Obviously that was a figure of speech.Teremia wrote:I hope you would not REALLY 'like to see' such a thing, nel.And for the moral absolutists in this thread, I would really like to see how many injuries and deaths of loved ones and days living under the threat of personal injury or death it would take before you reconsidered your absolutism.
It's not that I think you are smug about it, it's that I think your position is entirely untenable for anyone who is confronted with the serious threat or actuality of grave injury or loss of life (either their own, or sufficiently close friends, children, or other family members) at the hands of terrorists. And for all of us not in this position, the thought of being in that position IS necessarily an abstract one, leaving much more space for absolutist moral judgments against those who act out of necessity to defend their own (or their dependents' and loved ones') physical safety.I'm not smug in any way about suffering--I'm sorry if I gave you the impression I was. It is terrible how much how many people are suffering in this world. This pain is not "abstract" to me, actually. I almost can't bear to keep living sometimes, thinking about the things that people are REALLY doing to each other.
Which again, I can agree with you here, while my city and state and country are serenely not under attack. Which is to say, it may be perfectly acceptable to you or me to say that party A should not act harm or kill party B (particularly if party A would risk harming innocent bystander C), even if party B is attempting to inflict fatal violence on party A. We may quite nobly propose that party A should break the cycle of violence, even if this requires the risk of great personal risk of serious injury or death. But let party B come to San Francisco, inflict fear on our streets, kill my friends, compromise our transit system, and cause fear in our parks and restaurants and synagogues and then ask me again what I as party A may justly do or support doing. Or perhaps we can send party B over to Berkeley, to terrorize young university students walking to class, place grade-school children at risk of losing their lives, and increase the danger of reading while walking outside. At some point, the danger would render your position flatly untenable, unless you are literally willing for your family, your children, and you to die rather than to inflict violence to stop a terrorist threat. Your position is literally untenable for anyone who exhibits a preference for living over dying, unless that person is privileged to live in a place of peace - and from that place of peace, to condemn the self-defensive actions of others who are not so fortunately situated.But if suffering is used to justify the causing of more suffering, then there is no end to it.
As for Voronwë's point, I think that each of Israel's actions would need to be analyzed individually to determine whether the particular action was a reasonable use of force based on self-defensive necessity, and that some actions would likely pass a test of reasonable self-defense while others would not. But I am mindful that it is all too easy to armchair quarterback those decisions from a peaceful land thousands of miles away.