In The Republic, Plato described a character who expressed the idea
that "justice" can be defined as helping one's neighbors and harming
one's enemies. Aristotle expressed a similar view in his Politics, in which he explained that taking slaves from a just war
was just in itself. Both of these great philosophers clearly believed that
there was such a thing as a "just war" and that violence was
justifiable at times; however, they also believed that a war could be unjust.
But who decides what counts as “just”? As the
saying goes, it is the winners who write the history books, and what one side
of a conflict sees as just, the other likely sees as the opposite.
Let’s take the current conflict in
Palestine/Israel as an example.
The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
In 1948, Zionist leaders created the state of Israel
on land given to the Jews following the United Nations’ partition of Palestine
into two separate areas—one for Muslims and one for Jews. The Muslim
Palestinians rejected this proposal.
From that time on, fighting has been nearly
continuous between Israel and Palestine, but both sides see the conflict in
very different lights. Each has been responsible for initiation of attacks. PBS offers
an excellent explanation of the conflict showing the points of view (or POV)
from both sides. This article explains why Palestinians rejected the UN
partition because of the demographic distribution of Jews and Muslims in
Palestine at the time. It also explains the Zionist perspective of many Jews in
the region, who have historically been in search of a homeland since the destruction
of the First Temple. This piece from PBS only covers up to 2001. The
Israel-Gaza conflict of 2014 is nicely covered in this article.
The catalyst of this conflict in the spring and summer of 2014 was the
kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens by Palestinians (possibly Hamas).
Israel responded with airstrikes on Gaza, which Palestine responded to by
shooting rockets back at Israel. However, Israel has superior military
technology, so while 2000
Palestinians were killed by the end of the conflict, fewer than 100 Israelis
died.
Who’s in the Right?
In Politics, Aristotle stated that “the art
of war is a natural art of acquisition…an art we ought to practice against wild
beasts, and against men who, though intended by nature to be governed, will not
submit.” Similarly, in Plato’s The Republic, the character of
Polemarchus tells Socrates that the best way to help friends and hurt enemies
(or, by his own definition, to be just) is by making war and being an ally in
battle. The issue with both Aristotle’s and Polemarchus's positions here is that both
look at a war from only one side. In reality though, there are two sides (or
more) to every war, and both cannot be “right” or “just.”
Israelis see their position as being the correct,
defensible one; Palestinians maintain that they are in the right. If they can’t
both be right and both sides can’t be on the side of justice, then is any war
every truly just?
