Asa Kasher Replies:

In response to my article “Operation Cast Lead and Just War Theory,” Uri Avnery faithfully plays the role of attorney for the defense, and attempts to justify Hamas, its point of view, and its actions. As a result, he produces a predictable and obvious piece of propaganda.

I will begin with the most essential point: Avnery’s opinion of Palestinian acts of terror. In the same way that the Turkish sailor reported that Malta yok—“Malta doesn’t exist”—Avnery tries his best to convince us that “terror yok”—there is no terror. As he puts it, “Words and phrases such as ‘terrorists’ and ‘terrorist organizations’… [are] the language of propaganda.… For 42… years we have been maintaining an occupation regime, accompanied by a settlement of occupied lands in opposition to international law. The Palestinians have responded to this, among other methods, with guerilla warfare. Hamas is one of these guerilla forces.”

The expression “terrorist” refers to a man who intentionally performs acts of a certain kind. These are acts of murder or the attempted murder of human beings who belong to a certain group. The purpose of such acts is to spread fear among that group in order to achieve religious, ideological, or political goals. It is no wonder that the word “terrorist” has taken on negative moral connotations, given that an act of terror is, in its essence, an utterly immoral act. Nor is it a surprise that Avnery does not want us to use the term “terrorists” to describe the Palestinians—with whom he identifies—because of these negative moral connotations. He himself does not wish to be morally tainted as someone who identifies with
terrorists.

This means that Avnery does not want us to refer to a man who blows himself up in a hotel dining room, together with dozens of civilians celebrating the Passover seder, as a “terrorist.” Avnery also does not want us to refer to a man who launches a rocket into Sderot, with the aim of killing its civilian residents, as a “terrorist.” Avnery does not want this, but what he wants is of no importance. For the world is filled with recognized bodies that unquestionably view the members of Hamas as terrorists and therefore worthy of unambiguous moral reproach. It is, for example, considered a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, Canada, and Japan, and its military wing is considered a terrorist organization by Britain and Australia as well.

Avnery tries hard to convince us that we should refer to Hamas terrorists as “freedom fighters,” or at least as “guerillas.” Yet such a propaganda effort is doomed to moral failure. Avnery likes the description “freedom fighters” or “guerillas” because he thinks it will remove the moral blemish inherent in describing members of Hamas as “terrorists.” The conceptual truth, however, is that a man can be a “freedom fighter,” a “guerilla fighter” and a “terrorist” simultaneously. The supposedly positive connotations of the term “freedom fighter” and the supposedly neutral characteristics of the term “guerilla fighter” do not abolish the negative moral connotations of the term “terrorist.” Someone who wholeheartedly identifies with a “freedom fighter” can also be wholeheartedly identifying with a “terrorist,” whose actions are characterized by malicious intentions and unjustifiable means.

The passages I have quoted typify Avnery’s entire letter. He utters not one word of dissent about any act committed by a Palestinian against Israelis. A man’s complete identification with a certain group, to the point of a constant and total unwillingness to say anything negative whatsoever about it or any of its members’ actions, is one of the main identifying features of extreme and impenetrable nationalism. Avnery’s indifference to or indulgence of the evil manifested in the actions of Palestinian terrorists simply reveals the extreme-nationalist, one-sided, and immoral nature of his arguments.