Finding Both Moral Complexity AND Moral Clarity on Israel and Palestine
(The following is based on a talk given on October 31, 2023, School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC.)
Those pursuing human rights and social justice often encounter a tension between embracing moral clarity versus moral complexity. Moral clarity is usually accompanied by the drive to resist, decry, condemn, and denounce injustice- to call out, shame and speak truth to power. On the other hand, moral complexity typically involves extending empathy, engaging in dialogue and persuasion, and recognizing multiple moral wrongs and truths.
After years of considering this seemingly irreconcilable tension in relation to a variety of human rights cases I have encountered in my teaching and research- from women’s rights in Iran to race in America, I have come to adopt the view that in pursing justice, you often need to adhere to both in tandem. You cannot get so wrapped up in moral complexity that you lose sight of the moral clarity encompassed, and you cannot get so wrapped up in moral clarity that you lose sight of the moral complexity encompassed.
To get to the moral clarity and moral complexity with respect to Israel and Palestine, you have to engage in considerable disentangling of several parallel dynamics.
First, there is a tragic history of actual victimization suffered by Jewish populations globally. Hamas’ massacres and gratuitous acts of violence were vile and tragic not only for the immediate victims, but Jewish people around the world who experienced them in the context and trauma of a painful history and recent rise in antisemitism.
Second, we have an Israeli government that engages in what I call “state victim branding,” essentially coopting the victimization of Jewish people to justify its occupation and its longstanding and current violence against Palestinians.
This self-proclaimed victim state, further endeavors to depoliticize a deeply power-laden political context and the immense asymmetry of power between Israel and Palestinian people and political entities by reducing violence such as Hamas’ brutal attack to antisemitism alone. I should note, I draw this idea of “state victim branding” from my current research on Iran. Israel instrumentalizes and coopts antisemitism just as Iran coopts Islamophobia, past and present Western imperialism, and the subjugation of Palestinians in what I call Iran’s “anti-imperialist state victim branding.” Although there is no Palestinian state, clearly Hamas engages in similar victim branding.
Third, you have the paradox in which decrying human rights violations and atrocities sheds light on human suffering and humanizes victims, but it can also dehumanize the populations associated with the perpetrators (whether the population supports the perpetrators or not), often to the point that those populations become viewed as subhuman and thus deserving of violence being carried out against them and undeserving of human rights protections. As I laid out at length in After Abu Ghraib, following 9/11, the Taliban’s violence and misogyny was used as justification for Americans torturing and denying due process rights to the Muslims and Arabs it detained. Now, Hamas’ brutal violence captured in accounts of families being burned alive in their homes and children being terrorized by gunmen before being taken hostage, similarly dehumanizes Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims, rendering Palestinians “human animals” in the words of Israel’s Defense Minister and paving the way for the incomprehensible degree of violence, atrocities, and war crimes currently being inflicted upon them by the Israeli state.
Similarly, those watching the Israeli military turn neighborhoods into rubble and drop bombs on defenseless Gazans can often conflate the offenses of the Israeli government with Israeli and Jewish populations, accordingly, coming to view them as subhuman, and finding justification for acts of violence against them in the atrocities of the Israeli state. Thus, to varying degrees, a key impetus for the resulting antipathy is the perception of Jewish populations’ support for (or enabling of) the Israeli state’s unjust policies and violence towards Palestinians. Nonetheless, anger over the Israeli state’s subjugation of Palestinians can turn into, intersect with and fuel antisemitism, and no doubt already has. Again, similar dynamics are at play with respect to how Islamophobia and the assumption of Arabs and Muslims’ support for political violence are entwined. The fact that Israel defines itself as a “Jewish state” as Iran defines itself as the “Islamic Republic” and Hamas defines itself as an “Islamic Resistance Movement” only helps further blur the lines.
This brings us back to the tension between moral clarity and moral complexity. A good rule of thumb to apply in determining how to balance the two approaches is that the more powerful the actor, the more appropriate it is to resist, denounce, condemn, and take uncompromising moral stances, especially if it is clear that “calling in” approaches like dialogue and persuasion are a dead end. These methods should be used to confront state power and powerful states- here Israel, the United States, or Iran. However, when it comes to people, confronting injustice should be weighted more heavily toward moral complexity, one capable of recognizing and extending empathy to the suffering of the other, even if there isn’t moral equivalency in the present moment.
Seeking justice for Palestinians thus entails moral clarity on the Israeli state’s deplorable and devastating violence against Palestinians as well as the maddening ways the United States government facilitates and funds it. It also requires adhering to moral complexity by shedding light on Palestinian suffering while also recognizing the immense pain wrought by Hamas’ cruel acts of violence on their own, and within the context of Jewish populations’ historical traumas and suffering. Most critically, it requires finding ways to acknowledge and extend empathy towards the suffering of Jewish populations while challenging the Israeli government’s attempts to legitimate its subjugation of Palestinians by coopting Jewish suffering through its “state victim branding”.
Such a disposition employing clarity and complexity is morally rooted because it leaves room for reclaiming the humanity of people on all sides while demanding accountability of those so abusively wielding power. It also places some responsibility on activists to combine their pressure on the Israeli state with more “calling in” strategies to foster greater normative change from below in order to find viable paths forward.
