Hans, Are We The Baddies?

There’s a Mitchell and Webb sketch with the pair dressed as German SS officers during World War Two in which Mitchell’s character turns to Webb’s and asks “Hans, are we the baddies?”¹

That’s a moment of insightfulness few of us are capable of in the real world. It’s certainly not one we might expect troubled real SS officers who surely leaned into their illusory superiority to justify their acts of evil.

The concept of illusory superiority will come up again in People Are People, but let’s consider it briefly now too. We see ourselves as better than others, superior and more worthy. As such, we see the actions that we take differently from the actions taken by others, even if the actions are effectively the same.

While our main focus is on the division and unfairness within our societies, I think we also have to consider the divisions and unfairness between societies. Wouldn’t it be hypocritical for us to expect those above us in our own society to treat us more fairly while we treat some people in other societies unfairly?

The United Nations (UN) is the world’s largest inter-governmental organisation. An idealised view of it might be that it fairly and impartially helps to manage relations between countries. Realistically the organisation falls some way short of that, but it’s what the world has and is better than nothing.

One achievement of the UN is the foundation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands. A court to try people for international crimes, including war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.

Got to be a good idea, hasn’t it? A permanent court that’s available to pass judgement on those accused of committing the worst of crimes.

Of course, not every country has signed up to the court, including some of the usual suspects, like China and Russia, which obviously undermines its effectiveness. As we’ll look at Israel shortly, let’s note they’re also not signatories of the ICC.

Another complaint levelled at the court is that it unfairly targets “criminals” from poorer countries, but couldn’t that just be the result of those countries being where the crimes are being committed? If a leader of a country such as the USA committed serious crimes, they’d be tried by the court, wouldn’t they?

Erm…well, no, not in the case of the USA anyway. That’s another country that hasn’t signed up to the court. Doesn’t it feel a bit odd to you that the “land of the free” isn’t comfortable with being subject to an international court? Shouldn’t all democratic nations that support rules-based international relations, be happy to be subject to an international court like the ICC? What reason could there be for not signing up, other than wanting to reserve the right to break international laws?

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

While the ICC makes sense as a permanent body, it’s restricted in the real-world effect that it can have. It’s not much use in situations where it can’t get access to those accused of crimes.

The nations of the world have another stick to use. The UN, the European Union (EU) and individual countries, including the US and UK all have a range of sanctions in place against a variety of countries around the world. These sanctions regimes restrict and block different forms of trade with countries and also target individuals, freezing bank accounts and blocking travel among other things.

So with these tools available, no doubt the democratic Western nations hold all countries to account equally. Obviously, laws only have value if they apply to all parties equally.

Since the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel has occupied the Gaza Strip, West Bank and Golan Heights. While annexing land from other nations by force is against international law, that is in practice what Israel has done with these territories.

In addition, the building of settlements in these areas that have been populated by Israeli citizens is also seen by most as against international law, contravening Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention with the displacement of members of the original population.

2016 saw a vote by the UN Security Council that passed by 14 votes to none against, with the US abstaining, that stated that Israeli settlements were a violation of international law.² Even the Supreme Court of Israel has described the occupation of the West Bank as violating international law.

Yet despite the overwhelming sentiment being that multiple Israeli governments have behaved illegally, Western democracies have effectively given their blessing to such activity.

If an Arab nation had illegally occupied a part of Israel and forced people from the land to make way for their settlers, do you think the West would have reacted in the same way?

Or do you think that our countries would have at the very least applied pressure through sanctions to try and force the Arab nation to respect international law?

The Source Of Evil – Nature or Nurture

We earlier considered the letter written by Harvard students in response to the Hamas attacks of 7 October. We’ll look at that attack and the response shortly, but firstly we saw the letter claimed that the attacks didn’t happen in a vacuum. Clearly that doesn’t offer any kind of justification for such an act of evil, but as we live in a real world inhabited by humans who largely react in the same ways to the same stimuli, surely we need to consider the part causality plays?

If I walk up to you on the street and slap you, should you respond by beating me to death, your response may seem disproportionate, but clearly I bear some responsibility for my death. If I hadn’t slapped you, we’d have passed by each other without any interaction at all.

You know the phrase “cause and effect” and we can see that at play in my beating. By slapping you, I caused you to beat me with the effect that I died.

It shouldn’t have surprised me when you reacted as you did. Well, the fact that you fought back shouldn’t have surprised me. Killing me perhaps overstepped the mark a bit and did you really have to urinate on my bloodied corpse? Maybe some anger issues to work through there?

Anyway, despite my slight misreading of the slap incident, we can make very good guesses about how one person will react in any situation by looking at how other people have previously reacted in similar situations. That’s the great power of studying history. By seeing what people have done in the past, we can recognise patterns and make reasonable assumptions about how other people will behave in the future. We can’t be 100% accurate, but we’re generally not going to be overly surprised.

On 4 October 2003, 29-year-old law student Hanadi Jaradat walked into the Maxim restaurant, a popular place for lunch in the Israeli city of Haifa co-owned by Jewish and Arab families. The apparently pregnant young woman probably wouldn’t have looked unusual as she stopped near prams in the centre of the restaurant. However, rather than a baby bump beneath her clothes, 10kg of explosive and various pieces of metal were strapped to her body and when she blew up the bomb, she killed 21 people, including four children, and injured 51 others.³

Was Jaradat evil? Yes, it’s a sheep dip stupid question. It was an evil act and clearly at that time she was evil.

When did she become evil though?

Was it at the moment her father’s sperm fused with her mother’s egg? Was it the moment her embryonic heart beat for the first time? At the moment of her birth when she took her first breath? When she took her first step or spoke her first word? When she first learned the difference between Arabs and Jews? When she celebrated her 12th birthday or her 16th or her 18th or her 21st? When her fiancé was killed by Israeli security forces? When her younger brother and two cousins were killed by Israeli Defence Forces? When she first decided to carry out the bombing? When she strapped the bomb to her body? When she walked into the restaurant? At the moment she detonated the bomb?

People are people. Yes, I believe some of us are born monsters in the same way some of us are born angels, but most of us are born neither. On a scale of bad to good, we’re born somewhere around the middle, though with the capacity to change either way.

If you see a photo of Hanadi Jaradat, she doesn’t look evil. There’s a photo on the Wikipedia page about her, above a photo of one of those injured as a 10-year-old who lost multiple family members that day.

There is no way to defend Hanadi Jaradat or her evil actions, but if she wasn’t born evil, what made her evil?

And do those who were the cause of the effect bear any responsibility for what resulted from her becoming evil?

One Man’s Terrorist Is Another Man’s Freedom Fighter

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”. I prefer to discount it. One man’s terrorist is a terrorist.

While not exclusively so, most acts of terrorism tend to be against civilians because they’re a softer target. No matter how legitimate a terrorist’s aims may be, can perpetrating acts of terror against ordinary civilians ever be acceptable?

With so many terrorist atrocities to consider across the world and across so many years, let’s stay with Israel as it’s the most recent.

The Hamas attack on 7 October, 2023 was a disgraceful and horrific crime. Indefensible. 766 civilians, including 36 children, were slaughtered, with 373 members of the security forces also killed.⁴ Almost 3,500 people were wounded and with 247 people taken hostage, the fear remains that the death toll could still jump.

Do you think that those who planned and carried out the attacks deserve any mercy? I don’t think I do.

Hamas have governed the Gaza Strip since 2007, having taken control after five days of fighting Fatah rivals in June of that year.

There have been no elections in the Gaza Strip since then, with Hamas ruling the area and the population as they see fit. The people of the Gaza Strip have had no right to select their own representation through this time, living now for getting on for two decades under an autocratic regime.

The population of the Gaza Strip is just over two million people and Israel has claimed that Hamas has 30,000 members, so about 98.5% of the population are not Hamas members by Israel’s reckoning.

I’m going to be using a few different figures that may not be completely accurate. Getting absolute facts from the situation in the Gaza Strip during the ongoing fighting is obviously difficult, so some figures may be out of date or not entirely accurate.

As I write this, Gaza’s Ministry of Health reports that 30,228 people have been killed in Israeli attacks, with 71,377 injured. Some things to consider first. Previous conflicts have shown figures from this ministry to be generally accurate and closely matching figures from the UN.⁵ Figures from past conflicts have also quite closely matched Israel’s calculated figures too. Of course, this doesn’t mean that these figures can be trusted, but past experience suggests it’s not unreasonable to in the lack of better alternatives.

Also, the figures are not absolute and won’t include any people killed who are buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings or anyone whose body did not reach a functioning hospital.

Talking of destroyed buildings, at the end of January, 45% of the residential buildings in the Gaza Strip had been rendered unusable.⁶ There are other estimates and this figure is at the lower end.

Depending on which Israeli source we listen to, the IDF has killed between 10,000 and 12,000 Hamas fighters.⁷ In December the IDF claimed they were killing two civilians for every Hamas fighter killed.⁸

If the IDF toll of Hamas deaths is correct, then more than 18,000 civilians have been killed. Of course, the IDF could be mistaken.

We often see the casualty figures split into women and children, but there’s no reason that women couldn’t also be Hamas fighters. So to be on the safe side, let’s focus just on the deaths of children, which at the end of February stood at 13,230.

The Ministry of Health figures count children as anyone aged below 18 years of age.

Most countries recognise a minimum age of criminal responsibility. Any children below that age are considered incapable of committing a criminal offence. It’s also known as the defence of infancy. Israeli law states the minimum age of criminal responsibility is 12 years of age.

Based on that, it’s possible that Palestinian children aged 12 and over could also be Hamas fighters. So, focusing on just those under 12 years of age and assuming each age group is equal, the IDF attacks have caused the deaths of 8,820 unequivocally demonstrably innocent civilians.

Hamas’ atrocity of 7 October 2023 killed at least 766 innocent civilians.

Israel’s response has so far killed at least 8,820 innocent civilians.

More than 11.5 times more innocent Palestinian civilians have been killed in the retaliation, than Israeli civilians killed in the original attack. It’s almost three times more killed than the 9/11 attack of 2001.⁹ It’s almost five times more than the 1,800 children killed in Russia’s war on Ukraine.¹⁰

And remember, these are the absolute lowest figures so that we’re absolutely clear these cannot be combatants.

How do we defend the killing of 8,820 innocent people when the killing of 766 innocent people is indefensible?

Isn’t it understandable that, when Western democracies stand back and don’t condemn the mass killing of innocent people, we look like the baddies to some people?

And the really stupid part of all this? People are people. If we could isolate most Israelis and Palestinians from the cycle of violence and from their leaders, they’d want the same things. Peace, security and prosperity. They’re not the ones driving the constant aggression. The hatred is handed down fom their leaders who use the emotion of their people to fuel the continuous violence.

The most important thing for the leaders on both side is that the other side loses, regardless of the cost to their own side. Any successful negotiator knows that to get what you want, the other side has to get what they want. It’s impossible to achieve that if our priority is to hurt the other side in revenge for what they did yesterday. If we want a better tomorrow, we have to forget about yesterday, even if it feels like rewarding the other side. A rising tide lifts all boats. Until both sides accept that, all the boats will stay stuck in the mud.