Three Simple Tools for Examining Israel's Actions

This is a short article that lays down three points of reference that can be used to understand Israel's actions.

The most fundamental problem almost everybody has when the subject of Israel's actions is involved is simply understanding what really happened. In the vast majority of cases the media and outside observers tend to make judgments by the results of an event. Bloody children, a large body count, large scale destruction, and automatically assign blame to whom they presuppose the aggressor, without really taking the time to ask some very fundamental questions that quite honestly are the absolute minimum needed to understand what actually took place. Context all to often is completely stripped from events and the world community makes judgments by what they see, without context, and without accurate framing.

The truth of the matter is that for any reasonable, intelligent human being properly examining Israel's actions is pretty simple. Whether you're having a discussion about them with friends over coffee, a heated exchange at a protest rally, discussing the subject with your students in class, or being attacked with accusations while lecturing, be sure to examine the following aspects about events that have taken place:

1. Circumstances - Under what circumstances was an action taken. What was the catalyst for an event? Was someone under threat? What were the parties trying to acheive?
   
2. Intent - What was the intention of the sides taking the actions? Were they trying to protect themselves or others? Were they trying to provoke the other side? Were they trying to intentionally harm the other side? Where they trying to help others? Are things as clear cut as they are portrayed?
   
3. Relativity - Frame action relative to those taken by other individuals, armies or nations under similar conditions or circumstances. What would the US do if facing a similar situation? What would Russia do? And Egypt?

Its important to remember a number of guidelines when examining an event using these tools.

• Don't only analyze Israel's actions using these rules, analyze the actions of the other side as well using all three rules. Otherwise you lack context.
• Be persistent and don't let someone discourage you. You can't speak about a subject, defend it, or condemn it without examining this information
• Make it clear to the other party (and others observing) that you can't be convinced of any argument without doing your due diligence and understanding these all to important aspects of the event, and they shouldn't be either
• Don't bully or allow yourself to be bullied, someone who is bullying is trying to win an argument without basis
• You can't really know the answers to some of these questions for certain, but if you want to be able to make a judgement or argue a point, you have the moral obligation to make assumptions based on honest examination and without prejudice
• Apply a healthy dose of skepticism to everything you see and are told. If something doesn't seem right, focus on that point, try to deconstruct it with what you know, ask yourself and others driving questions, like do human rights activists attack soldiers of a soverign nation with weapons?

Basic questions that you can ask to get to the bottom of things:

• What was the circumstances under which a certain action took place?
• Why was that person or people doing what they were doing?
• Why was that person or people in that location?
• What specifically were they doing?
• What was their intent?
• What were they trying to achieve?
• Did they try other means before taking the action they did?
• Did they provide any type of warning?
• Did they take any precautions to try and minimize damage and injury?
• Were there bystanders present?
• Were the bystanders hurt?
• Why were they in the location they were?
• Were they being used by others?
• By whom? Why?
• And how is this behavior comparable to others in the world under similar circumstances?
• How do they meet up with your measure of right and wrong?

When comparing actions to others under similar circumstances, its important to not only compare them to the behavior you would expect, such as that of a nation like Germany, or the USA, but to others like Saudi Arabia and Russia. We might like to hold everybody up to the highest standards, but we need to be realistic. Israel is at war with other nations and guerrilla organizations that don't follow the rules of war (and do things such as hide behind civilians when launching attacks), and once again its important to bring context.

For example, there was an alarmingly high casualty rate among Palestinian civilians in the Gaza war. Though a small detail published by the New York Times as part of the Wikileaks affairs shows that the civilian casualty rate in the Gaza war were actually lower than that normally experienced during wartime. Israel was violently attacked by human rights organizations and the media for the casualty rate. And while indeed it was tragic, it was not suprising relatively to other conflicts in the world. Important context that was stripped from the event.

The same thing can be said for Israel destroying booby trapped houses in Gaza. Another action that got Israel condemned by human rights organizations and nations alike. Yet just a few short weeks ago it was reported that in Afganistan NATO forces had destroyed hundreds of booby trapped houses. These actions were taken "to reduce civilian and military casualties" and deny "Taliban insurgents hiding places and fighting positions." So once again, taken out of context Israel's actions can be portrayed as extreme, brutal, inhumane and illegal. Yet when seen compared to others in similar circumstances, these actions, while seeminlgy extreme, were apparently used by others under similar circumstances.

And one last subject (I promised to keep this short). Perhaps the biggest challenge you'll experience when trying to examine these aspects of an event in a debate is that your interlocutor may be emotional, irrational, unwilling to let you talk, or unwilling to answer you in a reasonable manner. When experiencing this type of situation be calm and cool, and insist on the necessity to examine these three aspects of the event.

You get the point. Start examning these aspects every time you examine an event, in actuality they are the foundation of our ability to make critical moral judgment (understanding not only good from bad, but right from wrong), and as opposed to letting rhetoric, bloody pictures and what sells newspapers convince us what took place, we can let our weighed human judgment do so.

Also, be sure to share this approach with everyone you know. Post a link to this page. For this approach provides the proper lenses through which we can more competently understand events involving Israel and the Arab Israeli conflict.

By remembering to look at an event using these points of examination, you'll cut through much of the rhetoric and half truths and finally be able to answer for yourself all the questions and accusations thrown at you.