A mezuzah, the scroll containing verses from the Torah, attached to the right doorpost at the entrance to Jewish homes, marks the apartment of philosopher Michael Walzer (New York, 88 years old) in a building in Manhattan. As professor emeritus of political philosophy at Princeton, he updated Augustinian theory on the legitimacy of armed conflict from a secular and left-wing perspective in his book Just and Unjust Wars (1977). As a Jew, he supports Israel’s response to Hamas, but not without criticism, particularly of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu. From the need to respond to terrorism to the difficulty of waging asymmetric wars to Israel’s own vulnerability, Walzer addresses the moral dilemmas surrounding the conflict.
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Questions. What kind of war is this, a just or an unjust one?
Answer. Well, the war on terrorism is always fair. I started writing [el libro] in the 1970s against the terrorism of the IRA in Ireland, the FLN in Algeria and the PLO in Palestine. The deliberate killing of innocent civilians for political reasons is always unjust, so responses to such terrorism are justified. Another thing is the quality of the answer [armada]…
Q Is Israel’s response proportionate, as required by the rules of war? Or would you prefer unlimited?
R. An asymmetric war is a war between a high-tech military and a low-tech insurgency. The insurgents hide behind or among the civilian population. From what I know about Hamas, they fire rockets from schoolyards, hospital parking lots, and residential neighborhoods. This means that they deliberately expose their own civilians because the more civilians they die, the more likely they are to win the war. To win it politically, I say, even if the military costs are very high. That was the problem with the Americans in Vietnam, they failed, they didn’t solve the problem.
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Q Does the number of victims matter if history justifies it?
R. I’ll give you the example of Afghanistan. An American colonel said in 2010: “The more civilians we kill, the more certain we are of losing the war.” So this is the dilemma of asymmetric warfare and the Israelis. How do you respond to rocket fire fired from a schoolyard into your area? This raises the question of how to respond. How careful are you with your answer? Do you react at night when it is a schoolyard? That’s all you can be: be careful. And I think that sometimes the Israelis were very careful and sometimes they probably weren’t.
Michael Walzer, photographed at his home in Manhattan.Corrie Aune
Q He wrote his book in the seventies. How much have wars changed since then?
R. Well, if you look at the wars in the Middle East, they took place in 1948 [tras la fundación de Israel] and in ’67 [Guerra de los Seis Días]. And in ’73 [Guerra del Yom Kippur]. They were all fairly conventional, technical wars between armies. But since ’82 [Líbano]The wars involved organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas, which have neither a state nor a conventional army behind them. And they fight in the way I just described. I believe that the political problems for Israel have been multiplied by asymmetrical warfare.
There is no justification for a siege, so Israel cutting off electricity, water and food supplies to Gaza was wrong.”
Q Another rule of war is not to attack civilians. Two million people in Gaza are potential targets and are under siege.
R. That’s one of the reasons for the trip [el presidente de EE UU, Joe] Biden [a Israel]. Yes this is very important. First of all, there is no justification for a siege. So it is not right that Israel has cut off electricity, water and food supplies to Gaza… Because it is the people who are suffering. And that is politically wonderful for Hamas. That’s why I think we have to open the border crossings [la entrevista se realizó antes de que empezara el envío de ayuda]. Of course, we must prevent military goods from entering and ensure that only food and medicine enter. Egypt also does not want Palestinians to flock to Sinai because it sees Hamas as the Palestinian version of the Muslim Brotherhood. It should be recalled that the blockade of Gaza was a joint Israeli and Egyptian operation.
Q In addition to an asymmetrical war between a state and a militia, is it also a regional war?
R. There are proxy war elements [regional]. Hamas and Hezbollah are trained by Iran, but I think they have their own politics and their own goals. They can obviously serve Iran’s goals, but I think the crucial decisions will be made locally. Because both groups have a very strong motivation: Hamas has been committed to the destruction of Israel since its founding charter. And this goal precedes any Iranian involvement.
“Israel is on the one hand very strong and on the other hand extremely vulnerable.”
Q And the states in the region?
R. The Sunni Arab states may want Israel to crush Hamas, but in any case they will not help.
Q In your opinion, is there really a risk of the conflict expanding?
R. Yes, but I think there are good reasons for that [los países vecinos] they may not want to come in [en la guerra]. Lebanon is extremely fragile, Hezbollah is another matter… Many people talk about Israel as if it were a powerful military power, the most advanced in the Middle East. And yet, if Hezbollah intervened with rockets from the north and Hamas rockets from the south, more than half of Israel would become uninhabitable. It is important that people realize that Israel is, on the one hand, very strong and, on the other hand, extremely vulnerable. Even if Israel had nuclear weapons, what use would they be? That is why the position of the left, which is mine, defends the two-state solution, the hope of withdrawal from the West Bank…
The war against the Nazis inoculated me against pacifism. “It was the epitome of a just war.”
Q Have the protests against the government’s judicial reform weakened Israel or do they show the strength of its civil society?
R. There is a terrible, right-wing, ultra-nationalist and religiously fanatical government. And there is a secular liberal rebellion against this government, which has been wonderful. All my friends were on the street with their children and grandchildren. And week after week they told me wonderful stories about the solidarity of the demonstrators. But the atrocity of the Hamas attack has at least temporarily, I don’t know if it creates internal cohesion, but it is solidarity. I’m sure there are Israelis who hope that there won’t be a ground invasion and that the military will find another way that doesn’t require 100,000 troops. But the country is prepared for all-out war. Hamas not only committed these atrocities on October 7th, but also filmed them and showed them everywhere. Everyone in Israel has seen these terrible images. It is very difficult. Many of my friends are calling for moderation, and I hope for moderation from the authorities. But it is very difficult.
Q Does Israel have the enemy at home? I am referring to groups like Naturei Karta, which reject the existence of the state and are anti-Zionist…
R. Israel is a pluralistic society. Naturei Karta is a very small group, but the Ultra-Orthodox were certainly also anti-Zionists, convinced that there should be no state until the arrival of the Messiah. But I fear that the ultra-Orthodox in the current government are now more Zionist than anyone else because they have apparently joined the ultra-nationalists. Initially, Zionism was a secular socialist movement.
There is an obscene reaction from the far left who support Hamas’s atrocities and see them as the result of the oppression of Palestinians. “It makes a lot of noise on US campuses”
Q The tension is repeated in the United States: groups of progressive Jews have taken over the Capitol to defend peace.
R. There was an obscene reaction from the far left, which even supported Hamas’s atrocities. A small group, but very loud on American campuses. And this is a very old position of the left, that oppressed people can do whatever they want; It didn’t even start with Israel. There are no moral boundaries, they say, we cannot judge what they do because it is a product of their oppression. All of this started with the Algerian War. In fact, one of my first articles was titled “The Obligations of the Oppressed,” and argued that even oppressed people have moral obligations or limits to what they can do. Therefore it is very annoying to always read the same thing. The same justifications were also made for the Algerian terrorist who bombed a cafe or the IRA terrorists who killed civilians. I have resisted this kind of leftism my whole life. And then there are people who simply say that the violence must end, that an immediate ceasefire must be declared, but that is very difficult to say to Israelis after the Hamas mass atrocity. I just hope that the punishment is directed against the perpetrators, against the terrorists.
The American intellectual Michael Walzer.Corrie Aune
Q Looking ahead, do you think the two-state solution is still possible?
R. A two-state solution is becoming increasingly difficult to imagine, and yet we have to fight for it. I am involved in groups that advocate for a change in this idea, for a federation or confederation. These are perhaps more realistic proposals than those of the two states. I’m sure that’s for the king [Abdalá] Jordan would not make him happy, but a confederation of Israel, Palestine and Jordan working together on environmental and other issues, including security, would be a wonderful solution.
Q As an American, what do you think of the US veto of a UN resolution for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza?
R. Humanitarian breaks, as it says in the resolution text? I don’t know if it would make sense. Surely it makes sense to open the borders to humanitarian aid? Before Hamas was defeated? I think the Israelis think it’s too early. And apparently the US government agrees with them, which is why it voted against it. The scale of Washington’s commitment is truly extraordinary. Biden’s same speech [en defensa de Israel]more Zionist than any Israeli, was extraordinary.
Q If you had to write your book now, would you choose the same title?
R. Yes / Yes. Look, I grew up in World War II, I was 10 years old, and that made me immune to pacifism, because the war against the Nazis was the just war par excellence. Our task in time of war is to make judgments, and I believe that this is the correct vocabulary, although it is, first of all, a Catholic vocabulary. My book is of course a kind of secular version, but I think, yes, it would be good enough for St. Augustine (laughs).
Q Is a just war compatible with pacifism?
R. No. I respect people who say “I can’t kill” for religious reasons, but given the atrocities of Hamas or the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I firmly believe that fighting back is the right thing to do. Yes, in the face of aggression, in the face of brutality, there must be resistance.
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