I deplore aggression and violence as a way of solving problems. They can only lead to worse grievances and problems in the long run. But being prepared to defend yourself if you have to is not the same thing. This monstrosity consuming Europe is a cancer of the tissues of civilization. When the body is infected, it mobilizes its antibodies and destroys that which is alien to it. So, too, must the planetary organism. In other words, I accept, regretfully, that there are some evils that can only be stopped by force. Appealing to their better nature is as futile as attempting to reason with a virus.—”Albert Einstein,” in The Proteus Operation, James P. HoganI don’t offer this quote as an appeal to Einstein’s authority; the book is of course a novel (science-fiction alternate-history, for those not familiar with it), and Hogan put those words in Einstein’s mouth. He evidently considered them representative of the historical Einstein’s beliefs, but I don’t know enough to judge. I simply offer it because I think it states the position well, by way of a vivid image. I would certainly call Hamas, and jihadism more generally, “a cancer of the tissues of civilization” which “can only be stopped by force,” and I think their leaders have quite conclusively proven themselves as remorseless and free of conscience as even the worst virus.
I recommend Faces of the Enemy for your reading, because I’m afraid you would see this position reflected in it very accurately…that is, the radical dehumanization of “the enemy” required in order for us to perpetrate the monstrous evils we are capable of perpetrating – mass war, genocide, etc.
I see two ways of being able to consider mass violence justifiable:
1. be a sociopath who does not connect emotionally to other human beings
2. dehumanize “the enemy” until you can pretend they are not human beings and thereby blow them up, or burn them, or cut them up, or whatever it is you need to justify to yourself.
I think referring to people as a virus is pretty deep in position 2. I udnerstand why it is necessary – I just very strongly refuse to participate in dehumanization for any end, including ones others see as noble and justified, like killing people.
If there will ever be an option besides racing to see who can murder more and faster, then we’ll have to move beyond that kind of thinking. Otherwise, Gaza is exactly what we get, repeated ad infinitum all over the place forever.
Not individuals, no. As a categorization of how a movement functions within the geopolitical body politic, though, it’s another matter. Individual people are always individual people and to be treated as such, including those who belong to movements like Hamas; but Hamas as a movement has no humanity to be dehumanized.