Hamas Rockets

A Modest Proposal

The government of Gaza has repeatedly broken both international law and the Law of God. It has repeatedly attacked Israel, neighbouring state, with home made rockets. Moreover, these rockets are not targeted at military installations, but civilian populations.

Israel has a right in law to retaliate. A defensive war is always a just war. Israel also has a right under the Law of God to defend itself. It is the duty of civil government to protect its people from aggression and to punish the evildoers who murder and take life.

This is all pretty simple stuff--ethically speaking. But it never ceases to amaze us how a host of irrelevancies are allowed so quickly to cloud such crimes.

From the convenience of our armchairs we would like to pan a few of the irrelevancies and make some suggestions.

The appeal to pity currently being made worldwide is a fallacious irrelevance. The picture that is painted of David-like Hamas bravely constructing some home made low-tech rockets, going up against the high-tech Goliath, and therefore deserving of sympathy is an ethical blight. Counting up relative civilian casualties is also not that helpful.

Painting the Palestinian people as historical victims of Jewish or Zionist or western policy of lebensraum is not relevant either as a justification for their aggression. We have no doubt that the historical acts were wicked; they represented theft by the worst kind of force; the taking of property of Palestinians was just plan wrong. But--and here is the big but--developing a culture of victimhood and revenge out of historical injustice is equally wicked and wrong.

We believe that most western governments find themselves utterly unable to call Palestinians to account at this very point because they themselves trade daily in the politics of victimhood.

In the providence of God, virtually every people on earth can claim historical injustices which have been perpetrated upon their ancestors. Virtually every people on earth has been forcibly dispossessed at one time or another. There is no mandate to attempt to right historical wrongs by seeking vengeance in the present. The Scriptures teach us to accept the past, do away with vengeance, do good to one's neighbour, and get on with living as God's servants. This is the command of Christ--those who would disregard it will reap the consequences. Thus, Jerusalem would say to both Israel and Gaza that all historical grievances and claims and injustices must be laid at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ, left there in His hands, and forgotten.

Thus, both Israel and Gaza must be called to live in a holy and just way in the present. When we do that, the matter becomes very straightforward, ethically. Shooting rockets at neighbouring countries, damaging property and killing its citizens is both theft and murder, It must be punished. The lawful authority appointed by God to punish is the government. It can no more not be punished than ignoring murderers.

Hamas is the lawful government of Gaza, elected by the people. If the lawful government of Gaza will not punish those who have manufactured and launched missiles into Israel, then the government of Israel must. It would be derelict in its God given duty not to act to punish the evildoers.

The next question that is begged is, how to act? Here is where practical wisdom ought to apply. Israel's apparent current objective of destroying Hamas seems to us to be both impractical, unachievable, and inappropriate. For one thing, it takes the focus off the lawless crimes perpetrated by the government of Gaza and introduces far wider issues of national sovereignty, rights to exist or not as a nation, regime change, and so forth.

From the very first time a rocket was launched into Israel in an unprovoked attack, Israel should have made clear its policy and intentions. Its declared policy should be one of punishing murderers and thieves: the method of punishment will be according to fundamental principles of justice and equity. An eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth.

Then, in open court, before the world--particularly before the Arab world--the government of Israel should count up the number of rockets fired into Israel every day, announce the number (offering observers from Arab nations to confirm the number, if necessary), and pronounce to Gaza that it will launch the exact same number of rocket attacks upon Gaza within the next twenty-four hours as a judicial sentence for the criminal acts. It should also make clear that it will take no further action because justice would have been served once sentence is carried out. However, it should make clear that any future criminal acts will be punished in a condign manner. Then, when the sentence is carried out, it should also announce this fact also to the people of Gaza.

It should pursue this policy with relentless faithfulness until the government of Gaza stops its lawless and murderous actions. This would also avoid the need for endless hand wringing by the international "community", calls for cease fires, vain attempts to broker peace--all of which deflects and distracts from the heart of the matter. Israel would simply say to the world--punishment for crime will stop when the criminals stop. Using the exact number of retaliatory rockets as launched against it would serve to underscore this fact repeatedly. Constant announcements of sentence and their being carried out would also reinforce the judicial nature of the action--and this is a critical point. It is a matter of justice, not politics, or international relations.

The same action should be taken with respect to suicide bombing. If a suicide bomber is established as having come from Gaza, the formal announcement of sentence should be made, and of the punishment that will fall. Once again, this should be done formally and in open court as it were. If the government of Gaza failed to bring the perpetrators and conspirators to justice by executing them within a given time frame, punishment would fall upon the nation by rocket strike or bombing. Some people will complain that this will result in and endless cycle of violence--but should the fact that crime is committed every day be a reason for the state to stop prosecuting and punishing criminals?

It is a fundamental duty of the government of Israel to punish governments or people responsible for attacking its citizens. To the extent that it has supinely accepted unprovoked rocket attacks for years, it has failed its people and its duty under God. To the extent that Israel has now escalated this into wider political objectives, such as destroying Hamas, it shows it has failed to focus upon its fundamental duties. It has muddied the waters. It has obscured the fundamental legal and ethical issues. It has given ammunition to the islamists and their fellow-travellers in the West. It has allowed politics to occlude the work of justice.

Thus, indeed, we will once again fall back into the endless cycle of violence in the Middle East. This will continue until governments decide that they will obey God, and not men.