War, both as a concept and a tangible phenomenon, raises several contradictions. The most prominent of them is that it is a human act, in the sense that it is waged by human beings, but is also an inhumane act often mistakenly attributed to monsters.
This human intellect has, since the times of ancient India and Greece, exerted great effort into unpacking this issue and others tied to war, such that it becomes something we only resort to begrudgingly and fighters do not become monsters.
Centuries before the rise of modern ideologies that took pride in war and elevated it to a glorious act, limiting warfare had been the mission that thinkers set for themselves.
In the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas laid out what he saw as the moral justifications of an "ethical war," like that it must be steered by peaceful intentions and waged under legitimate authority, and that retaliation must be proportionate to the assault being retaliated to; the war effort must also have a serious chance at success, and it can only be a last resort, wage after all other means had been exhausted.
These days, few are considered to have devoted themselves to distinguishing between "just war" and an "unjust war" to the extent that the American political scientist Michael Walzer has. He set laws that drew the line between the two, laying a third way between the "realists" enthusiastically supportive of any war and the "pacifists" who are equally enthusiastically opposed to any war.
It is Israel’s behavior that has brought this issue back to the fore. The Jewish state’s military victories across the region amount to a stride toward what some call the "Israeli era." However, it has reaped a significant moral (and media) defeat in Gaza, which some believe could, in the long run, gnaw at that victory.
Facing this rupture, we find ourselves confronted with the antithesis of all the ideas that have sought to limit war through morality and law.
Indeed, the primary "theory" implicitly underpinning Netanyahu and his government’s behavior is that the powerful have little need for law, morality, or any of the other values that history has accumulated to prevent barbarism from running rampant. Carefully examining Israel’s rhetoric, both official and random, one finds other arguments accompanying the country on its long journey into the depths of the jungle.
There is, of course, the crime of October 7 and Israel's self-defense, Hamas's refusal to hand over the remaining hostages and declare total surrender, and the "nature of this region" drowning in violence that "understands only the language of force."
But all of these arguments come together in a broader vision that the religious fanatics have laid out very clearly: the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which has been impossible to solve peacefully, will only end with a "final solution" to this same conflict by rendering it impossible, today and forever.
None of that, regardless of how well it all holds up to scrutiny, explains this veracious appetite for starving civilians that has devoured tens of thousands, many of them children, women, and elderly people. As for making an art out of denying Gaza’s population dignity and debasing both bodies and sanctities, it amounts to an absolute rupture with everything associated with good neighborliness in a better tomorrow, and with the notion of war as a temporary and unfortunate occurrence caused by the failure of politics and diplomacy. Instead, Netanyahu's Israel is portraying war- as such and as an end in itself- to be a glorious way of life, ensuring that the irreconcilability of nations becomes an inherent and permanent fact of life.
As more than one Israeli has warned, this will all come at a steep cost for Israel itself. Once upon a time, the world celebrated the Jewish state's victory over three countries, but it is difficult to imagine celebrations of its current victory over starving children. Once upon a time, its communal kibbutzim had admirers, as did its parliamentary democracy. Today, on the other hand, Israel is exclusively associated with genocide. If Arab minorities, feeling besieged and threatened in their own countries, have been compelled to seek Israel’s aid, they are doing so purely because of the need to ensure their safety amid the abhorrent state of affairs in this or that Arab country. It has also become clear that Saudi Arabia will not grant Israel the peace deal it seeks unless a Palestinian state is established, or if it sees progress toward a Palestinian state, while Israel’s relations with Egypt and Jordan continue to deteriorate. As the two-state solution demanded by the Saudi-French initiative builds momentum in Europe and the world, disgust with Israel is beginning to broaden. While it is difficult to reach conclusions based on Trump's statements, he, too, has begun to voice skepticism of Netanyahu’s actions and words. Two days ago, his administration walked back its threat to deny cities and states that boycott Israeli companies federal disaster relief.
From intellectuals, artists, and academics to athletes and entertainers, more and more figures have begun boycotting anything tied to Israel in any way. At the same time, younger Americans and Europeans hold the Jewish state with the tips of their fingers, reconsidering the positions of older generations. Some of this rage inevitably reinforces anti-Semitic and racist positions, as we are currently seeing, putting the security of Jews across the globe in jeopardy.
Netanyahu, a fugitive evading justice, is reconstituting his country, turning it into a ghetto whose bread and butter is a genocidal war that disregards all laws and morals. He is continuing to strangle a neighboring ghetto- traditionally associated with Jewish ghettos; it is now home to Palestinians.
