Waltzer: Just and Unjust Wars and Israeli Exceptionalism

Earlier today, I was sitting, waiting to talk to my graduate advisor, when a college of mine became excited to see me there, on the bench, tearing through my edition of Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars. He told me that he had just finished the book and was preparing a paper comparing Walzer's "Just War Theory" put forth in the book, to his current stance on Israeli's recent military operation into Lebanon and Gaza.

My college felt that Walzer’s support for Israel’s most recent invasion of Gaza and Lebanon contradicted his guidelines for “Just War.”

That sparked my interest, "hhhmmm," I said. "I wonder if there are traces of his defense of Israel's current action in the text."

I re-visited the reading and noticed that Israel plays a unique role in Walzer's book.

Israeli and “Just and Unjust War”

Walzer mentions a handful of examples when Israel has (in order that the examples appear in the index):

grappled with a moral dilemmas about civilian causalities and made tough, but fair descion (304), been a state with good reason for pre-emptive attack (81-85), properly cautioned its troops not to take undue action against its civilians (310n), justly, invaded other states to provoke the return of its citizens (104n). He also depicts a member of the Zionist terrorist militia, the Stern Gang, as killers with a good moral filter as to whom they kill (199).

Even if one believed that, in the cases that Walzer mentioned, Israel was behaving justly, there are plenty of incidences that seem to be unjust by Walzers standards that he could have mentioned: the Deir Yassin massacre, the occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, the Goland Hieights, and the Sinai Peninsula to name a few.

Contrast this with his treatment of the United States and Brittan.

Walzer references examples when the United States has (in order that the examples appear in the index):

been driven by animal instincts (60), fought organized wars(143), Burned farms, tried to starve the confederacy, (171), Massacred civilians at Mai La(315), defined freedom and intervention in a self serving way(94-95), fought war for its own purposes in someone else’s country (Vietnam) (97-101), fought counter insurgency wars in Cuba and Vietnam in a non-humane manner(188-196) ect… pages 290, 292, 299-303, 309-315, 322, 102-104, 117-122, and 319-322.

Walzer references examples where Brittan has:

Come to the aid of another country, out of its own self interest (71) Engaged in unnecessary preemptive war(79-80) held an empire based on moral hypocrisy (91-95) brought war to Neutral Norway (242-250) (255-262) ect…

It is clear that Walzer gives Isreal a clear advantage.