The media’s blinding dark cloud of moral clarity

Westerners who talk about Israel’s ongoing attack on Gaza usually offer policy prescriptions that can be broken down into four categories. There are three major arguments you will find in our press justifying Israeli violence, and the fourth argument, for a ceasefire, which is not usually voiced.

Plan A. Ethnic cleansing or genocide— Nakba 2.  

In polite liberal circles, nobody advocates this, though various Arab governments were worried that urging Gazans to leave Gaza would be a convenient step towards a second Nakba. Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida says all Gazans are antisemitic and doesn’t want any Gazan refugees to come to the U.S., which seems close to saying they are all evil. Some Israelis invoke the example of Dresden as an example to be followed. Israeli President Herzog said that there were no innocent civilians in Gaza. And some Israelis are seriously discussing the expulsion of all Gazans.

Plan B. Massive bombing of the population, always presented as striking at Hamas, which causes enormous civilian casualties.  

This plan is to be followed by a ground invasion, which has started, and that will almost certainly raise the death toll even higher. Some invoke Mosul as a positive example, in which Western armed forces flattened a city to destroy ISIS, causing a massive civilian death toll.

This plan was bad when Russia did it to Aleppo, but good when we do it. Dennis Ross is an advocate of Plan B in the New York Times.

The initial American government approach to the PR problem of dead children, burned children, crippled children and children who are the only surviving members of their exterminated families, was to say that the Gaza Health ministry was run by Hamas and so its figures could not be trusted.   President Biden first ran this excuse up the flagpole and his loyal apparatchik John Kirby saluted it soon after with his characteristic smirk and folksy mannerisms.   

Questioned further, Kirby acknowledged that thousands had been killed and then dodged the question as to whether Israel was abiding by the laws of war. From what he says there does appear to be a lot of talking going on between the U.S. and Israel, which should leave us in no doubt that the two sides understand each other.  This should be of considerable interest to historians, diplomats and perhaps prosecuting attorneys.

Kirby has some history regarding press conferences and air strikes. He was questioned about U.S. double standards with respect to the war in Yemen in a Sept. 28, 2016 press conference.   He replied in exasperation that, in contrast to Russian bombing in Syria, Saudi air strikes that killed civilians were due to an “ inefficiency in the targeting process.”  Some days later, in October, the inefficiency in the targeting process led the Saudis to bomb a funeral in Sanaa and kill over 150 people. (The Yemen discussion starts at 41 minutes in that link; Kirby’s “inefficiency” comment is at 43:40.)

After Biden and Kirby’s remarks about the Gaza Health ministry’s unreliability, the Western press dutifully began telling its readers that the Gazan figures were put out by an organization under Hamas’s control, but to their credit, quickly returned to reporting much of the horrors that their own reporters in Gaza were seeing and shared photographs that showed entire neighborhoods turned into rubble.

Clearly Plan B is not easy to distinguish from Plan A.  The distinctions are in scale and intent.  On scale, theoretically Joe Biden is opposed to war crimes.  In practice he has given his blessing to everything Israel has done so far, but there might be some upper limit.  We are supposed to think so.  

On intent, Biden and Blinken and Dennis Ross in the New York Times all claim they are eliminating Hamas for the sake of peace— civilian deaths are sad, but part of war.  After that Gaza will be temporarily ruled by somebody mumble mumble and then there will be a glorious two state solution at last and everyone left alive lives happily ever after.  How could the Palestinians not be grateful?

Plan C. Support Bombing, but with awareness of PR damage

The obvious barbarism of Plan B and its delusional don’t-worry-be-happy attitude of Plan B has many liberals deeply uneasy, and to their credit, some are genuinely shocked at the double standards regarding the value of human life, depending on whether it is Palestinians or Israeli Jews who are being killed.

Nicholas Kristof is a good representative of this group. Kristof fears we will look back at what we are doing and see how wrong  it was. He is trying to persuade Americans, so he has to lean over backwards to make his obvious point— October 7 was a terrible crime by Hamas, he correctly says, but thousands of completely innocent Gazans of all ages are dying for something they didn’t do.  

In America this is a daring thing for a mainstream pundit to see and say– when the media are generally blinded and choked by a dark cloud of moral clarity. But more are saying it.  Even Bret Stephens, who was one of those applauding the shooting of unarmed demonstrators in 2018 and was just saying that all Gazan deaths were the fault of Hamas, notices the bad PR consequences of dead civilians and proposes Naftali Bennet’s solution. Bennet, Israel’s former prime minister, recently had a meltdown when a reporter asked him about Palestinian civilians. (“Are you seriously… asking me about Palestinian civilians? What is wrong with you? Have you not seen what’s happened? We’re fighting Nazis.”) 

But Bennet apparently knows bad PR when he sees it and wishes to conduct a kinder, gentler war.

Returning to the genuinely appalled liberals, Kristof agrees that Israel (subtext— and only Israel) has the right to defend itself.  So he tentatively suggests targeted killings against military targets in Gaza, a much less bloody war.  To be fair, he seems uncertain even about that but says Israel has the right to do it. (I half suspect that Kristof might secretly support Plan D.)

Far more enthused about this new PR-friendly form of military solution, as one would expect, is Bret Stephens. Eventually after Hamas is destroyed we get to a political solution, he argues. So this is like Plan B, but where Israel actually takes pains not to kill thousands of civilians. That is the optimistic view.

But in Plan C, Israel will try to regain the upper hand in the propaganda war.  If all goes well, the many thousands already killed in the massive bombing campaign will disappear from the front pages and it will be as though it never happened in the minds of the West.

If all goes poorly, as seems likely, it becomes a prolonged guerrilla war which ends up as Plan B.  Mosul on the Mediterranean, but probably worse than Mosul.  

Plan D. A ceasefire with all the hostages released

Plan D is simply out of the question for mainstream American politicians, pundits and other moral giants of that sort. If you advocate it, they ask challengingly, “What is YOUR plan for Israel to deal with Hamas?”

This is supposed to be a question that forces you back to where you either choose Plan B or C (or A if the questioner is openly and unashamedly genocidal.)  If you cling stubbornly to Plan D  it must be that you simply don’t care how many Jews Hamas may kill in the future.

But in the words of the eminent logician/auto mechanic Mona Lisa Vito (played by Marisa Tomei in “My Cousin Vinny” ), the question is a bullshit question.  In that movie she is asked a question with a false premise by the hostile prosecutor and she says “Nobody could answer that question, because it is a bullshit question”.  She then explains the false underlying premise that makes the question absurd.

Why is “How should Israel deal with Hamas?” a bullshit question?

1. It assumes history began on October 7.

2.  It assumes that innocent civilians killed by Hamas require a response to punish those responsible and prevent it from ever happening again but

3.  No such requirement for any such response is owed for Palestinian civilians killed by Israel now or before, or ever.

4.  The need for responding to Hamas’s mass murder is so great that it justifies killing innocent Palestinians. The disagreement is only about how many can be dismissed as collateral damage before it becomes immoral. 

5.  It assumes only Hamas deliberately kills civilians and commits war crimes.  This is a fundamental article of faith which cannot be questioned. All discussions of Palestinian civilian deaths have to be framed as collateral damage or better, as human shields. There cannot be Israeli indiscriminate bombing, let alone bombing intended to kill civilians. This would be a logical contradiction, a moth hole in the fabric of reality. 

6.  It assumes Israel and the West are civilized.  Palestinians are not.

The last point is unstated but central, though occasionally out pops an “Israel is a villa in the jungle” remark. The Israeli government and Western governments in general are the civilized world and while individual Palestinians may be innocent and worthy of our compassion, almost like Westerners, the West plays the role of the overlord dispensing judgment, the parent spanking the spoiled child.  It is all done for their own good.  They will thank us when it is all over. Biden and Blinken seem to believe this, as does Dennis Ross.  

Kristof realizes that the enormous bloodshed makes this an insane notion but for whatever reason still sees Israel as having the right to dispense judgment.  He wants it done far more humanely (or maybe not at all?)

Given Kristof’s audience, it might be hard to argue for something better.  He is trying to stop an ongoing slaughter, so he might feel compelled to argue that way to maintain his credibility.  But even if Plan C was followed and it went like a Hollywood movie, with chiseled Israeli commandos killing unshaven evil terrorists with pinpoint precision, what about all of the civilians already killed by indiscriminate bombing?  Is anyone going to be accountable for their deaths?

Don’t be silly.  Of course not.

So if it’s a bullshit question, what is the right question? The right question is “How do people ensure that no more innocents die and how do we reach a just solution for everyone involved?”