Michael Walzer
Subject: Is the war in Gaza just?
Bio: Emeritus Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study
Reading: Just and Unjust Wars is here
Additional reading: The Maquis Connection is here
Transcript:
Larry Bernstein:
Welcome to What Happens Next. My name is Larry Bernstein. What Happens Next is a podcast which covers economics, politics, and war.
The topic today is, is the War in Gaza Just?
Our speaker today is Michael Walzer who is an Emeritus Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study. He has previously taught politics and government at Princeton and Harvard as well. Michael has written the leading book in his field entitled Just and Unjust Wars. I want to discuss with him his moral philosophy of war and then apply it to the current conflict in Gaza.
Buckle up.
Michael Walzer:
The theory of just war is a theory worked out by Catholic theologians and philosophers in the Middle Ages. Every civilization has rules for war, but the only comprehensive theory was produced by these Catholic writers.
This theory has three parts. Jus ad bellum deals with the justice of the war itself. Is this a just reason for fighting? Is this a just cause? The second part is jus in bello deals with the conduct of war. How should war be fought? And the third part is jus post bellum deals with the making a just peace.
With regard to the first, Jus ad bellum the reason for going to war is self-defense. These Catholic writers were responding to crusading warfare. They were against going to war for religious reasons. This Catholic theory secularizes the whole military enterprise. Self-defense is the primary reason for going to war, but you can also go to war in defense of others. Think of a domestic analogy. If I am attacked on the street, I have a right to defend myself. That's a miniature version of a just war. And if you come running to help me, you are joining a just war. For example, a humanitarian intervention to stop a massacre would fit under the theory of a just war.
Jus in bello justice in the conduct of the war relies very heavily on distinction between combatants and non-combatants between soldiers and civilians. And the crucial idea is that it is forbidden to attack non-combatants. Any direct attack on the civilian population is unjust.
This distinction can obviously get very complicated because civilians are implicated in wartime. Unless the war is fought at sea or in a desert, there are always civilians present. So do what you can to minimize the injury to the civilian population. And another crucial part of jus in bello is the treatment of prisoners. when a prisoner surrenders, he or she immediately returns to something like civilian status. They can no longer be beaten, tortured; they are entitled to benevolent quarantine for the duration of the conflict. The surrender is a bargain. The soldier says, I'll stop fighting and you have to give me benevolent quarantine.
Jus post bellum deals with the making of peace. If you are fighting in self-defense, you are responding to an attack. And when the attack has been defeated and your territorial integrity restored, the war should be over. Of course, things get much more complicated because often as at the moment in Ukraine, when you are defending your territory, it will sometimes help by invading the enemy's territory. And that could be part of a just war of self-defense. But the most common idea of peace is that it is the restoration of the status quo before the attack.
Larry Bernstein:
One of the purposes of this podcast is to apply your theories to the current conflict in Gaza. I want to understand both parties as it relates to your three major aspects to justice and war. So, at the outset of whether to go to war, I'll start with the Israelis first. They were attacked on October 7th and hostages were taken across the border. Is that a legitimate cause of action for the Israelis to respond to that incursion to its territory and the taking of its people?
Michael Walzer:
The answer is yes. This is one of the most obvious examples: an act of aggression, an attack, and a justified response. I can't think of any country in the world that would not have at least attempted a military response to an attack like that of October 7th.
Larry Bernstein:
Why do you suppose there was such public outcry on October 8th, the day after that demanded that Israel not engage in a military response given the attack?
Michael Walzer:
I wouldn't say there was a universal outcry.
Larry Bernstein:
There were some people. The Biden administration was very supportive. But there were other leaders in the world that suggested that this was inappropriate response.
Michael Walzer:
There was a response on the far left of support for Hamas, which is incomprehensible in my view. And countries in the Muslim world that are allied with Hamas. But the response of the West in Britain and France, the ruling and opposition parties all condemned the Hamas attack. Joe Biden on October 7th, didn't stumble, didn't hesitate. He knew exactly what was the right thing to do, and he did it.
Larry Bernstein:
Let's now switch sides to the Hamas decision to go to war with Israel. Was there justification for the attack on Israel? Let me try to give my best case for their side, Gaza had certain territorial desires. They wanted to reincorporate what is now Israel into a Palestinian state. They may have felt that the current arrangement between Gaza and its neighbor was unsatisfactory. Therefore, they decided to do a surprise attack. Is that justifiable action?
Michael Walzer:
No. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank might be a reason for forceful opposition, but this would have to be opposition to the military occupation. Terrorism is never justified. Terrorism is a deliberate attack on the civilian population for a political reason. So, terrorist attacks from Hamas cannot be justified. Nonviolent opposition would be certainly justified. And it's possible you could justify a violent opposition if it was directed only at soldiers and not at civilians.
Larry Bernstein:
Let's go to just conduct of war. Hamas first, in its invasion on October 7th, they attacked both military and non-military sites. They attacked a kibbutz where people were fast asleep. They attacked a rock concert with young people. And in that process killed over a thousand civilians and took several hundred hostages. Is that just conduct in war? And if so, where did they go across the line?
Michael Walzer:
Had they attacked only military outposts at the border, this would still have been an unjust war, but it would not have been an unjust conduct of war. They would've been fighting against soldiers. But the primary purpose of this attack was to terrorize the population, to kill civilians, to kill kids at a music festival. Yes, this was radically unjustified, under international law criminal, but certainly a morally criminal attack.
Larry Bernstein:
This seemed religious in nature. In some of the videos that I saw of October 7th, they used religious slogans and declarations suggesting that this was a religious crusade than it was a political disagreement. Tell me about how that changes the equation or not.
Michael Walzer:
These Catholic theologians were opposed to religious wars. In the 16th and 17th centuries, they declared that the Spanish conquest of Central America, which was supposedly motivated by the desire to Christianize the heathens, that this was an unjust war. A war for religious purposes is unjust.
Larry Bernstein:
You referenced these Catholic theologians. Why should we give them credence? Why look to them? I don't look to Catholic theologians on most issues. Why this time?
Michael Walzer:
Well, they accomplished a philosophical task. They set out a set of principles which have been adapted by many non-Catholics. My book, Just and Unjust Wars, is essentially a secularized version. Some people have said it's a Jewish version of Catholic just war theory. International law derives from Catholic just war theory. The first theorists who developed international law were working from these Catholic theologians. So, it's not that the theological origins give it some authority, its usefulness in shaping the judgments we make of military conduct is what leads us to continue using it.
Larry Bernstein:
Your book Just and Unjust Wars wasn't released in response to the events in Gaza. It's in its fifth edition. Tell us about why you wrote this book, it's application historically to events, and why did you call it a Jewish interpretation of Catholic theologians?
Michael Walzer:
I wrote the book in 1967. I was a young lefty running around the country making speeches against the Vietnam War, and then suddenly I found myself making speeches defending Israel's preemptive attack on Egypt. There were people who thought this was contradictory. I had to explain, there were just and unjust wars. I wrote a book; It took me 10 years. The original unjust war was America and Vietnam. And the original just war was Israel in ‘67 against Egypt. So, it had these two original purposes to criticize the American war and to defend the Israeli war.
Larry Bernstein:
Let's go back to conduct of the war and challenge Israel's behavior. A couple of weeks after the war began, before the invasion started, I had Anthony King a Professor of War at the University of Warwick on my podcast, and he said that urban warfare is going to be a catastrophe for both sides. He said that going street-to-street, having underground tunnels, booby trapping areas, hiding in buildings would be highly problematic. And he expected a very high death toll for the Israelis. I countered him at the time and said that I expected the use of artillery and airstrikes to prevent going door-to-door to prevent substantial military deaths. And from what I understand, that is what the Israelis did. They would go to a building, they would say, there's going to be an airstrike or artillery attack in 30 minutes. Please come out with your hands up. Those of you who don't come out, you're taking your life into your own hands. How do you feel about that sort of announcement and then the use of force to challenge Hamas’ control of a specific building, a block, a city, et cetera?
Michael Walzer:
We have to begin with the challenge that Israel faced. Hamas designed a war that Israel could not fight without killing large numbers. First, it embedded its own military personnel in the civilian society of Gaza. And then it refused to build shelters for the people of Gaza. And then it created this underground city, 450 kilometers of tunnels, including apartments, rooms, roads, all underground. An underground city to which it refuses to admit civilians and in which it hides its own soldiers and conducts a war.
This is the situation that Israel faced. I don't think immediately after October 7th they fully grasped the scope of the underground city, but they certainly knew how Hamas would be embedded in the civilian population. Now, embedding yourself in the civilian population is a criminal act.
The major principle of the justified conduct of war is to sustain the distinction between civilians and soldiers, which means that you should not put your military supplies in the basement of schools or mosques, and you should not hide your soldiers in apartment buildings. Hamas violated the central principle of distinction.
What does that mean for Israel? Israel walked into this trap that it couldn't fight without killing civilians. The more civilians it killed, the more pressure against it would build up in the world, the more the war became a political disaster for Israel. So the obligation of Israel was to fight this war against an embedded Hamas in such a way as to minimize civilian losses. And the Israelis claim that that's what they have done by warning people in advance of attacks and trying to move very large numbers of Gazans out of the places from which Hamas is conducting its war. How successful they have been in doing that? it's impossible to say from a distance this will be something that historians will investigate.
Larry Bernstein:
A hospital in Gaza was used as the military headquarters in the basement. Does Israel have a moral right to destroy the hospital given its use as a military headquarters? Or does the safety of the patients who are helpless justify Israel standing down and making it a legitimate place for them to continue to use their headquarters?
Michael Walzer:
There has to be a military judgment. How crucial is this hospital to Hamas? If it is absolutely central to their war effort, then you try to warn the patients to get out, whoever can get out and you deal with Hamas in the hospital on the ground rather than just bombing the building.
They called it a communication and control center. But in this kind of a war, a Hamas with a computer and a smartphone constitutes a communications and control center. That's why the Israelis have had such difficulty in that they attack one of these centers after another.
I find it very difficult sitting in New York to criticize the way the Israelis have fought the war. But there is one feature of the Israeli war, which I think does require criticism, and that is the effort to what Gallant, the Minister of Defense called a total siege, which helped to create a humanitarian crisis. The Israelis should have made every effort for both political as well as military and moral reasons to avoid. There should never have been a cutoff of supplies.
Larry Bernstein:
Israelis have countered and said that they provided 3,500 calories per individual. And that Hamas didn't allow for the free flowing of calories to the people but took it for themselves.
Are you morally required to provide food and calories in wartime to your enemy’s civilians, knowing that it'll go also to their army?
Michael Walzer:
Let me say something about siege warfare, which is one of the oldest forms of warfare. The idea of a siege is very simple. It is a way of not fighting. You surround a city, you cut off supplies, and you just sit and wait. And the inhabitants of the city get hungry. They bring pressure on the rulers of the city and the rulers surrender. That's because there is a moral connection between the inhabitants and the rulers. And what was missing in Gaza and what the Israelis knew was missing was that there was no moral connection between the inhabitants of Gaza and Hamas. Hamas was not going to surrender to prevent the starvation of the people of Gaza. In fact, Hamas welcomed the starvation of the people of Gaza. It strengthened their political position, and the Israelis had to know that.
Larry Bernstein:
The argument here is that Hamas was an illegitimate government and didn't represent the interests of its people. Hamas was duly elected. It was a one-time democratic event. Then there was some surveys done before and after October 7th as to the popularity of the regime and Hamas' popularity if anything increased during the battle. I'm unaware of any uprisings that were done by the population against the Hamas regime. There was a sense that if elections were held today that Hamas would win.
Here's another example. When Hamas built the 450 kilometers of tunnels under their homes, there was no public outcry by the civilians. Tens of thousands of people living in Gaza worked daily in Israel. They could have told the world that Gaza had been building these tunnels and that they were going to be potentially used against Israel. They were silent. At what point does the civilian population become culpable with the regime?
Michael Walzer:
Hamas won a plurality not a majority in the elections. They established a coalition government, and then they seized power in a coup. So, they were not the democratically elected rulers of Gaza. And the last opinion poll before October 7th showed that roughly one third of Gaza said that they would vote for Hamas if there were ever future elections. The regime of Hamas was a totalitarian, highly repressive regime, and opposition was mercilessly repressed.
At the same time, the people of Gaza had no love for Israel. Hamas was the brutal authoritarian rulers. The people of Gaza were caught in a terrible bind.
Larry Bernstein:
I want to challenge the idea that the Palestinian people are not culpable and only the regime is culpable for this war. Where did we see this distinction play itself out? That the local population feels that it's not represented by Hamas that they've acted out. Let me give you some examples that would be used as evidence if the local population was shooting at the Hamas. They could join with the Israelis in various activities. What evidence have we seen that the local population opposes Hamas?
Michael Walzer:
People don't do that.
Larry Bernstein:
They did in France.
Michael Walzer:
Most of the French population was in effect, passive or complicit in the occupation. And in the Vichy government, the number of people who actually joined the resistance was fairly small. There was a myth of the heroic resistance. And I admire the myth and I admire all the people in France who joined the resistance. But overwhelmingly, the French people were just passive.
Larry Bernstein:
Just as a quick personal aside, my grandparents and my mother were in France during the war trying to escape. And during the war, my grandfather joined the French Foreign Legion. And then when they lived in Vichy, in hiding for a number of years, and in November of ‘42 after the US invasion, Operation Torch, the Germans invaded Marseilles where my grandfather was. And they decided to make a run for the border where they met up with the Maquis, the French Resistance, which was you pointed out, was a relatively small group.
The reason that the Resistance decided to help my family get across the border in the Pyrenees was the fact that my grandfather had been in the French Foreign Legion and that because he originally had been an Austrian national, he would've been killed on the spot once the Germans captured him.
You're right that there were very few. The myth of the resistance is true. The handful that did exist acted morally, in the sense that they assisted a handful of refugees with special stories and British air pilots to get back into the war.
For a copy of my grandfather Geroge Karp’s memoirs that I rewrote with my mother you can find it here or as an audiobook read by me here.
How should we think about the role of resistance fighters? You mentioned in your book that there was a surrender and that incorporated those civilians from continuing the fight. Is it morally acceptable to resist Nazis?
Michael Walzer:
Yes, of course. But if the German response to an act of resistance was simply to capture and punish the resistors and not to destroy a village you wouldn't put those Germans on trial. Surrender means the end of hostilities. You could say the German occupation was not benevolent so resistance was justified. Still the Germans behaved so brutally that it was never a question. Opposition to them was justified. But ordinary people think about their families, their jobs. They don't think about what the political moment requires of them.
Larry Bernstein:
Alistair Horne wrote a book about the Battle of Algiers and he quotes a FLN leader who was challenged because they engaged in terrorist activities like leaving bombs in cafes and at a casino that killed a large number of civilians. The French journalist who was asking him said your behavior is immoral. And he said, we don't have fighter jets. We don't have advanced armaments. The only tools we have is sending young women dressed as French girls into cafes with bombs. And that's what we're going to do. Is that morally justifiable behavior given it's the only tool they have?
Michael Walzer:
Not the only tool. We know of debates inside the Algerian national movement where some people urge terrorist attacks and some people say, no, there are better things to do: General strikes, massive civil disobedience. An Israeli general once said to me at a dinner party, if 5,000 unarmed Palestinians marched out of Nablus toward the nearest army base on the West Bank, that would be the end of the occupation.
Larry Bernstein:
Maybe.
Michael Walzer:
That's what he thought. And the Palestinians never managed to get together a peaceful nonviolent. There are organizations on the West Bank that claim to be working for nonviolent opposition.
Larry Bernstein:
Do we see any opposition to Hamas in Gaza?
Michael Walzer:
No.
Larry Bernstein:
Why doesn't that make the civilian population culpable?
Michael Walzer:
There were people telling opinion pollsters that they wouldn't vote for Hamas. But no, there was no active opposition. I don't think that has anything to do with it. Civilians do not lose their immunity because they aren't heroes.
Larry Bernstein:
There are children who live in Gaza. It's a young population. It's disproportionately children relative to other populations around the world. Does that change the moral calculus in the decision to engage in military activities in Gaza?
Michael Walzer:
No. It may force the Israeli soldiers to make additional efforts to avoid killing civilians. It doesn't affect the decision to fight against Hamas. It does affect the humanitarian arguments, which we really didn't finish. Because I agree with you. Under American pressure, Israel did greatly increase the flow of food and medicine into Gaza. But the difficulty is the distribution. And as you said, Hamas sees some of it. Gangs have taken over a lot more of it. And it's so that it moves from the humanitarian aid organizations into the black market. No one is in charge. The Hamas police were legitimate targets of the attacks since they were part of the Hamas regime. But by destroying the police, you also made impossible any controlled distribution of goods.
The question is in areas that Israel controlled, should Israel have itself organized the distribution of the goods rather than just bringing them in and leaving them to be used by Hamas? What was the obligation of Israel to take over the distribution? And that's a new question because I don't think there's been a war like this.
Larry Bernstein:
What duties does the opposition in a war owe the civilians to another in terms of providing food and shelter? You mentioned that they deserve warnings not to be put in mortal danger. And if the civilian makes the decision not to leave, they were ordered, please exit Rafah ASAP. An invasion is about to begin. And then if they do choose to stay, they are now going to be more in harm's way. There's still a duty to prevent their deaths. But you have in your book an exception, which is that a siege by definition is allowable act of war. But it means that they can't get the calories. And here Israel is saying, I'll give you the calories, but you distribute internally. I don't know how they're supposed to go in there in an active war zone and take on that responsibility of handing out food.
Michael Walzer:
The point that Israel claimed that in the beginning that they were cleared areas that these areas were not active war zones, but because of the underground city, there were no cleared areas in Gaza. And that's why I was trying to say that if there was an obligation to take over distribution, it had to be qualified by the fact that they were never really in control and that's because of the underground city.
I do believe that once you give civilians a chance to leave, and that has to be a real chance, not 30 minutes, but a chance to pack up belongings and move out. Once you do that, then people who stay are legitimate military targets. Then the problem is if you tell people to move to a safe zone, that then turns out not to be safe. And that has happened again and again in this war. It has a lot to do with Hamas' ability to rise up from underground in unexpected places.
Larry Bernstein:
If one party says to the other party's civilians, go to this place, it'll be safe. And then its opposition decides to not make it a safe zone by becoming an active war zone. That's a decision and moral culpability of its opposition to put its civilians in danger, isn't it?
Michael Walzer:
That's right. That's been Israel's problem. But they declare a safe zone because they think it will be safe. Okay, Hamas comes in.
Larry Bernstein:
If Hamas wants to make it a safe zone, they should exit the safe area and not make it a war zone.
Michael Walzer:
But Israel knows that Hamas doesn't want to make it a safe zone. Hamas benefits if it can get Israel to attack the safe zone. That's a big benefit for Hamas.
Larry Bernstein:
But that philosophy doesn't change the moral culpability question. If one party decides that it benefits from killing their own civilians, then it can't be the opposition side to say, well, you can't have your cake and eat it too. I mean, we're trying to protect your civilians, but you keep putting them at risk because it serves your other purposes.
Michael Walzer:
That's what I call the asymmetry trap. And Israel walked into a trap, and that's why the whole world is turning against Israel and have to explain again and again, the character of the trap and why Israel is doing what it has to do. But still, there has to be some commitment on Israel's part to address the problems that it has walked into.
Larry Bernstein:
Let's go to a just peace. Vice President Harris recently said to Bibi, wrap this thing up. And the Israelis have not achieved their war aims, namely the release of the hostages and the destruction of the senior leadership of Hamas. What you said was, when you go to war, you have to have a reasonable aspect of when to make peace. That is one of the key elements argued by the Catholic theologians. But what's interesting about that is the argument is once you get the border back enough already, but here, the original taking of those hostages are part of that original act of war. Is Israel justified to continue the war to get the release of the hostages?
Michael Walzer:
If you assume that that's the only way of doing it. But there are an awful lot of people in Israel in the streets every day who believe that an immediate ceasefire is the right way to get the hostages back.
Larry Bernstein:
In every democratic organized government, different people disagree legitimately as to what is the most effective way. They've chosen a leader democratically to make that decision. There's opposition here. The Republican and Democrats very rarely agree on an exit approach to Afghanistan, for example, and how that was accomplished or not. In this example, we're asking ourselves a moral question. A ceasefire is marginally better than a non-ceasefire, where good people could disagree.
Michael Walzer:
I think in this instance a ceasefire is the morally right thing to do.
Larry Bernstein:
Why?
Michael Walzer:
Because Israel is not winning the war. It is losing the political war.
Larry Bernstein:
But that's not a moral argument.
Michael Walzer:
Political leaders are morally required to act prudently because they are responsible for the lives of the people that they lead. Prudence is a moral requirement. And right now, prudence for Israel, I think means a ceasefire.
Most of the intelligence people and the army people want a ceasefire. It is politically impossible right now to get a ceasefire.
Larry Bernstein:
This idea of a moral duty to make peace is on both sides. And so how should we think of that moral duty in a conflict when one side has lost? Does it have a duty to say I surrender. When one side has won, does it say you get peace with honor and you get to keep the hostages?
Michael Walzer:
There has to be a negotiation to produce the release of the hostages certainly and the creation of some government of reconstruction in Gaza. That's the American plan. The Americans have a plan that I think is right.
Larry Bernstein:
But neither side agreed to the American plan.
Michael Walzer:
Neither side agrees.
Larry Bernstein:
How should both sides move forward?
Michael Walzer:
Just war theory is a structure for arguing. It is designed to provide us with the categories and the principles with which we ought to make our judgments about war. And it is aimed at the citizens of countries fighting because all wars are judged morally, and we are the people who make the judgments.
In this case, the judgments have political consequences. That's why it's been so important to me to try to describe the asymmetry trap and the extraordinary dilemmas that Israel faced after October 7th. As an American citizen, I think the Americans have done quite well. I greatly admire Biden. Some people think he hasn't been tough enough on Bibi. But the problem with being tough enough on Bibi is that Israel has real enemies. And if it ever looks like America is abandoning Israel, the enemies will feel strengthened and will be even more likely to attack.
Larry Bernstein:
Thanks to Michael for joining us today.
If you missed our previous podcast, check it out. The topic was a critical review of the new miniseries Presumed Innocent. Our first speaker was Scott Turow who is the author of that legal thriller. Scott discussed what it was like to see his novel adapted to film and TV and what Scott’s impressions of this radically different miniseries. .
Our second speaker was Darren Schwartz who is the What Happens Next Film Critic. Darren compared the miniseries with the novel and the 1990 Harrison Ford movie. Darren also discussed how the change in our social mores pushed the plot and character development in a different direction.
I would like to make a plug for next week’s show with Peter Moskos who is the author of Cop in the Hood and In Defense of Flogging. Peter is a Professor in the Department of Law and Political Science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. I want to find out from Peter what it is like policing in the Eastern District of Baltimore when he was a police officer and why he thinks we need to reconsider physical punishment in lieu of incarceration. This will definitely be provocative.
You can find our previous episodes and transcripts on our website whathappensnextin6minutes.com. Please follow us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Thank you for joining us today, good-bye.
Check out our previous episode, Killing Your Lover, here.
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