Who can make total sense of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Our unfamiliarity with the region and its constant wars might tempt us to throw our hands up and declare it hopelessly convoluted. It can seem so at times, but there are aspects of it that are very clear- and Hamas’ brutal attack this week lent extra clarity. It exemplified many things- cruelty, inhumanity, and sadism- but it also shed light on a simpler philosophical concept: the principle of double effect. This idea is one small key to understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict just a little bit more.
So, what is the Doctrine of Double Effect?
As per the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, it is a principle “often invoked to explain the permissibility of an action that causes a serious harm, such as the death of a human being, as a side effect of promoting some good end. According to the principle of double effect, sometimes it is permissible to cause a harm as an unintended and merely foreseen side effect (or ‘double effect’) of bringing about a good result even though it would not be permissible to cause such a harm as a means to bringing about the same good end.”
To make that more simple, it’s a principle in which the negative side effect of an action may be morally permissible if it is foreseen as a possibility but not intended as the result of an action.
An example of this would be the difference between offering a woman life-saving drugs that might foreseeably end her pregnancy but which were not intended to kill her unborn child vs. offering her the same drugs with the explicit intention of causing an abortion.
Another example would be giving a terminally ill patient high doses of morphine with the intent to alleviate their pain- knowing that the dose might prove lethal but not explicitly intending for it to end the patient’s life- vs. purposefully killing the patient through euthanasia.
The doctrine (or principle) of double effect isn’t a total “get out of jail free card” in moral reasoning, but it does add nuance to significant decisions that have clear positive outcomes with possible- but not certain- negative consequences.
At this point, you can probably see where this train of thought is headed. This moral principle is applicable in real time in the conflict we’re seeing right now in the Middle East between the nation of Israel and its enemy, Hamas. Hamas, of course, is the governing body of Palestine, acknowledged by all major Western nations (Canada and the USA included) as a terrorist organization.
Over the weekend, as the whole world now knows, Hamas terrorist militants breached the border of Israel and slaughtered 1300 Jews (and counting) in their homes, streets, and celebrations. Women (and most likely children) were raped, entire families were shot and/or burned, and others were abducted from their beds and taken as hostages. They are still missing. Elderly people were murdered in streets and homes execution style or taken into Gaza – at least one a Holocaust victim. In some cases the victims’ deaths were texted to their parents or posted on Facebook for their families to see. In just one neighborhood, more than 100 dead bodies were found, and pictures and reports of murdered babies and toddlers have also emerged.
How do we know all this? Because Hamas recorded it and shared it on social media and because the bodies are strewn across neighborhoods and streets. This was not Israeli propaganda, although of course it is being shouted by Israelis from the rooftops now. But initially, it came from videos streamed by the actual perpetrators of the carnage in real time- because they were proud of it.
Now Israel is raining Hell on Gaza, and already we’re seeing photos of the rubble and of injured children and desperate parents and civilians. Israel has cut off water and electricity to the region until their hostages are returned, potentially an impossibility if captives have already been executed.
This has prompted some to draw moral equivalencies between the two scenarios: just two sets of horrific losses of life with no obvious moral distinction between them- but there is an incredibly significant difference.
Hamas declares in their official Hamas Covenant that “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it” and that “[Peace] initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement…There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad.”
Hamas senior official Ali Baraka openly admitted in an interview on Russia Today TV just after the attack: “Of course. We made them think that Hamas was busy with governing Gaza, and that it wanted to focus on the 2.5 million Palestinians [in Gaza], and has abandoned the resistance altogether. All the while, under the table, Hamas was preparing for this big attack.” He continued, “The Israelis are known to love life. We, on the other hand, sacrifice ourselves. We consider our dead to be martyrs. The thing any Palestinian desires the most is to be martyred for the sake of Allah….”
This leader admits that his organization merely pretended to govern while plotting this civilian attack for 2 years. Not only does Hamas have no allegiance to their own people in Palestine- who they reportedly use as shields by hiding their militants and weapons caches in schools, mosques, hospitals, and apartment buildings- but their PURPOSE in the conflict of last weekend was to attack Israeli civilians.
There was not only no effort to avoid civilian deaths, but there was also celebration in those deaths- seemingly greater in proportion to the horror involved. Psychological tactics (like messaging video of the killings to family members) were employed to make the pain more unbearable.
This is the opposite of the doctrine of double effect. To Hamas, the pain and destruction of Israeli Jews- civilians included- is the primary effect.
In contrast, while Israel does have a long history of civilian casualties accompanying their missile attacks on Gaza, it also has a recorded and consistent effort to avoid those casualties. Israel is known to text and call members of the Gaza Strip prior to bombings, fire warning missiles that shake buildings before the actual bomb, and drop leaflets on neighborhoods that are about to be targeted- warning civilians to flee.
This week, Prime Minister Netanyahu warned Palestinians in a video that they should flee the area and dropped just such warning leaflets to citizens.
Whether these tactics are effective and how many lives are lost despite them is certainly a topic of heated debate. Questions remain like, “Where could Gazans really flee to?” “Can they actually get out of buildings in time?” “What if they don’t see or hear the messages?” “What about other moral issues- like cutting off power and electricity to the region?”
I can’t answer those questions, and I think a lot of the answers will end in tragedy for a significant amount of Palestinian civilians. I think Israel knows that, too, but I don’t think that is either their goal or their desired effect- based on not only their many actions to prevent extra civilian casualties but also their very practical need to remain in good standing with Western democracies.
Israel knows its image on the world stage is important for its global support. Unlike Hamas- whose support from Iran and groups like Hezbollah will only be increased by its celebratory rapes, tortures, and murders- Israel depends on Western democracies who condemn careless killing. Israel doesn’t have Hamas’s dark privilege. It cannot afford to be seen as a blatant war criminal by its allies.
Thus, whether for noble motives or practical ones, Israel does make efforts to spare innocents and to appear concerned about them in their messaging and their actions. This is certainly the doctrine of double effect in action. Civilian deaths are anticipated and even allotted for, but never the goal and never celebrated. It would be unheard of to see Israelis of any stripe celebrating the death of Palestinian women or infants. Yet it was celebration of the deaths and abductions of Israeli citizens that first alerted the world to what was going on in Israel this weekend.
I cannot say whether Israel’s response will be correct or proportionate. What could possibly be correct or proportionate when your women are raped, your families murdered in cold blood, and your children stolen for evil purposes? What does a country do when its enemy will take no deal and agree to no peace but denies their right merely to ever exist as a nation- when that enemy will kill any citizens they can lay hands on at the first opportunity? I truly don’t know.
I can’t say what a just response by Israel is in this situation, what their leaders will answer to God for, or which of their motives are for protection and which are purely vengeance at this point. What I can say is that the blood they are spilling and have yet to spill does not seem to be a cause of joy to them. It does not seem to be the goal. As Baraka said, the Israelis love life. Death is the cost of maintaining existence for them- a dark double effect.
For Hamas, death is the goal.
I want to wrap up by saying that while I do not in any way view Hamas and Israel as equal aggressors in this conflict or equal perpetrators, my pain for the plight of the Palestinian civilians is the same as that of the Israelis. When I kissed my child good night tonight, my heart literally hurt for Israeli mothers whose babies have been abducted. When I made dinner for him, it ached for Palestinian mothers without power or water to cook for their children- possibly without any food for them and with homes demolished.
I pray for a swift end to this war, the protection of all civilians, and justice for the murdered.
“May the One who brings peace to the universe bring peace to us and to all the people Israel. And let us say: Amen.”
– final line of the Mourner’s Kaddish
About the Author
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Jackie Chea is a blogger from San Antonio, Texas who holds a B.A. in Psychology and an M.A. in Community Counseling from the University of Texas at San Antonio. She writes on political and cultural issues from a conservative, religious standpoint. She lives in the Lone Star State with her husband Nick, her 5-year-old son Lincoln, and her rescue dogs. |
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