon our conscience to weigh exactly how much is necessary to preserve the community, and accept just so much and no more; that we do not interpret the demands of a will-to-power as a demand made by life itself; that we do not make a practice of setting aside a certain sphere in which God’s command does not hold, but regard those actions as against his command, forced on us by the exigencies of the hour as painful sacrifices; that we do not salve, or let others salve, our conscience when we make decisions concerning public life, but struggle with destiny in fear and trembling lest it burden us with greater guilt than we are compelled to assume” (my emphasis).

Statehood means we’re not always able to live up to the demands of justice.  Sometimes we have to act for the good of the community in ways which do not accord with textbook ethics.  Shelling rocket launchers in civilian areas of Gaza would seem to be one of those times.  Buber makes two requirements of us in such situations.  First, that we do what is needed to preserve the community and save life, and no more.  We must never allow ourselves to be guided by the desire for power and certainly not by the need for revenge. 

Second, when self-preservation leads us to use force, we must retain absolute clarity about the moral status of our acts.  When we’re forced to do something wrong, under no circumstances must we convince ourselves that we’re in the right.  Morality, or God’s command, is absolute and universal.  We have to look our existentially necessary but immoral acts in the face. 

The recent controversy over the publication of the names of Palestinian casualties of Israeli shelling is a case in point.  Buber would argue that while the IDF’s actions may be justified in terms of national survival, there’s an accompanying moral imperative to recognise the harm that we’ve done and the people we’ve hurt.  Refusing to publish the names of the victims is the start of a spiral towards redefining morality in a narrow, chauvinistic way.

Our job is to understand the complexity of Israeli military actions, defend them when we believe they are necessary to protect Israeli lives while squarely acknowledging the suffering and the immoral results that flow from them, and to work for the realisation of the Judaism’s – and the State of Israel’s – values of peace, justice and human dignity.

Why is this important?  Buber believes that without a moral, spiritual vision at its core, the Jewish state will not survive:

“By opposing Hebrew humanism to a nationalism which is nothing but empty self-assertion, I wish to indicate that, at this juncture, the Zionist movement must decide either for national egoism or national humanism.  If it decides in favour of national egoism, it too will suffer the fate which will soon befall all shallow nationalism, i.e. nationalism which does not set the nation a true supernational task.  If it decides in favour of Hebrew humanism, it will be strong and effective long after shallow nationalism has lost all meaning and justification, for it will have something to say and to bring to mankind.”

All quotes from Martin Buber, ‘Hebrew Humanism’ (1942), reproduced in Arthur Hertzberg, The Zionist Idea, pp 457-459.