- "Forget trying to justify the death of a 6-year-old...
Better to kill the boy and just feel guilty about it."
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- Professor Asa Kasher agreed to help the IDF (Israel Defense
Forces) formulate an ethical code to justify killing those who mastermind,
encourage, plan or carry out terror attacks - and also innocents who happen
to be in the area of a targeted hit. Kasher has broadened the concept of
"ticking bomb" to include anyone suspected by Israeli intelligence
of having any connection to a bomb.
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- In olden days, this concept was more concrete. It allowed
interrogators to put pressure on someone who had access to timely information
about an attack. Now the ticking bomb has gone from being an operational
code word to a woolly, philosophical term and the intelligence services
have been granted a free hand in determining who deserves to die.
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- But broadening the ticking bomb concept works both ways.
Taken far enough, Kasher himself, who is on very close terms with those
who are working to wipe out terror, might be considered a ticking bomb
from the Palestinian perspective. After all, Kasher talks to those who
carry out targeted hits, those who give the green light and those who sit
and plan them. He meets with the ideologues, the initiators and the big
chiefs. He advises them, provides them with moral support, drafts their
defense arguments and soothes their consciences.
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- In Kasher's eyes, an organized army is always more ethical
than a terror organization because military operations are designed to
hit military targets and stay clear of civilians. Anyone who looks at the
intifada casualty lists knows how wrong he is. Over the past few years,
IDF soldiers have had such light trigger fingers that most victims of the
intifada have been innocent bystanders.
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- When it comes to targeted attacks from the air, Kasher's
moral assumptions are even more mistaken. The fact that innocent people
will die is taken into account during the planning of these operations.
It is not just a matter of luck or lack of caution. Killing innocents is
an integral part of the order. In targeted assassinations, writes Kasher,
"one is forced to accept there may be collateral damage."
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- The majority of intifada victims on the Israeli side
have also been innocent bystanders - older women on the way to visit their
grandchildren, an entire family lunching at a restaurant wiped out of life.
Looking at the statistics, it gets even sadder. On both sides, most of
the victims have been poor, hardworking people - not the ones who drive
around in fancy cars. Even the restaurants targeted by suicide bombers
are cheap diners, not gourmet establishments. Someone should do the math
one day and find out how many people who barely eke out a living pay with
their lives in wars.
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- If a philosophy professor on the Palestinian side framed
an ethical code for terror, what would it look like? Ahmed Yassin, in his
less elegant way, reframes such a code after every terror attack. He says
that Hamas prefers killing soldiers over civilians, and settlers over ordinary
Israelis. But in his eyes, all Israelis, or at least the overwhelming majority
of them, judging from the election results, have been supporting occupation
for thirty-odd years. They finance the settlements and serve in the army,
and even when they're back in civilian life, they are potential reservists.
So as far as he's concerned, they're all ticking bombs in the broad sense
of the word.
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- Widening the circle of guilt is possible on both sides.
Would a bus where 80 percent of the passengers are soldiers and 20 percent
are women and children be an ethical target for a suicide bomber? Are the
women and children merely "collateral damage?" Are the soldiers
"ticking bombs," as Kasher's criteria would seem to imply? A
Palestinian could say that soldiers traveling home on a bus will be back
on their bases tomorrow, and might conceivably kill Palestinians.
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- None of this justifies killing innocent people on any
side. But the attempt to establish an ethical code for the war on terror
is no different from laying down rules for legitimate terror targets. Ultimately,
defining who is innocent and who constitutes the brains or the driving
spirit behind an act of terror, is in the eye of the beholder. The same
is true for defining what constitutes an ethical target. That is why ethical
codes like Asa Kasher's should not be written.
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- Morality is not something that can be reinvented in keeping
with changing defense needs. Moral laws are set in stone in every covenant
and constitution. They are part of every religion. If there is no choice
but to kill, better that it be done without an ethical code, without some
university educator trying to take away the pain. Forget trying to justify
the death of a 6-year-old who happened to be standing next to the Subaru
of an Islamic Jihad operative when it was hit by an Apache helicopter missile.
Better to kill the boy and just feel guilty about it, without all the excuses.
Let those who embark on such a mission know that they do so with only the
law and their own consciences to rely on - not some prettified, off-the-rack
reply brief.
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- © Copyright 2004 Haaretz. All rights reserved
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- http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/400455.html
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