Anti-Climacus

HITCH WATCH: He actually says something I disagree with this time!

"I hate and despise Hezbollah and Palestinian suicide-murderers, as they ought to be called, but they'd have to work day and night for years to equal the total of civilians killed in Lebanon alone, or by Sharon alone. Lebanese and Palestinian irregulars are, by the way, entitled by international law to resist foreign occupation that has been internationally condemned. Fact."

The really troubling bit not being the argument as such (I'd quibble over whether or not international law allows them to behave the way they do, though I'd be more inclined to agree for Lebanon than for Palestinians), but the idea that this argument has weight because Israel's occupation has been "internationally condemned." I don't suppose it requires much more explanation for why thinking this way is a bad thing (though Kim will probably wish to take that issue up with me)-- I'd prefer not to make my morality democratic, thank you very much. But then, of course, he redeems himself:

"This doesn't mean that we are stuck with some dismal moral equivalence. The IRA or the Al Aqsa Brigades can be reminded, as can states and governments, that some actions or courses of action (bombs detonated without warning in civilian areas; kidnapping; rape) are crimes under every known law. And the evidence is that such awareness, along with some of its moral implications, does become available to them. (The same thought can also be instilled by other less pedagogic means.) Then of course, you should try and imagine Nelson Mandela or Salvador Allende—leaders of peoples who really did have a beef with the "empire"—ordering their supporters to crash civilian planes into civilian buildings."

Which I think makes a slightly more important point-- violence to limited extent for a reason other than, say, schadenfreude, seems to be a tool at the disposal of oppressed groups or peoples. But it is not the only such tool, nor will it be able to acheive an acceptable end, short of eradicating the oppressors, which is itself so morally repugnant that no decent person could accept that. I think I have more to say on the subject, but it's not coming to me right now... maybe later.