For the past few weeks there has been a common refrain that Hamas must be distinguished from the Gazans or Palestinians as a whole. On hand this binary distinction avoids the demonization of an entire population, but it can very well create new conceptual difficulties. There has been some disputed writing as to whether the kidnappers were in fact part of Hamas in some capacity or not. I have seen some arguments along the lines that since the kidnappers were not official Hamas then technically Hamas would not have been responsible, and therefore by extension, the escalation against Hamas would have been unjust. The problem with this argument is that if the kidnappers, or indeed subsequent terrorist activities cannot be classified as Hamas then based on the binary differentiation above, it would not be unreasonable for people to then blame the Palestinians - if not for the specific terrorist attacks than for perpetuating a culture in which such attacks are justified if not lauded. Hamas is a relatively easy target (no puns here), especially when one wishes to contrast the clear evil with a civilian population. But when dealing with morally ambiguous situations, I believe it is more important to acknowledge the shades of grey than it is to paint a situation in black and white for our own ontological convenience.
Posted on: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 22:18:07 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015