ARE SUICIDE BOMBINGS MORALLY
DEFENSIBLE? by Richard Wolin This is a discussion by Prof. Wolin of my book After The Terror and the controversy about it in Germany. It appeared in the The Chronicle of Higher Education, widely read in American universities, on 24 October 2003. You can also look at my reply to Wolin and to various judgements by reviewers of the book. In recent weeks a publishing scandal involving charges of anti-Semitism has dominated the feuilleton sections of leading German dailies. The debate has embroiled one of the nation's most respected publishing houses, the Frankfurt-based, left-liberal firm of Suhrkamp Verlag. It has also implicated the world-renowned philosopher Jürgen Habermas for having made a controversial publishing recommendation. More generally, the dispute raises an issue of fundamental importance concerning the ground rules of the continuing, fractious debate over Middle East politics -- an issue familiar to American academics: At what point does vigorous criticism of Israeli policy dovetail with rank anti-Semitism? At the center of the maelstrom in Germany is a slim volume by the philosopher Ted Honderich, who until his retirement taught at University College London. The book, After the Terror, is an attempt to reassess global politics in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Written in an offhand, chatty style, its main point -- unarguable, as far as it goes -- is that first-world nations bear responsibility for third-world nations' impoverishment. Yet the lines of clarity -- and reasonability -- quickly blur when Honderich attempts to define the nature of that responsibility and its consequences. At issue, in his view, is not just political responsibility for the deleterious economic consequences of American-backed globalization policies on the part of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization, but also a direct moral responsibility allegedly shared by all Westerners. What makes that argument problematic is its blanket refusal to acknowledge any indigenous causes of third-world poverty, be they geographic, climatological, regional, sociological, or political. Rather than promote intelligent reflection on the causes of global social injustice, Honderich is interested in playing a simple blame game. Because Westerners (or at least a good number of them) live affluently, while most third-world denizens languish in squalor, the former are by definition morally culpable exploiters. Further suspicions about Honderich's acuity surface when one searches for the connecting link between his nominal topos -- third-world misery -- and his 9/11-inspired title. He endorses the perilous view that, under certain circumstances, the 2001 terrorist attacks could be construed as a justifiable response to global impoverishment. In various passages, he apotheosizes Osama bin Laden as the avenging angel of the wretched of the earth. Since the attackers proceeded without a reasonable expectation that their crimes "would work to serve a justifying end," their actions remain condemnable. Conversely, had the perpetrators reason to believe that, in Honderich's words, "the killing of several thousand people would in due course serve the end of the principle of humanity," their actions would have passed the Honderich test of justifiable political homicide. In the end, Honderich derives considerable solace from the fact that the 9/11 assaults "were indeed attacks on the principal symbols of world capitalism." Therein lies their partial moral legitimacy. Of course, the major problem with this interpretation is that bin Laden's agenda was explicitly couched in the language of fundamentalist Islam rather than class injustice. His goal was not to liberate fellow Arabs from capitalist oppression, but to enslave them under a Taliban-style theocracy. A more recent essay by Honderich, chillingly titled "Terrorism for Humanity," reinforces the conclusion that he acknowledges few limits on acts of violence committed in the name of the oppressed: "African terrorism against our rich countries would be right," proclaims the Canadian-born philosopher, "if it had a reasonable hope of success." But from the standpoint of moral philosophy, it is not "instrumental" criteria like success or failure that determine whether or not an action is right; rather, it is the action's intrinsic qualities. Terrorism is morally wrong because it targets innocent civilians. From a moral point of view, the fact that it is practiced by a group with which one happens to sympathize changes nothing. A history of political violence demonstrates that numerous admirable causes have been vitiated by their choice of murderous methods. Many of the flaws in After the Terror had already surfaced at the time of its initial publication, in 2002, by Edinburgh University Press. When Honderich presented his ideas on "morally justifiable terrorism" in lecture form to North American audiences, vigorous protests ensued. As one Brown University student wrote to the campus newspaper: "It is incomprehensible that a university professor would seek to rationalize murder ... and grotesque that Brown would bring him to campus." To defuse the controversy, Honderich, who hails from a wealthy publishing family, agreed to contribute £5,000 in royalties to Oxfam. But, to the philosopher's chagrin, the British relief agency pointedly refused to accept the donation, on ethical grounds. As its statement explained: "Oxfam's purpose is to overcome poverty and suffering. We believe that the lives of all human beings are of equal value. We do not endorse acts of violence." Apparently, Suhrkamp Verlag was blissfully unaware of the commotion surrounding the book when, on Habermas's recommendation last year, it purchased the rights to a German translation. The focus of the debate in Germany concerned Honderich's observations on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Given the misdeeds of the German past, unreasonable or excessive criticism of Israel has long been a fraught issue. In the postwar era, Suhrkamp Verlag has been a beacon of moral integrity. It has been the publishing home of Jewish authors, like Walter Benjamin, who were persecuted by the Nazis. One of its major subsidiary imprints is the Jüdischer Verlag, or Jewish Press. After the Terror is suffused with what can only be described as anti-Israel canards. Whether these observations qualify as anti-Semitic is another matter. Early on in his narrative, Honderich observes that "having been the principal victims of racism in history, Jews now seem to have learned from their abusers" -- implying that Jews are present-day Nazis or, at the very least, employ Nazi methods. He goes on to say that Zionism "has rightly been condemned as racism by the United Nations." But he omits to mention that in December 1991, the U.N., in its infinite wisdom, repealed the same declaration, by a vote of 111 to 25. But the claim that brought matters to a head concerned another one of Honderich's attempts to legitimate the political use of terror, which he euphemistically praises as "liberation-terrorism" or "Terror for Humanity." The disputed passage reads: "I myself have no serious doubt ... that the Palestinians have exercised a moral right in their terrorism as certain as was the moral right, say, of the African people of South Africa against their white captors and the apartheid state. Those Palestinians who have resorted to necessary killing have been right to try to free their people, and those who have killed themselves in the cause of their people have indeed sanctified themselves. This seems to me a terrible truth, a truth that overcomes what we must remember about all terrorism, and also overcomes the thought of hideousness and monstrosity." In August, Micha Brumlik, a professor of education at Goethe University, in Frankfurt, who is also director of the Fritz Bauer Institute for the Study and Documentation of the History of the Holocaust, read Honderich's book and became alarmed. Claiming that the passages in question evinced an "anti-Semitic anti-Zionism," Brumlik requested that Suhrkamp withdraw After the Terror from circulation. The press complied, avowing that it would refrain from republishing the text once the initial print run of 2,000 copies was exhausted. Brumlik's protest, which appeared as an open letter in a German daily, put Habermas on the spot. The German philosopher restated his rationale for having recommended publication -- the book's exploration, in the aftermath of 9/11, of the roots of global social injustice -- while explicitly distancing himself from Honderich's sanguinary political fantasies. In retrospect, it seems that the German handling of the "Honderich affair" was unfortunate and maladroit. Brumlik appears to have overreacted. Honderich's political judgment might be extremely questionable. But his statements are hardly anti-Semitic in the technical sense of the term. In any event, the merits of his claims should be assessed and debated in the public sphere. By suggesting that the book be removed from circulation, Brumlik showed insufficient trust in the reasoning capacities of the German public. He thereby missed a golden opportunity to educate his fellow citizens on why the political use of terror is morally reprehensible. Banning books, or refusing to reprint them on political grounds, sets an unfortunate precedent. It also has the unintended consequence of allowing Honderich to claim that his ideas are being unfairly suppressed -- by Jews and their sympathizers, no less. The question of political uses of terror has been brought to a head by the wave of Palestinian suicide bombings in the aftermath of Ariel Sharon's provocative September 2000 visit to Jerusalem's Temple Mount, site of the al Aqsa Mosque. The legitimacy and efficacy of those bombings have been intensely debated by Arab intellectuals in the Middle East and the United States. Increasingly, they have been a topic of heated discussion on university campuses across North America, discussion not often characterized by patience and reasoned argument. See, for example, the public statements of New Jersey Solidarity, a Rutgers University-based, pro-Palestinian organization that opposes the existence of Israel. Its members have justified suicide bombings with the claim that "Palestinians have a right to resist occupation. It is not our place to dictate the forms and practices the Palestinians must use." Honderich does not, as one might expect of a philosopher, evaluate such rhetoric. In fact, he seems strangely unaware of, or uninterested in, the continuing dialogue regarding Palestinian terrorist tactics. Rather than offer a considered analysis of the dominant arguments on both sides, he shoots from the hip, his endorsement of political terrorism seemingly designed merely to provoke. Dating back to the Hague Conventions of 1898 and 1907, one of the mainstays of international law is the imperative that warring parties distinguish between combatants and civilians. Those precepts were vigorously reaffirmed by Additional Protocol I to the 1977 Geneva Convention, which representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization attended. The distinction is widely recognized as a linchpin of international human-rights law. By intentionally targeting civilians, suicide bombings deliberately contravene those precedents. More insidious still, some of the recent bombings seem to have intentionally targeted young Israelis -- to wit, a June 1, 2001, bombing at a Tel Aviv discoth`eque that killed 21 and wounded 120, and an August 19, 2003, Jerusalem bus bombing that killed 5 children among the 18 dead, and wounded 40 children among the 100 wounded. According to an October 2002 report by Human Rights Watch, "Erased in a Moment: Suicide Bombing Attacks Against Israeli Civilians," which condemned the intentional and systematic massacre of innocents, the suicide bombings qualify as a crime against humanity. In international human-rights law, the fundamental precedent was set by the 1945 Nuremberg Charter. The Nuremberg precepts were recently reaffirmed by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which defines crimes against humanity as the "participation in and knowledge of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population," and "the multiple commission of [such] acts ... against any civilian population, pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy to commit such attack." According to the Rome Statute, both individual perpetrators and the organizations that sponsor them bear criminal accountability for such acts. They are crimes of universal jurisdiction and are subject to no statute of limitations. Are the bombings morally or politically defensible? The attempt to morally justify suicide bombing seems especially specious. One of the cardinal precepts of the just-war doctrine, dating back to the days of early Christianity, has been the prohibition against the massacre of innocents. In the 2,500-year-old canon of Western moral philosophy, I am hard pressed to find a single thinker who accepts the taking of innocent life to further political aims. Moreover, experts on the Middle East have frequently pointed out that suicide bombing explicitly contravenes three cardinal precepts of Islamic law: the prohibition against killing civilians; the prohibition against suicide; and the protected status of Jews and Christians. Here, too, the burden of proof is squarely on Honderich's shoulders. In the instance at hand, even the argument from political expediency seems dubious. The military or strategic gains that have accrued from the suicide bombings seem negligible. All evidence points to the fact that their overall effect has been to bolster the political power of Israeli hard-liners -- a regrettable outcome for Palestinians and Israelis alike. A spate of suicide attacks by members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad immediately before the 1995 Israeli elections played a major role in facilitating the victory of the Likud Party candidate for prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. From the standpoint of a constructive and equitable resolution of Palestinian-Israeli territorial disputes, the terrorist actions have been flatly counterproductive. Palestinian opinion leaders worldwide have indirectly acknowledged as much, believing that the wanton and bloody assaults on civilians risk bringing the entire Palestinian cause into disrepute. In June 2002, 58 leading intellectuals and public figures published an "Urgent Appeal to Stop Suicide Bombings" in the Palestinian daily Al-Quds. Honderich's position remains distinctly behind the curve. Interestingly, in recent interviews, Honderich has pointedly declared his belief in Israel's right to exist. But then his defense of suicide bombings as a legitimate political weapon is self-contradictory. For the two main Palestinian militant factions responsible for the attacks, Islamic Jihad and Hamas, have never concealed the fact that their strategic objective is to expel all Jews from Palestine. The groups' justifications of suicide bombings are a maze of confusing and contradictory statements. The leaders have variously argued that: --The suicide strikes are purely retaliatory. (That claim, starkly at odds with the available evidence, leaves the question of the attacks' moral or political legitimacy untouched.) --Civilians are not the main targets. (A manifest falsehood.) --Because all Israeli adults serve in the military at one point or another, none are civilians. (The strictures of international humanitarian law make clear that soldiers who are off duty and out of uniform qualify as noncombatants.) --Settlers in the West Bank and Gaza often carry weapons and are illegally occupying Palestinian land; hence, they are fair game for attack. (Under the terms of international law, the fact that civilians are armed does not alter their status as noncombatants. Moreover, that argument fails to account for the plethora of attacks that have occurred outside of the West Bank and Gaza -- i.e., within Israel's pre-1967 borders.) --The Palestinians are at such a distinct military disadvantage vis-à-vis Israel's sophisticated modern weaponry that suicide bombings represent a great equalizer. (That claim is difficult to square with the dearth of positive strategic military results. And other oppressed peoples have successfully employed nonviolent methods of civil disobedience to call attention to their cause. Why has the Palestinian leadership ruled out those means?) If the suicide bombings have provided the Palestinians with negligible strategic or military gains, why have the attacks persisted? And why have they been so popular among the Palestinians (according to a July 2001 poll, 58 percent of them approve of attacks against civilians inside Israel)? Here one of the keys is understanding the brand of religious fundamentalism represented by the two main perpetrators, Islamic Jihad and Hamas. For both organizations, and for fundamentalist Islam in general, martyrdom represents a central article of faith. Muslim clerics who seek to justify suicide attacks against Israel customarily argue for a seminal theological difference between suicide and martyrdom. Whereas, according to Islamic law, self-inflicted death is strictly proscribed, militant mullahs have elevated martyrdom to the status of the most glorious death. The suicide bombings are a lethal amalgam of martyrdom-laced vengeance -- a consummate theological and strategic outlet for Arabs in the region, who have been otherwise politically impotent. (After all, from 1948 to 1973, the Palestinians lost four wars.) Moreover, the bombings serve the functional end of shoring up support for Arab leaders who have been slow to produce results, and whose competence has been increasingly called into doubt in recent years. Was Honderich's endorsement of Palestinian suicide bombing anti-Semitic? Technically, no. Yet it could easily be construed in that way. For, in addition to being a (disputable) military gambit, suicide bombings constitute a highly freighted act of political symbolism. They deliver an unambiguous message: All Jews -- men, women, children -- are legitimate targets of political murder. Thereby the bombings flirt with a discourse of genocide whose historical resonances are all too familiar and disturbing. ------------------------------------ Richard Wolin is a professor of history and comparative literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His books include Heidegger's Children: Hannah Arendt, Karl Lowith, Hans Jonas, and Herbert Marcuse (Princeton University Press, 2001). REPLY to Wolin OTHER JUDGEMENTS HOME to T.H. front page HOME to Det & Free front page |