Terrorist Organization and Israel

The 2014 war in Gaza lasted for almost two months and resulted in thousands of casualties, remaining of course unresolved. However, as Espuelas (2014) puts it, "the first casualty of war is the truth," (p. 1). Nowhere is this adage more noticeable than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which the truth is particularly multifaceted and complex. The principles of just war offer dictums for assessing the ethics of both the Israeli position and that of Hamas.

War is considered a last resort in Israel; otherwise Israel would have used even greater force than it already has. Whereas Israel can be considered a legitimate authority because it operates as a democratic state, Hamas is less so. Hamas is legitimate to its supporters, but remains a spurious political organization dedicated to and predicated on the annihilation of Israel.

Moreover, the the 2014 war in Gaza was fought to redress a clear wrong: it was a direct response to escalations in the ongoing rocket fire, which unearthed the subversive tunneling system that even more seriously threatened Israel. Peace seems highly unlikely, and yet Israel's ultimate goal is simply to exist in peace. It remains surrounded by neighbors that deny its legitimacy and has a dearth of international support too.

Although critics of Israel have understandably denounced the civilian casualties that have resulted from the 2014 war in Gaza, the government of Israel is unlikely to have deliberately targeted civilians as there would be no strategic gain at all from such maneuvers. In fact, the civilian casualties may be due to what Espeulas (2014) calls the "human shield" theory: hiding Hamas targets in locations that contain large numbers of civilians in order to make Israel look bad.

Although Israel's conscience cannot be considered totally clean, the war in Gaza meets almost all of the criteria for a just war. A primary principle of just war is that the violence must be a last resort. Diplomacy and negotiation should be used first, in order to avoid unnecessary violence. In Israel, violence is clearly a last resort given the restraint that Israel does tend to show throughout its history in the face of numerous aggressions.

In the case of the 2014 Gaza war, the violence did arrive as a last resort because the daily rocket attacks became not just hourly but every few minutes (Espuelas, 2014). Hamas's charter renders the organization explicitly unwilling to negotiate with the state of Israel. Therefore, it is impossible for Israel to negotiate or use diplomacy with Hamas because of the latter's outright refusal to acknowledge its opponent's point-of-view.

Israel could if it wanted to resort to using force more often; instead, Israel resorts to underhanded tactics to avoid war such as the policy of containment in Gaza. Israel resorted to violence specifically because the rocket fire had increased to the degree that it was intolerable -- and indeed, any rocket fire should be considered intolerable. Therefore, the war in Gaza is a last resort from Israel's point-of-view. From Hamas's point-of-view, violence is illegitimate.

Violence is an integral part of the Hamas tactics because Hamas refuses to work with Israel by categorically denying its existence. Israel is a legitimate authority, in spite of its lack of allies in the Middle East. It is a democratic nation-state with a highly organized system of government. Although it lacks the support of a large number of nations, Israel does demonstrate the legitimacy of any modern nation-state.

On the other hand, Hamas has a low degree of legitimacy, as it is an organization that primarily exists to destroy Israel. It is not a legitimate government of the Palestinian people; it mainly controls Gaza and is a vindictive agent that seeks to redress wrongs through propaganda and terrorism against Israel. The legitimacy conferred onto Hamas comes from anti-Israeli sentiment not just among Palestinians in Gaza but throughout the Arab world.

As Riedel (2014) points out, "many Saudis, especially young people, admire Hamas for fighting against Israel." The same is true throughout the Muslim world. Hamas uses what Landes (2014) calls a "dead baby strategy," a propaganda operation consisting of "gruesome images of dead children are appearing every night on Arab television," (Riedel, 2014). Hamas might tout itself as a legitimate authority that protects the rights of the Palestinian people, but it has never sought negotiations with Israel on principle.

Therefore, Hamas lacks legitimacy as a governing body and also functions by using violent principles that violate the tenets of just war. Redressing a wrong is the song sung by both Israelis and Hamas. From Hamas's perspective, Israel refuses to grant Palestinians their own state and has encroached upon Palestinian territory. From Israel's perspective, Hamas launches daily terror attacks at Israel. Both sides claim that they are redressing a wrong. Without delving too deep into history, it is clear that wrongs have been committed by both sides.

Yet in this particular case, Israel was redressing a specific set of ethical violations Hamas had committed including the construction of a massive network of tunnels and the rocket attacks that came as often as once every four minutes (Espuelas, 2014). Israel and Palestine both suffer from existential crises, but it was not Israel that fired the rocket attacks or constructed tunnels to the degree authorized by Hamas and paid for by its allies. According to Visser (2015), the war in Gaza was justified because of the tunnels alone.

The war "averted a major disaster for Israel," because " Hamas had planned a mega-terror attack that was scheduled to be carried out on Rosh Hashanah," (Visser, 2015). With funding from Qatar, the Hamas tunnel entrances were "stocked with tranquilizers, handcuffs, ropes, and other materials useful for subduing abducted civilians and soldiers," (Visser, 2015). Each tunnel, some of which were 120 feet deep, cost about one million dollars; proof that Hamas had been strategically planning a "coordinated mega-attack," with the help of some of Hamas's wealthy allies.

Those allies could have funded peaceful economic and social development projects in the Palestinian territories but instead focused on aggressive maneuvers like this, which could have resulted in disaster "since use of even one of the tunnels was likely to trigger an Israeli retaliation against the entire network," (Visser, 2015). Therefore, Hamas operates by baiting Israel into military action. After baiting Israel, Hamas then uses clever propaganda and military tactics like the "human shield" operations to generate more anti-Israeli propaganda used to bolster the Hamas cause.

Another principle of just war is a reasonable chance of success, which Israel has due to its strong intelligence and military prowess. The reason why just wars need to have reasonable chance of success is to minimize suffering or undue prolongation. In this case, the war lasted less than two months. To keep the war as brief as possible, Israel used sophisticated technologies to target Hamas.

Hamas "resorted to ever-more obvious tactics to victimize their own people: storing its weapons and firing them from residential areas, hospitals, schools and mosques and even, hiding its leaders under Shiffa hospital," (Lands, 2014). This resulted in unfortunate civilian casualties, but those casualties were presumably orchestrated by Hamas as part of the propaganda machine. Hamas could have stored weapons far from civilians; it chose to bait and entrap Israel to make Israel look bad and sway public opinion against Israel.

In the past, Israel has also reduced the amount of time spent on wars by investing heavily in sophisticated military technologies and intelligence that prevents civilian deaths while at the same time promoting Israeli best interests. The goal of all just wars is to re-establish peace, or in the case of Israel, to establish peace in the first place. Israel has never truly enjoyed peace because its neighbors have consistently attacked it since 1947.

The recent war in Gaza does not offer either side a reasonable opportunity to secure peace, but Melman (2016) at least notes, "The two sides say that they have no interests in escalation." To be more truly just, the war in Gaza should have clearer goals, and Hamas would have to come down off of its moral high ground and acknowledge that it needs to coexist with Israel if genuine lasting peace is its main goal.

Peace is not possible as long as Hamas and its supporters and sympathizers around the world deny Israel. A just war is a proportionate response to a grievance. In the case of the Gaza war, the response could even be considered subdued given that Hamas planned a mega-attack with "network of 32 underground attack tunnels with multiple branches and exits in various stages of construction," (Visser, 2015). In fact, Israel's response to Hamas's behavior can be considered moderate as well as proportionate.

The numbers do not look good for Israel, because Israel is more adept at using military force and reducing casualties on its side. Yet all just wars are fought with reasonable chance of success -- which is why Israel's war is just and Hamas's is not. Hamas could attract international allies interested in destroying Israel once and for all but it is not doing that either.

Melman (2016) does point out that a recent flare-up of the Gaza war might indicate a less proportionate response on Israel's part, as Israel initiated a "massive attack...in response to the launching of a single rocket which landed Sunday at noon in Sderot and caused no injuries and no damage." Yet Melman (2016) also describes Israel's response as "expected and measured," designed to "send a message to the other side without causing too many casualties, in order to minimize the risk of a new round of hostilities." The goal is to use Israeli might to shut down the rawer Hamas program.

Whereas Hamas did fire rockets into Israel indiscriminately, Israel responded in kind by targeting Hamas military targets. Those targets unfortunately housed civilians as well as military weapons and personnel. Hamas has actually succeeded in the propaganda campaign to discredit Israel. Even moderate Muslim states like Turkey now support Hamas (Melman, 2016). Hamas has controlled Gaza since 2007, and shows no sign of relenting in its stance to support a two state solution or any other solution. Israel defends itself with.