An Interview with Ted Honderich
Posted Under: Afghanistan,Interviews,Israel/Palestine,Obama,Philosophy
Interview by Dan Swain and Lorna Finlayson
"Revolution isn't rational anymore, but a breath of fresh air would be"
Ted Honderich is Grote Professor Emeritus of Mind and Logic at University College London. Since 9/11 he has written several books on the subject of terrorism and war, most recently Humanity, Terrorism, Terrorist War, and has become a vocal advocate of the right of the Palestinians to a state, and to the means of achieving that state. We interviewed Honderich following his paper at Cambridge University’s Moral Sciences Club – their anachronistically named answer to a departmental seminar – where he laid out his views on Zionism, neo-Zionism, Gaza, Iraq and Afghanistan, arguing that support for the Palestinians includes acknowledging their right to terrorism. The discussion was mostly cordial, though it was clear that most of the philosophers and students present were sceptical.
Honderich is, in fact, very critical of the institution of academic philosophy and its role in politics: “The contribution of the overt and the more common covert conservative political philosophy is the same. It is to pretend that the political tradition of conservatism, as in the case of New Labour as much as the Conservative Party past and present, does actually have an arguable principle of what is right and wrong to support the self-interest of an economic and social class. In this, the tradition of conservatism in general is different from the tradition of the Left and of old Labour. Liberal political philosophy, as in the case of John Rawls, escapes the viciousness of conservatism, but lacks resolution in thought, feeling and action, and seemingly always will.” His interests haven’t always been in this area – and he continues to work, for example, on the philosophy of consciousness – but he sees a connection between a wider commitment to philosophy and his recent focus on politics: “These interests arose more or less accidentally, but maybe less accidentally than I have supposed. I take it that all decent philosophy is a concentration on — not sole ownership of — the logic of ordinary intelligence. That comes down to clarity, usually in the form of analysis, and consistency and validity, and completeness. What goes with that has to be generality, and truth as against convention. Any philosopher aspires or pretends to aspire to that logic, whatever his or her area.”
“I wouldn’t come now.”
The observation that New Labour is now firmly within the tradition of conservatism is clearly a saddening one for him. He calls the old Labour party “the great party of humanity and civilization in British history”, and the reason he came to Britain from Canada: “I wouldn’t come now.” But what about the hope over the Atlantic, Obama? “Chomsky, the great reality-judge of our age, is not hopeful. I myself think we can still expect more from Obama than from anybody else you could have dreamed would be president. Certainly I haven’t given up. The plain fact is that he is the president of the most powerful of the hierarchic democracies. Its national strength, it seems, is or contributes greatly to the power of the economic and social classes near and at the top. Surely it is also clear that as an astute and morally decent politician, so appallingly superior to our criminals against humanity Blair and Brown, he is judging what is possible and going forward in that rationality.”
For Honderich the modern democracies presided over by Obama and Brown are profoundly hierarchic. We ask what he sees as the alternative: “The alternative is real or realer democracy, of course, where not only two heads are better than one and more heads better than two, but the heads are equally free in expressing their judgements and wants. The question brings back to mind Colonel Rainborough’s moral truth in the Putney Debates in the time of the English civil war. ‘Really I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he….’ Are there tanks in those army barracks somewhere around Pimlico? I think some successor to Rainborough should think on him, and on our society, where not only the poorest but at least the six bottom economic deciles are being cheated of fuller lives. He should arrange for his tank to break down in Parliament Square for a while, only long enough for our political class and the telly to become aware of it, and then take himself back to the barracks, and also take his punishment for his civil and other disobedience. Revolution isn’t rational anymore, but a breath of fresh air would be. It might have a little effect on our coming election . Maybe remind some of our low politicians that the response to a question isn’t an answer, that selling isn’t their proper line of life, that the House of Commons isn’t the Student Union in Oxford, and that our elections shouldn’t be Afghanistan with drapery.”
Turning to the questions of terrorism. Words like terrorism, radicalism and extremism have developed a strange currency in recent years. As we are learning, one can be a domestic extremist merely for attending a demonstration or going to the wrong meeting. Honderich is struck by the speed of this development: “It has surprised me that transparent terminological means, such as persuasive or loaded definitions, or indeed the pretence of actual definition, have been so successful in the forming and manipulating of public feeling and opinion. This has something to do, presumably, with a new and larger role of the media in society. The effect is more pervasive than supposed, far wider than the effect of such organs as The Daily Mail.”
Precision in terminological definitions is crucial here. ‘Zionism’, defined as the project of establishing a Jewish state in 1948 and within those borders, is a project Honderich defends. It was justified in part by the horrors of the holocaust, he says, and the reality of that state now requires the defence of it. He is an implacable enemy of what he calls ‘Neo-Zionism’ – “the taking from the Palestinians of at least their liberty in the last 5th of their homeland”, and is critical also of ‘semitism’ – “the prejudice in favour of Jewish people right or wrong.” Whilst justifying the creation of the Israel, and therefore a commitment to what is commonly called a two-state solution, is a common (though far from universal) opinion amongst the Palestine solidarity movement, one of his reasons for it seems odd. In Humanity, Terrorism, Terrorist War… he attaches considerable significance to the question of whether the Palestinians were ‘fully a people’ in 1948, arguing that they were, but that it was reasonable to believe otherwise on the basis of the best information available at the time. Why is this so important? “I have the feeling that you have hit on the weakest point in that book, as some others have. But I still stick to it. The Principle of Humanity, in short, is that we should take rational steps to get and keep people out of bad lives — with bad lives defined in terms of deprivation of the great human goods, these being length of conscious life, bodily well-being, freedom and power, respect and self-respect, the goods of relationship, and the goods of culture. A people not organized into a state and society, I take it, not well-defined as a group, are not open to a kind of insult, a kind of disrespect. They are also less likely to have already achieved the other great goods. That is a beginning of a reply.”
"As for the pro-Palestinian student occupations, I am absolutely for them"
Over the past few years the question of Palestine has played a controversial role in universities. There is anger over the government’s requests for lecturers to spy on students, the way in which Islamic societies are being monitored and clamped down on, and controversy over strategies for delivering solidarity. There has been much concern over the desire of the government to channel funding towards such ‘key issues’, with terrorism being a primary one. Honderich puts this in perspective: “In a society as morally stupid as ours, nearly always a stupidity owed to ignorance and the success of keeping people in that ignorance, I am tempted to have the feeling that research funding should not be at the forefront of our concern. The cosmeticism of New Labour comes higher. So does not forgetting about the estate agents and the private schools along with the bankers. So does Noam Chomsky not having a Nobel Prize.” What about two of the most controversial solidarity strategies on campuses? “I have not myself joined the academic boycott of Israel, which so to speak has left me with a bad conscience as well as a good one. The main difficulty, as always, is a factual one. Same as with terrorism. Will a boycott serve the end of the Principle of Humanity and more particularly the cause of the Palestinians? There are arguments both ways, but maybe I am moving towards the boycott. As for the pro-Palestinian student occupations, I am absolutely for them. They don’t come to much, incidentally, against the neo-Zionist and semitic activities in the universities.”
“I suspect my view is easily the majority view in the world, however quiet people are about expressing it”
This year we mourned the death of Marek Edelman, the heroic resistance leader of the Warsaw Ghetto. The widespread respect for him surely shows that the notion of legitimate armed resistance is something people are, at least historically, happy to assent to. Why, then has Honderich’s position made him such a controversial figure? “I wonder if the explanation has partly to do with a perception of philosophy, not only a popular one. It is a perception, even in this degraded society, that carries with it respect, even in the midst of our monstrous plague of the celebrities. That a member of a respected profession and line of life, not gone over entirely to journalism, holds particular views, gets him or her attention. The explanation also has to do, of course, with the convention that we leave such judgements to governments, and in particular our hierarchic democracies. I suspect my view, on Zionism and neo-Zionism and Palestinian resistance to or self-defence against neo-Zionism, is in fact easily the majority view in the world, however quiet people are about it, however reluctant to express it.”
The Moral Sciences Club meets Tuesdays during term time in St. John’s College Cambridge.
Humanity, Terrorism, Terrorist War is published by Continuum. Ted Honderich’s personal website is here.
Reader Comments
So does that mean we’re cool with terrorism (or just on Sundays?)…?
Few philosophers get involved in practical matters, even though their thinking skills of clarifying arguments and their logic are so important in the politics of the mass media age. Bertrand Russell did, and through it his thinking on such as CND, evolved. Honderich is doing it, and vigorously indeed—he is a brave man. Zionists are not afraid to show their ruthlessness because they know the US will defend Israel against anything at apparently any cost. Honderich distinguishes, Zionism, neo-Zionism and Semitism, but some at least of that is to defend his own defense of original Zionism. Whatever the western view of the Palestinians in 1948 in respect of their being a people or not, the land of Palestine was theirs, historically theirs. It is no justification for throwing me out of my own house and making me camp in a tent in the garden that the robbers do not regard me as a person. It is still robbery. Mount Zion has been Arab for centuries, so Zionism is necessarily robbery, and racism and fascism necessarily follow it. Much of the truth is hidden by the media who almost exclusively support Israel. Israel was founded on Jewish terrorism, and Jewish terrorism has kept the Palestinians abject ever since. Plainly, there are many liberal Jews and Israelis too, but being Zionist is not to be liberal. It is a contradiction. Inventing Neo-Zionism perhaps helps Honderich find a personal way past it, but it really does not work. He must eventually come to accept that Israel is just untenable in the long term. It cannot survive alone, especially as it constantly rakes up the embers of Arab hatred and pain. Before it is abandoned by the US, the Israelis had better disperse west again, for it will be overrun, and to prevent it they have only their sixty illegal atom bombs, something that has never disturbed the US. The middle east will be a cinder, or Israel will have to succumb. Honderich ought to add to his defense of the Palestinians that Jews should leave Israel and return to the west where they are appreciated as an intellectual and cultural force. Many already have. Mainly liberal Jews. Maybe it is why the fascist ones now predominate in Israel.
Tendai: Who is this we you’re talking about? Ted Honderich believes that the Palestinians have a moral right to terrorism. He does not believe all terrorism is justified. I believe that the Palestinians have an absolute right to armed resistance, but disagree with some of the ways this is carried out. Honderich defends a two state solution, I defend a one-state solution. You may have a different position, but this talk of ‘we’ is very tiresome.
Mike: I agree that Honderich is at his weakest when defending the creation of Israel. In fact I think he is wrong. But it doesn’t follow from any of this that ‘the Jews should leave Israel’. This is a grotesque position, and does internationalism and palestinian solidarity no favours.
Well “we” was not meant to cover anyone specific Dan. I’d meant to raise the question of whether terrorism was now a universally prescriptive mode of conduct, and I think my tone made it clear tht “we” wasn’t you or anyone specific, but referred to humanity in general.
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Terrorists are referred to as “hostis humani generis” for a reason. I’ll be clear that I hate Honderich: his moral philosophy is weak and unedyfing, and his reductionist work on mind etc leaves me wondering why he calls himself an analytic philosopher.
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Terrorism is never morally justified, except in the case of a moral emergency (which I define as the complete absence of moral choices — which even in this desparate time, is still not the position of the Palestinians at present — in which case necessity may be argued). Furthermore, I make a distinction between ‘disruptive’ terrorism, and lethal terrorism: where there is a choice, the former should be opted for first, not the utterly brutal and vindictive action of letting off a bomb on a school bus.
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Terrorism is only justified when philosophers use reason selectively (as they frequently do on political questions). It may sometimes be mlitarily justified — which takes morality as a reason-giving base, our of the picture — and armed resistance may frequently be justified by a lower moral threshold, but not the use of an innocent as a means to an end. I’m not going to conceal my indignation on that — it fails from every conceivable moral position other than brute ultilitarianism (a position he claims to reject), and isn’t the sort of stuff philosophers should be saying, especially on the basis that their sums told them so. Philosophy must as far as possible not be used to dress up personal prejudices in the clothes of reason. Why is it so hard to find a philosopher who speaks sensibly on politics?
Well, actually, your question wasn’t clear. It still isn’t clear. What do you mean by it being a ‘universally prescriptive mode of conduct’? I don’t think anyone is seeking to prove that ‘terrorism is alright for us’, whatever that is supposed to mean.
You’ll have to elaborate on your final paragraph. But it seems clear to me that there is such a thing as morally justified armed resistance. I don’t think this commits me to a lower moral threshold.
By prescriptive I mean “whoever makes a moral judgment is committed to the same judgment in any situation where the same relevant facts obtain”. i.e. you’re fine for what you’ve just said to be acted on whether it’s Joe Bloggs or your mother who stands to be affected, and whether it’s the case before you, or one in 1000 years time. If the question wasn’t clear I’d have preferred an opportunity to clarify it than to wake up to defensive comments that suppose I’m painting the world with one brush.
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The final paragraph says that you can say “terrorism can be militarily justified”, without pretending it’s a moral argument. It’s a tactical question only, in that context: would it further a military objective? But it’s corrupt to say that terrorism can be *morally* justified: i.e. it’s something I’d tell people to do in certain situations, and assure them it was right.
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I also make a distinction between armed resistance and terrorism. Armed resistance can geneally be justified, with a lower moral burden than pure terrorism: armed resistance is a response to attack, and may be limited to military targets. But you can’t conflate armed resistance and terrorism: terrorism is a special kind of armed action, that may not even include resistance, but may itself be a form of attack. In short, you can’t justify terrorism as easily a you can justify armed resistance. That is what I mean by a lower moral threshold — you don’t need to make as strong an argument to justify armed resistance, as you do to justify terrorism.
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When Honderich and others say that terrorism is ok sometimes (e.g. when we like the people), that fails the universal prescription test I described above. You can’t have your moral cake and eat it to: one must either accept that terrorism could be a resort, but it would be immoral, or accept that terrorism is never justified because it is immoral. Not both.
Well, I think you have to say more exactly what you mean by ‘terrorism’ before you can make the argument about moral ‘thresholds’. Honderich considers various definitions – it doesn’t really matter which you choose, so long as you’re consistent. I think in the end he goes for something like ‘the illegal, intentional killing of civilians’. He thinks illegality doesn’t imply immorality – I agree. As for the intentional killing of civilians, a lot depends on what you mean by ‘intentional’. Pretty much any war or armed resistance is going to have the killing of civilians as a foreseen side-effect. Honderich is one of those people who doesn’t think there’s a morally relevant difference between a foreseen side-effect and an intended consequence. So you have to give a reason for disagreeing with him there. (Unless you want to say that all military action is impermissible.)
As for the point about ‘universal prescription tests’, I don’t think I’m quite clear on what you’re saying either. If it’s just that you have to be consistent, i.e. you have to be committed to making the same judgement in cases that are relevantly similar, that’s fine. But it’s crazy to interpret that as meaning that context is irrelevant to the moral evaluation of an action. The context is just one of the things that can be relevantly similar or dissimilar. So, if you think that Palestinian terrorism is permissible, you’re not committed to saying that terrorism is permissible in /any/ context. You’re committed to saying that terrorism is or would be permissible in other contexts where (for a start) there is a similar history of oppression, similar avenues of resistance are open/closed to the victims of that oppression, their terrorism has similar prospects of bringing those victims closer to emancipation etc etc. Sounds about right to me.
What Lorna said. Just to add that I’m sorry if you feel my comments were defensive, but it’s best not to be too delicate about these things.
And your final claim in that third comment involves a logical fallacy. It could be the case that terrorism is ‘wrong’, but morally justified as preventing greater wrongs, or the least wrong option. This claim does not commit you to crude utilitarianism.
Dan,
I don’t know if there’s truly a logical fallacy there. Moral claims are not *exceptionless*, but they are meant to be universal. Also, when we say something could be morally justified in preventing further wrongs,s urely we run into the issue of commensurability: who’s to say how much greater an impending wrong should be, to justify committing a serious wrong? Does the loss of a political liberty, for instance, justify taking a life?
Lorna,
I hope I’m reasonably clear on the definition of terrorist (both in my capacity as a student of international law, and philosophically), because the definition is important. And indeed, illegality doesn’t imply immorality (incidentally something I said in response to another post here). Indeed, it was a definitional point that caused me to require a distinction between armed resistance and terrorism. So I suspect definitions are not the cause of our disagreement.
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>>>Pretty much any war or armed resistance is going to have the killing of civilians as a foreseen side-effect. Honderich is one of those people who doesn’t think there’s a morally relevant difference between a foreseen side-effect and an intended consequence.So you have to give a reason for disagreeing with him there. (Unless you want to say that all military action is impermissible.)<<>>As for the point about ‘universal prescription tests’, I don’t think I’m quite clear on what you’re saying either. If it’s just that you have to be consistent, i.e. you have to be committed to making the same judgement in cases that are relevantly similar, that’s fine. But it’s crazy to interpret that as meaning that context is irrelevant to the moral evaluation of an action. The context is just one of the things that can be relevantly similar or dissimilar.<<>>So, if you think that Palestinian terrorism is permissible, you’re not committed to saying that terrorism is permissible in /any/ context.<<<
Thinking that Palestinian terrorism is permissable may not be saying that terrorism is permissable in any context, but it is reneging on a moral imperative at too low a threshold. It's a moral shortcut, and talks over (or excuses), rather than justifies the objections. And the biggest objection is this: because lives are incommensurable, you are not to use another as a means to an end.
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The biggest moral problem with terrorism isn't even the issue of fatality and injury. It's how it uses an unsuspecting innocent as a means to an end. Let's face it, terrorism would not be chosen behind a veil of ignorance. That to me is conclusive proof that it's a brand of hypocrisy to justify it in anything but a case of necessity. The crucial difference between an aerial bombardment, and going into a cafe with a bomb on your chest, is that issue of using another purely as a means to an end. Terrorist casualties are not *incidental* to a military objective. They are the purpose of the activity.
Thirdestate, I posted a response to Lorna. It didn’t show up, and when I tried to resubmit, it told me I’d already said all that. Anyway to fix this, I’d really like that response up if it’s possible?
I’m not quite sure why, but for some reason Tendai a fair few of your comments are getting blocked by our spam filter. I’ve restored them now, so hopefully the system will recognise you’re not a spammer, but if it happens again let me know.
Sorry it’s taken a while for me to respond, Tendai. I don’t see why justifying Palestinian terrorism has to “talk over (or excuse), rather than justify” objections. Can’t it just reject them? If you come up with a complicated ethical system which tells me it is wrong to go to Tesco today, can’t I reject it on the basis of disagreement with your system? This may or may not involve talking over, but it is a perfectly legitimate argumentative strategy.
Now, I think it’s clear that you are committed to ethical claims that both Lorna and I find problematic. Fair enough. You also seem to be a fan of “veil of ignorance” type metaethics. But to say we would not choose terrorism behind a veil of ignorance really does make no sense, for Rawls at least. What we are supposed to choose behind the veil of ignorance is the distribution of primary goods in the basic structure of society. If we use it to proscribe certain actions it leads to moral paralysis. Choosing Terrorism, like choosing war, marriage, retirement and Coca-Cola is done in highly specific, factually rich scenarios, and could not be otherwise.
On the logical fallacy claim. It is not that moral judgements are exceptionless (I actually think at base they probably are). It is that even a wrong act can be the right thing to do and still be wrong. This is not universally accepted, but is a fairly common way of thinking about morality.
Dan,
I’m afraid the comments system has hopelessly disfigured my argument, so I won’t revisit it point for point, and will summarise instead. I apologise that I no longer clearly remember what the logical fallacy was: I think you took me to be saying that “if you break moral imperatives you are a ultilitarian”, and you rightly considered this to be fallacious. But I don’t think that’s what I was saying: I understood myself to be saying “Only utilitarianism would justify ignoring a moral imperative for the sake of expedience [rather than necessity]“. And that, I identified as the issue of chief concern to me in the position here. As to whether or not moral imperatives are exceptionless, that will require a long discussion on metaethics, which would probably be better left for other places (I don’t think they are though — and I imagined your arguments were centrally supported by that premise) It is, however, reasonably uncontroversial that sometimes a wrong act can be the right thing to do: the question is *when*, and why you justify drawing the line at a particular point, and not higher or lower (in other words, it can lead to moral arbitrariness). That’s what I meant when i spoke of thresholds.
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Lying would be the right thing to do if it prevents a death. Would it be the right thing to do if it gets me out of trouble? Obviously not. That’s just expedience. My whole problem with the position taken on terrorism here is that I can’t see how it differs from mere expedience. And here’s why:
1) Moral arbitrariness: How desparate does a situation have to be to warrant terrorism (i.e. using an unsuspecting other purely as a means to an end, by taking their life or injuring them)? Would a vision of a Marxist society be a good enough reason? Or would the abolition of Parliament be? Or something even more desparate? How do you draw the line and how do you justify it other than by ideological biases?
2) Moral necessity (as opposed to utility) as a justification: Even with that unresolved, one must wonder how desparate does the plight of the Palestinians have to be to warrant terrorism? Do they have other options to mitigate their plight before resorting to terrorism (yes they do)? Have they come to the fight with clean hands (no they haven’t)?
3) Rationality: Is terrorism likely to achieve the goals of the Palestinians? Almost certainly not. Terrorism, like powercuts, is something that a population can become urprisingly resillient to, and capable of containing (the Palestinian Wall and the blockade of Gaza are examples of why terrorism here is self-defeating).
4) Clarity of scenarios: Finally, to say that “people have a right to resort to armed resistance” is obviously true as a general statement. But that’s not the same as saying people have a right to terrorism, if only because the two types of armed action are not identical — both includes elements that are not necessary to the nature of the other.
5) Moral exceptions: Of course there are situations when terrorism could well be justified. I just don’t see this as one of them.
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Your comments on the veil of ignorance are true to an extent. But I think your objection is a reductio. Torture is commonly discussed in that context: substitute terrorism for torture — both acts that use another purely as a means to an end, under barbaric conditions — and I think the thought argument still works.
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To conclude, I really don’t think simply rejecting (ignoring?) a moral argument is a useful option for people who take moral reasoning seriously. That’s exactly what I meant when I said you can’t “talk over” a valid objection. Of course a person doesn’t have to care, but now we’ve gone from moral exceptions to mere nihilism. I personally don’t have a ‘system’ of morality — it’s the worst way to understand morality. I limit my moral reasoning to trying to speak to all known objections to my proposed course of action, withdrawing that action if I am unable to address the objections strongly enough.
But Tendai that simply won’t do. If you cannot reject arguments you find unconvinving, weak and problematic then moral discourse truly is impossible.
Whether or not your morals constitute a system, you have shown through the course of this commentary, via references to ‘commensurability’, ‘people as means’ and ‘veil of ignorance’ that you have a certain set of ethical presuppositions, drawn from a fairly particular tradition. This is fine.
Finally, on those five points, they seem reasonable criteria. Honderich has or could offer an answer to all five. Is your criticism merely that he is wrong in these answers? If so, again that is fair enough, but you implied your criticism is deeper.
Though, on re-reading your points, what on earth do you mean by “Have they come to the fight with clean hands (no they haven’t)?” Why is this relevant, and whose hands do you mean?
Dan,
I wouldn’t quite say I was saying “you can simply never reject moral arguments”. Rather, I’m saying you can’t *ignore* an objection that’s clearly true…treat it like it doesn’t exist (e.g. Tendai doesn’t like being tortured — it remains true whatever one’s system of morality). Can we rationally ignore this in decidng how to treat me?
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It is very probably the case that we have differing concepts of morality. It’s not my place to force mine down anyone else’s throat. But the central tension seems to be whether morality is just a way of justifying what you feel like doing, or if it’s more than that. I think it’s more than that. When I speak of incommensurability etc, sure, they come from a particular tradition, but I think we can use them as tools without committing to the said traditions. When I use those terms, then, I only use them to highlight “at least one possible objection” to the statement being questioned. It’s not really a bag of beliefs but a microscope; a style of argument rather than a list of truths.
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My response no doubt was as much to you and Lorna as to Honderich. I’d have to re-read Honderich and his critics (and in more detail) to deal with his arguments thoroughly, and see if his defences could succeed. But, the argument as put above, was what I was intending to address.
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Sure, these questions are hard to resolve because of the various different notions of morality. But wouldn’t you agree that this doesn’t make it impossible to take objections seriously — to “speak” to the objections rather than leaving it at an impasse of relativism? Now, of course I’m not claiming my private moral positions have God’s Authority. But I can probably have private moral positions, and still be able to rationally account for the preferences of another human being. This , to my mind, makes such a minimal demand on the beliefs of others, that it’s not a bad way to start talking about moral questions. I don’t think you’d have to abandon your beliefs or commit to new ones. Anyway a lot has been said here, and I don’t want waste space.
>>>Though, on re-reading your points, what on earth do you mean by “Have they come to the fight with clean hands (no they haven’t)?” Why is this relevant, and whose hands do you mean?<<<
If you're going to resort to violence, you have to yourself be above moral reproach. The Palestinian leaders are not. Surely that's not controversial?
Thing ate my comment. I’d said re. the “clean hands thing”, to be morally justified in using violence, you should be above moral reproach. Palestine’s leaders are not. You can’t just escalate a situation even if you’re partly responsible for it.
Don’t know why it keeps eating your comments Tendai, you’re the only person it seems to happen to. Maybe try using a different email address?