And Should I At Your Harmless Innocence Melt?

When Republican Senator Lindsey Graham was asked what to do about the situation in Gaza, he responded, ‘‘Just flatten it…We flattened Berlin. We flattened Tokyo.’’ Let Israel do the same. When asked to respond to the contention that the devastation in Gaza, specifically the killing of innocent children and mothers, does not align with Christian values, the Senator replied, ‘‘I don’t buy that at all.’’ ‘‘What did we do in World War II? Did we think one minute about starving the Germans? Did we bomb every city into smithereens? No, we flattened it.’’ Faced with a similar ‘existential threat,’ Graham reasoned, Israel and its allies should not hesitate to raze Gaza. 

Hesitate they did not. Close to 80% of Gaza’s buildings have been damaged or destroyed, reducing the strip to a pile of rubble. At 365 square kilometres, the shattered concrete can cover an area roughly twice the size of Washington, D.C. In far worse shape, of course, are the residents of Gaza. Some 70,000 have died, including at least 14,000 children. The life expectancy rate has dropped by more than 35 years, a decline roughly proportional to China’s disastrous ‘Great Leap Forward.’ When asked by The Economist’s editor-in-chief, Zanny Minton Beddoes, how he can justify the humanitarian cost of the war, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu kept returning to the need to disarm Hamas before all else.

 The logic of the modern war strategist is eminently utilitarian. He sees the deaths of unfortunate thousands as the unpleasant downside of a deterrence strategy aimed at neutralizing the enemy’s capacity to inflict harm on the community of people he has been charged to protect. He may lament the loss of life, but will yield to the demands of national security. 

Should I at your harmless innocence Melt,
as I do, yet public reason just,
Honour and empire with revenge enlarged,
By conquering this new world, compels me no
To do what else though damned I should abhor.

Paradise Lost, IV. 389-393

This, John Milton explains, is the reasoning of every statesman faced with a difficult choice between avoiding innocent deaths and advancing the nation’s security interests. It was by appeal to ‘‘necessity, The tyrant’s plea,’’ that Satan ‘‘excused his devilish deeds.’’ (Paradise Lost, IV. 393-394) A long line of tough-minded politicians have appealed to ‘just reason’ or what the philosopher Jeremy Bentham simply called utility to justify the use of force to achieve political goals (The Principles of Morals and Legislation, II.7). Few politicians are utterly devoted to evil deeds. Few but the most abnormally malevolent walk around cackling ‘‘fair is foul, and foul is fair,’’(Macbeth, I.I.11). It nonetheless remains the case that the demands of modern politics impose restrictions on a statesman’s ability to be generous. 

‘‘The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous,’’ observed Niccolò Machiavelli (The Prince, p. 50). The leaders of Hamas are not virtuous. They are killers, who not only ‘‘beheaded our men, raped our women,’’ but also ‘‘burned our babies alive,’’ Netanyahu asserted. After seeing footage of the Oct. 7 attack, Peter Singer, perhaps the world’s most famous utilitarian, wrote that the video helped him understand ‘‘why Israel is prepared to accept the death of so many Palestinians.’’ What he saw was simply horrifying: ‘‘Evil is a word I rarely use, but what I saw was evil in its purest: men armed with assault rifles going house to house to shoot defenseless and terrified families in their simple kubbutz homes, recording their murders and shouting ‘‘God is great.’’ They kill a father in front of his two young children. They cut off the head of one of their victims, saying they will give it to the crowd to play with.’’ 

Francisco de Vitoria, one of the fathers of the ‘just war’ tradition of politics, wrote that any commonwealth ‘‘has the authority not only to defend itself, but also to avenge and punish injuries done to itself and its members.’’ This is especially the case when outrages have been committed against innocent civilians. The commonwealth has a duty to punish the wrongdoers to ensure that they do not grow bold in their aggression. The commonwealth, ‘‘cannot sufficiently guard the public good and its own stability unless it is able to avenge injuries and teach its enemies a lesson, since wrongdoers become bolder and readier to attack when they can do so without fear of punishment,’’ (Political Writings, p. 300). To ease pressure on Hamas, Netanyahu maintains, risks allowing its forces to rebuild its military capacity and plan another lethal attack on Israel. The extraordinary restrictions and military surveillance of Gazans were put in place by the Israeli command to ensure that home-grown militants are stymied in their murderous ambitions. An act of generosity which entirely lifts Gazans from their current constraints would be a gift to Hamas and an act of political abdication. 

‘‘I know everyone will agree,’’ says Machiavelli, ‘‘that it would be most laudable if a prince possessed all the qualities deemed to be good.’’ But, because of ‘‘conditions in the world,’’ political leaders ‘‘cannot have those qualities, or observe them completely,’’(The Prince, p. 51). In a kinder, more gentle world, nations would act with equity and fairness toward one another. Unfortunately and unhappily, Netanyahu lamented, ‘‘Jesus Christ has no advantage over Genghis Khan. Because if you are strong enough, ruthless enough, powerful enough, evil will overcome good. Aggression will overcome moderation. So you have no choice.’’ If you look at the world as it actually is today, that is, ‘‘represent things as they are in real truth, rather than as they are imagined,’’ to use Machiavelli’s words, you will see that democracies ‘‘have to re-assert their will to defend themselves, and to oppose their enemies in time before the choking gong of danger wakes them up too late’’ (The Prince, p. 50).

That the academy, the media, the campus agitators, and social media activists don’t understand this, Netanyahu added, ‘‘doesn’t obviate these truth.’’ As Prime Minister his job is to do everything in his power to keep the people of Israel safe—that includes making tough decisions, which at times go against the idealism of those far removed from danger. A responsible politician should not shy away from doing what needs to be done for fear of public disapproval. He must not ‘‘flinch from being blamed for vices which are necessary for safeguarding the state,’’ says Machiavelli (The Prince, p. 51). The Italian philosopher thought that holding firm to reasons of state would eventually vindicate the resolute politician. The passage of time would bring to realization the political veteran’s understanding that what might first appear ‘‘to be virtues will, if he practices them, ruin him, and some of the things that appear vices will bring him security and prosperity,’’ (The Prince, p. 51). Despite losing $57B or 8.6% of its annual GDP during the first two years of the war, Israel’s national GDP actually expanded by 3.1% in 2025, returning the country to its pre-war fiscal health, and making Israel one of the fastest growing economies in the world. On the security front, Israel’s enemies, particularly the Axis of Resistance, stand either defeated or defanged. Looking at these gains of war, Netanyahu and his supporters might feel like his toughness has been vindicated.

To be rational, says J.J.C. Smart is to ‘‘try to perform the right action, to try to produce the best results,’’(Utilitarianism, p. 47). No action is free of risk. No government should imagine, says Machiavelli, ‘‘that it can always adopt a safe course; rather, it should regard all possible courses of action as risky.’’ This, the Florentine explains, is the way things are: ‘‘whenever one tries to escape danger one runs into another. Prudence consists in being able to assess the nature of a particular threat and in accepting the lesser evil,’’ (The Prince, p. 75). On some occasions, the rational thing to do might not be the most moral thing to do: ‘‘However unhappy about it he may be,’’ Smart explains, ‘‘the utilitarian must admit that he…might find himself in circumstances where he ought to be unjust.’’ What is more, the decision to follow through with an unjust act will have to be determined by ‘‘empirical facts, and empirical facts only,’’ not feelings (Utilitarianism, p. 64, 71).

Given the horrific circumstances which first gave rise to Israel’s war march, Mr. Netanyahu might feel like he has adopted the most ‘rational’ course of action. This has come at a high moral cost. His commitment to Israel’s future has essentially forced him to absorb the deaths of thousands of people, including many innocent women and children who have died as collateral for the sake of keeping the people of Israel safe from terror. It is the fate of the political leader, laments the political realist, to carry such heavy burdens, and to endure the torments of such a bloody sacrifice for the sake of political survival; in this case the survival of the State of Israel. 

Princes have but their titles for their glories,
An outward honour for an inward toil;
And for unfelt imagination
They often feel a world of restless cares,
So that betwixt their titles and low name
There’s nothing differs but the outward fame.

King Richard III, I.4.71-76

While this sacrifice might be deemed ‘necessary’ to ‘realist’ thinkers, it does not absolve the state of Israel from wrong. Morality imposes absolute restrictions on human behavior precisely because humans often prefer the flexibility to dispense with ethics. The moment ‘reasons of state’, or any other form of utilitarian logic, are admitted as legitimate reasons to bypass the restrictions of morality, all manner of evil becomes excusable. ‘‘Once the door is opened to calculation of utility and national interest,’’ writes the philosopher Thomas Nagel, ‘‘the usual speculations about the future of freedom, peace, and economic prosperity can be brought to bear to ease the consciences of those responsible for a certain number of charred babies,’’ (Consequentialism and Its Critics, p. 57).

Moralities that categorically forbid the killing of innocent human beings are particularly troublesome to already pressured statesmen. Christianity, in particular, is a notoriously ‘‘severe and practicable religion,’’ (Ethics, Religion, and Politics, p. 56). It importunates, irritates, and inconveniences state leaders with its uncompromising prohibitions against killing innocent human beings. According to this ‘Hebrew-Christian ethic,’ says Elizabeth Anscombe, there are ‘‘certain things forbidden whatever consequences threaten,’’ (Ethics, Religion, and Politics, p. 34). Other law-minded ethical theories such as Aristotelianism take for granted that law ‘‘prescribes and prohibits certain types of action absolutely,’’ that is, ‘‘irrespective of circumstances or consequences.’’ That is simply what ‘‘a virtuous person would do or refrain from doing’’ in the circumstance (After Virtue, p. 150). It is not just that certain actions are not permissible in certain very specific contexts. As Thomas Nagel reminds us, ‘‘they are supposed never to be done, because no quantity of resulting benefit is thought capable of justifying such treatment of a person,’’ (Consequentialism and Its Critics, p. 72). 

That is a very striking departure from the normal logic of war. As Carl von Clausewitz writes, ‘‘War is an act of force, and there is no logical limit to the application of that force,’’ (On War, I.3).  War strategists are typically not interested in avoiding violence, but in limiting or containing its spread so as not to offend the moral sensibilities of the diplomatic world. This almost ‘‘exclusive concern with consequences,’’ Jeff McMahan explains, ‘‘is characteristic of certain moral theories, which perhaps have maximal plausibility in their application to conditions of war’’ and ‘‘may seem to overshadow all other considerations.’’ Consequentialist theories of war stand in sharp contradistinction, both in their moral flexibility and ruthlessness, to the communally-held moral intuitions which we have inherited from the ancients. ‘‘In common sense morality,’’ McMahan remarks, ‘‘what is permissible to do to a person is not determined solely by what the consequences of one’s action will be for all those affected. It depends also on what rights the person has and whether he or she has done anything to waive or forfeit them,’’ (Killing in War, p. 107).

One can better appreciate the severity of these absolutist doctrines when one considers the fact that just war theory outlines regulations concerning the treatment of enemy combatants. In attacking enemy soldiers, it is important that they be treated ‘‘with that minimal respect which is owed to them as human beings,’’ (Consequentialism and Its Critics, p. 68). One cannot gain access to enemies by targeting civilian areas for such an act would take ‘‘aim at them through the mundane life and survival of their countrymen, instead of aiming at the destruction of their military capacity,’’ (Consequentialism and Its Critics, p. 68). When asked to consider the question of whether the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) could strike enemy targets while they were not engaged in combat, President Emeritus Aharon Barak of the Israeli Supreme Court argued that targeted killings may be permissible under very limited constraints, but never in a manner which disrespects the inherent dignity of the targets: ‘‘Needless to say, unlawful combatants are not beyond the law. They are not ‘outlaws.’ God created them as well in his image. Their human dignity as well is to be honored; they as well enjoy and are entitled to protection…by customary international law,’’ (One Another’s Equals, p. 153). 

This is a very far cry from Netanyahu’s talk of Hamas as barbaric animals. While such denunciations are perhaps psychologically understandable, especially when one considers the horrific things these militants have been up to, expressions of incomprehension and outrage at the ‘beast-like’ behavior of human beings must not be allowed to cloud the moral judgment of political leaders to a point where they see whole groups as unworthy of moral consideration. So long as human rights continue to mean something, especially to liberals, the promise of future blessedness can never authorize the murder of innocent human beings and the desacralization of the human form, no matter how immense and beneficial this utility might prove to be in the future. This remains so even in the face of fierce disagreement and disavowals. Leaders may of course choose to ignore this ethic, but it does not nullify their moral crimes. 

Featured image is "Tokyo 1945-3-10-1."