The Right and the Left on Racism (Column 5)
With God’s help
Yesterday (Holocaust Remembrance Day), remarks by the Deputy Chief of Staff, Major General Yair Golan, were publicized at the Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at Massuah. He said that specifically on Holocaust Remembrance Day he is troubled by phenomena taking place among us that remind him of what happened there. The remarks, of course, elicited the predictable outrage (the Pavlovian reflex that follows every mention of the Holocaust), and of course also political criticism that divided, how could it be otherwise, between Right (which condemns and fumes) and Left (which supports).
On a radio program (Aharon Wizner’s) that I heard this evening, he said that he had looked for interviewees from the Right who would be willing to express agreement with these remarks, or from the Left who would agree to criticize them, but found none. As the saying goes, Each river flows in its own way (‘each river follows its own course’), and, in the words of the Sages, Truth will be absent—it will be made into many separate flocks (‘truth will be absent’—it will split into separate camps). Many wonder why the question of racism in Israeli society is also divided between Right and Left. What is the connection between a political worldview and moral questions such as the attitude toward racism or the attitude toward an enemy or toward minorities? Wizner kept returning to this puzzlement again and again on his program, and therefore I decided to write this column.
Clearly, contrary to what is repeatedly said here, most of these phenomena have nothing whatsoever to do with racism. But clarifying what racism is—a clarification very much needed in our confused society—will be done another time. Below I will touch only on one aspect of this question.
It is also clear that there is dishonesty here, and an unwillingness to adopt a complex view, on both sides (see the first column I wrote here, on the soldier who shot. He too will return to us later in this discussion). People are not prepared to say: I am right-wing, but I oppose racist acts toward Arabs; or: I am left-wing, but I do not see these acts as racist (and perhaps I also do not see them as objectionable).
But here I would like to focus on a third aspect, which in a certain sense is the opposite of these two. My claim is that there is indeed a real connection between the dispute over these acts and political worldview, Right or Left. The ‘complex’ position is specifically not consistent in this case. To understand this, we need to examine a bit more closely the dispute between Right and Left, and what it is connected to. In particular, whether there are unexpected linkages—that is, issues over which Right and Left disagree even though apparently they should not.
The Example of Targeted Killings
Such linkages can be seen in abundance, since in our society everything is disputed between Right and Left. One representative example is the question of targeted killings. This too, as is known, is disputed between Right and Left. Here too one may of course ask why. After all, this is a moral question (is it proper to harm innocent people when trying to kill a terrorist who threatens us?). What does this have to do with political questions such as our right to the land and the like? Even socioeconomic questions, which traditionally are what divide Right and Left, do not seem connected to the political dispute. But perhaps I will deal with that another time.
To understand the question with respect to targeted killing, let us think about a concrete case. A terrorist who is, as it were, a ticking bomb is traveling in a car, and beside him are uninvolved Palestinian civilians (his son, his wife, or simply other people). If there is no other option, may I send a missile at the car and kill them all? The right-winger will of course say yes, whereas the left-winger will usually object (I am not saying that this is always so, but there is a strong correlation between the two domains). Why? What does this moral question have to do with the political dispute between Right and Left?
As I wrote in an article in Tzohar (issue 14, on Operation Defensive Shield), to the best of my understanding, the dispute over targeted killings is not a moral dispute but an ontological one (ontology is the doctrine of being: a field in philosophy, or metaphysics, that deals with the kinds of entities that exist in the world and the nature of being). To explain this briefly, I will preface by noting that in Jewish law (and it seems to me also in accepted moral conceptions) there are two principles that appear, at first glance, to contradict one another:
- It is forbidden to kill another person in order to save myself or someone else. A person does not save himself through another person’s life (One must be killed rather than commit murder).
- The law of the pursuer.
At first glance there is a contradiction between them, for according to principle 2, in a situation of pursuit I kill the pursuer in order to save the life of the pursued, and this seems contrary to principle 1. I will not go into the resolution here, since the intuition about it is very clear. I will only say that under the law of the pursuer I kill the one who threatens—that is, the one who creates the danger to life—and this is permitted. By contrast, in case 1 I kill a third party (uninvolved) in order to save the life of a second party, and this is forbidden.
The question on the table is whether harming innocent people in the course of a targeted killing is the killing of a pursuer, in which case it is permitted, or the killing of a third party in order to save someone else’s life, which is forbidden to do (even if he is a gentile. I will not go into that here).
Seemingly, it is clear that we are dealing here with harm to a third party, since these are uninvolved civilians. The only one who threatens me is the terrorist. So why do right-wingers think otherwise? Those among them who are committed to Jewish law should have been the first to oppose such an act, should they not? Incidentally, the soldier who shot also killed a person who was not threatening him, and in that sense there is a similar dispute here too (and there as well it is being waged, for some reason, between Right and Left).
It seems to me that the foundation of the dispute lies in the question of who stands before me. Is this a war that I am conducting against the Palestinian people as a collective, or am I fighting against several individuals who threaten me, each separately (as we are incessantly told: most Arabs are good and decent, and terrorism is, of course, the action of isolated individuals)? And here lies the dispute between a left-wing and a right-wing perspective.
The Ontological Dispute between Right and Left
My claim (which is of course a somewhat simplistic generalization, but I think there is a great deal of truth in it) is that a right-wing outlook proceeds from a collectivist point of departure. The ontology (the doctrine of being) of the Right is that collectives, such as nations, are entities that exist and act in the world. This is the basis of the right-wing political outlook (which sees the Land of Israel as an asset of our nation). Therefore the Right is also more nationalist. By contrast, the left-wing worldview places the individual at the center. It sees the land, at most, as a resource for the use of its citizens. Therefore it focuses on the rights of the citizen against the collective that seeks to trample him. The right-wing person sees the collective as an entity with significance and rights, and if we are speaking of the extreme Right, then the individual is only a means in the service of the collective (a complete absurdity in the eyes of the left-wing person, since on his view the collective is nothing more than the collection of individuals).
From this we can understand that a right-wing person sees the terrorists who threaten us as acting in the name of their collective. On his view, the war is against the Palestinian people and not against the isolated individuals who hold weapons. Therefore, from the standpoint of the right-wing person, the entire people facing us is a pursuer, since all of it is fighting against us. The one who holds the weapon is merely the practical arm that carries this out. If someone shoots at me, I certainly would not say that only his hand threatens me, but his legs are not guilty and therefore may not be harmed. When a collective object stands before me (like a human organism), all of it falls under the category of a pursuer. So too, in the opinion of people on the Right, harming a Palestinian civilian is harming a pursuer and not a third party. The pursuer is the entire Palestinian people, not only the one holding the weapon. Of course, if it is possible to kill the terrorist without harming others, there is no permission to harm them, but that is not because they are not pursuers; it is because even in the case of an ordinary pursuer, when it is possible to save the pursued without killing the pursuer (He can save him by injuring one of his limbs—that is, by disabling one of his limbs), there is no permission to kill him. Even a pursuer is not liable to death if that is not necessary in order to neutralize the threat.
By contrast, the ontology of the Left is based on an individualist conception, according to which there are in the world only individual persons. They are the ones who act, and it is to them, and only to them, that we must relate. Collectives, such as peoples and states, are at most useful fictions. This is a useful definition of collections of individuals. Therefore, from its standpoint, the enemy is only the one who is actually holding a weapon (‘attacks by isolated individuals,’ as we have already said). The others are uninvolved third parties whom one may not harm.
If so, the dispute that appears to be a moral dispute is actually an ontological one. Right and Left in fact agree on all the moral principles involved in this topic: it is forbidden to kill Reuven in order to save Shimon, unless Reuven is part of the threat to Shimon and killing him is necessary in order to save Shimon. So what, then, is the question in dispute? It is not the question of what is morally permitted and forbidden, but the ontological question: who is the ‘Reuven’ in our case? Are there collective Reuvens, or only individual ones? This is a dispute that deals with a metaphysical question—what entities there are in the world—and not with a moral question. The moral dispute is only a consequence, an implication of the ontological dispute.
Back to Yair Golan’s Remarks
We may now perhaps understand the connection between the dispute over Golan’s remarks and the political Right and Left. Viewing the phenomena that are occurring these days in this country as racism, and comparing them to what happened in Nazi Germany in the middle of the twentieth century, stems from seeing the war as a war between individuals. On a left-wing view, there is no justification whatsoever for harming innocent people, since they are a third party and uninvolved. Not for nothing did Yair Golan refer in his remarks to the soldier who shot (see on this in the first column of mine here). He saw in this a violation of the IDF’s values and an act that has something in common with Nazi racism. The reason is that he sees the Palestinian who is not threatening us as a third party, innocent. In this sense he expressed, even if not consciously, a left-wing position, and therefore it is no wonder that people on the Left support his remarks. By the same token, it is not surprising that people on the Right criticize him.
In sum, there certainly is a connection between these issues. In the right-wing conception, these phenomena do not express racism, but at most excessive harm to a pursuer. I will say more than that: in right-wing eyes, even the ugly murder in the village of Duma (where Jews burned an Arab family’s house and killed a baby) was not a racist act. It was done against the background of a real struggle and a genuine threat, although it was mistaken and unjustified, since it did not help that struggle and was not carried out under authority (see a similar distinction in the column on the soldier who shot). Again, this follows from seeing the war being waged here as a struggle between us and the Palestinian people, and not between us and a few isolated terrorists. The Left, of course, does not accept this.
Conclusion
Some readers may perhaps be able to infer where I stand in this dispute, but my main purpose here was the analysis itself and not the expression of a position about it. The seemingly puzzling connections between the political dispute and the moral disputes indicate that we are dealing with a dispute whose foundation lies in different ontological conceptions. Who is right? I am not dealing with that here. Is there one side here that is more or less moral? In my opinion, no. Both sides express identical moral positions, and the dispute exists only because of a different metaphysical way of seeing.
Discussion
Yisrael:
Precisely the example given—of eliminating a terrorist in a car while his wife and children are sitting beside him—need not include defining the entire Palestinian people as the enemy. I can respect every Palestinian individual and still send the missile at the car. For that matter, if an observant Jew of the highest standard were sitting in the car—I would send the missile as well. The moment I defined that car as a ticking bomb that is “pursuing” several people.
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The rabbi:
I disagree. If you do that, you are committing murder. Even if the person sitting in that car is Swedish (that is, not Palestinian). After all, a person is forbidden to save himself at the cost of another person’s life (that is, to kill a third party in order to neutralize a ticking bomb threatening him or someone else). “Be killed rather than transgress” applies to murder. That itself is what I explained there.
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Yisrael:
I meant a ticking bomb that could kill far more people
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The rabbi:
That is a different question, and the decisors are divided about it: whether it is permitted to kill one person in order to save many. As I recall, Tzitz Eliezer proves from the martyrs of Lod that this is permitted (perhaps only regarding a public collective and not merely many private individuals). There is also discussion of this in the general literature (the trolley dilemma; see my book God Plays Dice). But our discussion deals with a case neutralized from the numerical consideration (either one versus one, or according to the positions of those decisors who refuse to distinguish by numbers).
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Yisrael:
A) That is exactly the point: the rabbi is conducting a discussion about a “case neutralized from the numerical consideration,” but the reader does not notice that.
Anyone who reads the article straightforwardly understands the rabbi to be speaking about the classic case of a targeted killing of a ticking bomb inside a moving vehicle.
After all, in the classic case we do not know how many people the terrorist will kill; in fact, he will try to kill as many as possible if we do not stop him.
In my view—even a leftist should stand with those carrying out the elimination (if he trusts the intelligence assessment that determined there is no other way to stop the moving vehicle).
B) The interpretation of the law of a pursuer is also not necessary. The law of a pursuer need not be grounded in the “Arab nation” as a collective; by the same token, you can treat the vehicle itself as an indivisible object—the vehicle is the “pursuer.”
Quote:
The question on the table is whether harming innocent people during a targeted killing is killing a pursuer, and therefore permitted, or killing a third party in order to save someone else’s life, which is forbidden (even if he is a gentile; I will not enter into that here).
Apparently it is clear that we are dealing here with harming a third party, since these are uninvolved civilians. The only one threatening me is the terrorist. So why do right-wingers think otherwise? Those among them who are committed to halakhah should have been the first to oppose such an act, no?
Is it really true that only the terrorist is threatening me?
After all, on the assumption that the car cannot be stopped in any other way—the car itself is the threat.
Have a good week.
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The rabbi:
A. If so, then that has now been clarified.
B. It seems to me that you do not correctly understand the term “ticking bomb” in this context. We are not talking about a car bomb, but about a terrorist traveling in a car in Gaza who constitutes a real and concrete threat to Israelis in the future. Of course, a car bomb is a ticking bomb, but in the context of eliminations we are not talking about bombing a car bomb. As far as I know, innocent people do not usually ride in such a car.
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Yisrael:
We are not talking about a car bomb. “Ticking bomb” is a general label for a threat that has already begun moving. A terrorist with a Kalashnikov, for example, if he is traveling toward Israel in order to carry out a shooting attack, and I have no way of stopping him unless I neutralize the car—that is what I meant.
“A threat that has begun moving,” “an arrow leaving the bow,” “a ticking bomb,” “a pursuer”—all these, for purposes of the discussion, if I do not stop them, will almost certainly harm human beings.
By contrast, what the rabbi wrote about a terrorist driving around in Gaza—if he only “constitutes a real and concrete threat to Israelis in the future”—that has to be discussed case by case. And again, the criterion will be whether it is possible to stop the threat in another way.
My question is whether we have reached agreement that in a case where the threat is moving toward the target—the entire object becomes a “pursuer”?
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The rabbi:
If we are dealing with a car bomb, there is room for the reasoning that all of them have the status of pursuers (he is coercing them into pursuing), but I am really not sure of this. There is also room for another reasoning, namely that I am shooting at the terrorist, and if the others prevent me from realizing my right to defend myself, then I am not obligated to take them into account even if they do not have the status of pursuers. Therefore perhaps it is permitted to fire the missile at the car in such a situation.
In addition, even if they do not have the status of pursuers, there may perhaps be room for numerical considerations (if there are many saved and few harmed) according to some decisors, though most do not distinguish.
But all this is about a car bomb. When people speak about a targeted killing, this is not the case. They mean a terrorist who poses a concrete threat, and there is no other way to eliminate him except by striking the car in which he is now traveling in Gaza (not toward the target). That is the case of a targeted killing, and that is what I was talking about. And here it is not a matter of each case on its own; rather, I said something general.
Yosef Shalom Rabin:
As is well known, we always always want the right balance…
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The rabbi:
???
Yosef L.
I liked the analysis, but it seems there is still a connection to the moral question, or at least to the evaluative one. In a postmodern world that has despaired of truth, there is no trust in any value; everything is merely mental-cultural constructions, etc. Therefore the collective too is nothing but an illusion, and there is no illusion that justifies killing a third party.
What do you think about that?
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The rabbi:
I did not understand. When you say that postmodernism does not see the collective as an existing entity but as an illusion, you are describing an ontic-metaphysical view and not a moral view. When you speak about the attitude toward values, that is another claim. This is exactly the distinction I made in the article.
You are right that postmodernity raises both types of arguments (the ontic and the ethical), but not every leftist is postmodern.
Shmuel:
Worth reading even if one disagrees (personally I disagree with some of it, but agree with a large part of it)
http://www.maariv.co.il/journalists/journalists/Article-540791
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The rabbi:
Well, this is an unfortunate comparison (not really a comparison—a hint). Golan is apparently not a very intelligent person if he sees lines of similarity between what is happening here and what happened there. Contrary to the baseless claims of leftist propagandists—which captivate quite a few people—there is almost no racism in the State of Israel and in Israeli society, and even where it exists it is very minor, far more marginal than in any other place in the West. And that is despite the fact that here there are excellent reasons for it (a hundred years of Arab terror and violence), whereas in the world at large usually not really. Against the background of Arab terror and murderousness and the unceasing whining of the robbed Cossacks, supported by various elites (judicial, journalistic, academic, and others), and the helplessness and impotence of the authorities in the face of these phenomena, I am amazed that much broader racism and violence do not develop here.
But still, the uproar being made over his remarks is completely exaggerated. It is a shame that there are IDF senior officers who apparently are not especially intelligent people, but that is who we are. It is better to confront leftist propaganda substantively (and that can easily be done), and not to leap like snakebite victims in Pavlovian protest over Holocaust comparisons. It is time to explain to this collection of fools what racism is, and why it is almost impossible to find that commodity in our parts.
As for criticism of his words themselves and his comparisons, it seems to me that he did not speak about the arson in Duma, nor about the shooting soldier. They (at least the soldier) were mentioned in his remarks as examples brought to illustrate various flaws in society. The comparison he made, from what I heard, was to general processes in society (views expressed here, Beitar Jerusalem and La Familia and the like), and not to specific events of this kind or another. As stated, his comparison is demagoguery of the highest order and ludicrous on the intellectual level, as any child understands, and still I do not understand the hysteria around it. The Pavlovian instinct, once the Holocaust is mentioned, celebrates and clouds the ability to think and respond substantively.
As a side note, I would add that I assume the use BDS makes of Golan’s words is caused mainly by the hysterical reactions that arose in Israel. Without that, nobody would have noticed such a stupid comparison, made in passing and in such a minor way. This is Marketing 101. They should have let the remarks pass and be forgotten, and that would have been that.
David:
In my humble opinion, and with all due respect, the remarks are mistaken:
Individualism and collectivism are one axis of division between political camps—and on this axis the USSR and the Third Reich are close—whereas right/left is another axis—on which the Third Reich and the USSR are far apart.
Leftists of the socialist variety [and nowadays (unlike in the 19th century) a liberal anti-socialist is considered right-wing, not left-wing] are certainly collectivists—
except that the collectives that interest them are classes, minorities [ethnic, sexual, religious, and others], “weakened” populations, and the like—
they [following Marx and his ilk] do not support the national struggles of the various white/Western peoples—because the national identity of white/Western peoples is oppressive—either toward other peoples, who are not white, or even toward those belonging to the white peoples themselves [Marxists tend to see international struggles as a conspiracy of the “military-industrial complex,” intended to enrich the rich among the peoples in conflict, and to divert the masses’ attention from the revolution, and so on]—
on the other hand, they also oppose individualism, and see it as a “bourgeois” conception of man—meant to prevent class identity and thus class struggle and thus the loss of power by the elites—an instance of “divide and rule.”
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The rabbi:
Thank you for the comments. I did not have room to elaborate further. In my opinion, communism was not collectivist. There is a difference between the collective as a means for the welfare of the individual and seeing the collective itself as an entity and as the goal of the individual’s actions. The goal of communism was welfare and equality for individuals, except that they thought that uniting individuals and collective action would yield better results (“Workers of the world, unite”).
In any case, it is clear that this is a schematic and general (sweeping) description, and it requires more detail. In several lessons I recently gave in Petah Tikva within the discussion of individual and collective, and afterward a series on definitions (I believe the recordings appear on the site), I clarified more fully my method in these and similar distinctions.
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David:
Marx writes that “personal interest” is “alienation” and a product of capitalist ideology, and generally that the idea of the individual as ontologically prior to society is a capitalist myth. In his view, the individual’s self-realization exists only in being a partner in society.
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The rabbi:
Go and see how it actually worked, not what is written in the “holy writings.” It is the same with us. Studying the holy writings would suggest that one should literally put out an eye for an eye. Their conduct constantly aspired to improve the status of the individual, and the collective was the means. Once the collective idea is developed, it often acquires a higher status than intended.
For any such generalization you can find exceptional quotations (that too is like with us).
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David:
From the practical standpoint, the Third Reich took much greater care of the ordinary German citizen than Stalin took even of senior party members…
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The rabbi:
I am not speaking about Stalin but about communist discourse in general. Stalin also murdered masses out of paranoia, and that too is not an essential part of the communist conception. When people came and preached communism to others, the basic motivation was to liberate the workers and improve their status. This is not about “the worker people” as a collective, but about each and every worker. Collectivism was the mode of action in order to bring about the desired result. With Hitler, the discourse was that the individual is subordinated to achieving the goals of the collective. That is the essence of fascism.
Noam:
I just saw this, and the points are very interesting. I wanted to return to the point you started from—with a pursuer there is the discussion of what is called the “duty to retreat,” that is, whether the pursued person has some obligation to withdraw from the scene or yield to the pursuer’s dictate in order to save himself. In the law of nations it is commonly said that such a duty exists to one degree or another. However, in halakhah we do not find such a thing, and some have even wanted to derive from the law of a burglar tunneling in (who admittedly is not a classic pursuer) that explicitly there is no duty on the pursued person to retreat. For the burglar tunneling in comes over monetary matters, and ostensibly the homeowner could forgo his property and save himself, and nevertheless he is permitted to kill the intruder. And if I remember correctly, there is extended discussion of this in Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and Rabbi Shmuel Rozovsky.
And apparently this is puzzling—can it be that the blood of a person who threatens his fellow that he will kill him unless he gives him a mere coin, or simply does some trivial thing for him, is forfeit?!
And perhaps according to your words here too one must resort to the distinction between the individual and the collective aspect. Indeed, if we look at a private person pursuing someone over trivial matters, it would be difficult to permit shedding his blood and killing him as a pursuer, and apparently there would be room to require the pursued person to “retreat” and yield to the dictate.
However, if we view this pursuer as part of some collective of violent people, trying by force to impose terror on society—then, in order to defend against their aggression and within the framework of the struggle between the collective of the good and the collective of the bad, the blood of anyone who threatens murder is forfeit, even if he is in a sense “innocent,” considering the circumstances and the objective gravity of his actions.
What do you think?
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The rabbi:
Hello Noam.
In my article in Tehumin on killing a thief, I dealt at length with the duty to retreat in halakhah. In general, in my opinion there is no such duty whatsoever, even when the pursuer is a private individual. If a person threatens me with a gun that I give him one shekel or he will kill me, and I have a shekel in my pocket, I have absolutely no duty to give him the shekel, and it is entirely permitted for me to kill him (and in my opinion, one who actually does this is even doing the right thing. There is no virtue in refraining from it).
This is entirely obvious to me as a matter of reasoning, and I would say it even without any proof. I showed it there from the laws of the burglar tunneling in. One interesting proof of the matter is from Zimri, where the Gemara in Sanhedrin says that if he had turned around and killed Pinchas, he would not have been executed for it. And the Klei Chemdah (end of Parashat Balak), in the name of the Rebbe of Gur, asks why we do not obligate Zimri to stop sinning and thereby remove the threat from himself. Since he has a way to save himself like that, then killing Pinchas should be murder, because he could have saved himself by merely injuring one of his limbs. He answers there that Zimri has no duty at all to stop sinning (there is a duty toward Heaven, but not toward Pinchas). Therefore, if Pinchas threatens him, he has the right to kill him. Although there too one can answer differently (for example, according to the Rivash, the pursued person himself has no duty to save by injuring one limb), but as stated, in itself this seems entirely obvious to me.
As far as I am concerned, someone who comes into my house to steal—his blood is entirely forfeit, and there is no problem killing him. Of course, if I can save my property without killing him then it is forbidden to kill him, but certainly I am not obligated to forgo my property for that purpose (there is no duty to retreat).
Yariv:
I read the remarks very carefully, and the perspective proposed in them is certainly very interesting and, at least for me, innovative.
True, defining the essence of the left as individualism is simplistic, but it definitely serves the context of the discussion, and therefore in my opinion constitutes a good model for the conception.
By contrast, collectivism as a model for the right-wing approach is not a sufficiently sharp model. After all, everyone agrees that there is an essential difference between a beehive or an anthill, which constitutes a collective, and a herd of animals, or a tribe and a human community. There are different levels and shades to the depth of the individual’s right to exist within the collective, and one cannot necessarily negate the individual as an entity with value and self-standing existence even within a collective outlook, unless one negates the existence of the individual absolutely—a fascist model, which I do not think is what is intended.
As a consequence, collectivism does not require the laconic occurrence presented here, but only in its especially extreme models.
I would be glad to hear your response.
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The rabbi:
Hello.
You are absolutely right. In this article I did not enter into that level of resolution, because my purpose was only to show the basic dichotomous distinction. A fuller theory can be found in an article I published in Tzohar 14, where I discussed the complex conception in halakhah, according to which a person has two hats: the hat of an organ in a collective and the hat of a private individual. A fascist conception is extreme right because it erases the individual and leaves only the collective dimension, whereas extreme left erases the collective hat and leaves only the individual hat. The halakhic conception (which I too humbly agree with) is that both hats exist and both must be taken into account. I even propose there a model for how to take both into account without subordinating one to the other.
Later today another column will go up on the site that will also touch on this point from a different angle.
Shabbat shalom
I would not use the law of a pursuer, because then a situation arises in which, according to the right, there is justification ab initio for killing any civilian, and there is no need for him to be threatening you.
I do not have a better proposal for a definition.
A big mistake. See my article in Tzohar 14 mentioned above on Operation Defensive Shield, and also the column on the proper attitude toward the residents of Gaza.
Oren:
See the third video lesson from the top on the lessons page regarding Rabbi Michael’s collectivist conception. To the best of my understanding, the rabbi is a collectivist, and therefore in the dispute here he is on the “right-wing” side. In addition, a comment/question for the rabbi:
You referred to the killing of innocent Palestinians as objectionable from an individualist perspective. But even from that perspective, killing innocent Palestinians in the example you gave above (a family in a car) is a kind of psik reisha—killing without malicious intent, but only incidentally to killing the pursuer. And in such a case, to the best of my understanding, the rule of “be killed rather than transgress” does not apply. Indeed, even in the individualistic and enlightened Western world, the term “civilian casualties” is considered an unavoidable necessity of reality, not an illegitimate phenomenon (so long as it is not excessive). In addition, regarding the soldier who shot, even from an individualist perspective one can support the shooting soldier, since even an individualist would admit that the individual terrorist deserves a death sentence, and therefore killing him, even if done without trial, is not morally wrongful.
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The rabbi:
I agree in principle that such positions are possible (that is, they are not self-contradictory). In halakhah too there is room to distinguish between shooting at someone who threatens me, where innocents are also harmed, and shooting directly at the innocents themselves. But even within that framework, there is a difference between firing bullets whose purpose is to kill the threat and the bullet mistakenly hits innocents, and firing a missile where it is clear from the outset that it will kill them all.
But all this is not relevant to my discussion, because my subject was general ideological correlations. I tried to explain why there is a correlation between right and left and the dispute over targeted killings, or the shooting soldier, or Yair Golan’s remarks. You are right that there can be non-diagonal positions (in the matrix of possibilities), that is, positions that are individualist yet supportive, or collectivist yet opposed. Still, the fact that such positions are relatively rare means that there is a correlation here. The question is whether it is genuine or illusory (=dishonesty). What I argued is that it can also be a genuine correlation.
It is true that the non-diagonal positions are possible, and the minority who hold them are not incoherent. But the correlation still stands, and it seems to me that my proposal explains it well.
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Oren:
As for what you said about the missile where it is clear from the outset, etc.—why shouldn’t we say that this case too has the status of psik reisha, like a chicken that will clearly die if we cut off its head on Shabbat, and yet its status is still not the same as slaughtering a chicken on Shabbat. So too here: I am not interested in killing the family and I am not aiming at that (d’lo nicha lei), and although it is clear that they will die, one should not equate an intentional murderer with someone who kills in such a kind of psik reisha d’lo nicha lei; therefore “be killed rather than transgress” does not apply here.
This reminds me of the case of the Twin Towers attack (9/11), where the Americans fired a missile at one of the hijacked planes that had American hostages on board! Did anyone even imagine saying that this act amounted to murder, and therefore one must be killed rather than transgress? So too in our case.
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The rabbi:
As a matter of halakhah, psik reisha is like an intentional act even in the laws of Shabbat (even Rabbi Shimon, who exempts in a case of an unintended act, agrees in a case of psik reisha).
But it was clear to me that you mentioned psik reisha only metaphorically, since this principle is not relevant to murder. With regard to murder in general, there is no exemption for an unintended act (plainly because it is a result-based prohibition). If I take a bench and drag it over a person in order to move it, and in the process I murder him with that bench, would I be exempt? One must remember that an unintended act is an act done with full intention, except that it is done for a different purpose. It is neither inadvertent wrongdoing nor mere preoccupation.
Obviously one cannot say that “be killed rather than transgress” does not apply to murder by way of psik reisha, for if that were so then there would be a way out in every case where I am threatened to kill my fellow. I would kill him by way of an unintended act (or with an unusual manner, with the left hand). So why do we say that I must die?
As for the missile in the case of the Twin Towers in the U.S., that is not relevant here at all, because there the people were going to die anyway (even without firing a missile) when the plane crashed. In such a case it is certainly permitted to fire a missile in order to save those on the ground. Here there is no dilemma at all, since one is killing people who would in any case be killed, and then this is pure rescue.
This case is somewhat similar to what we find in the Jerusalem Talmud, Terumot (which is ruled in Rambam, Hilkhot Yesodei HaTorah 5:5) regarding “Give us one of you.” Handing over a person who will in any case die is permitted in order to save the others, were it not for considerations of sanctifying and desecrating God’s name (see my article in Tehumin 27 on organ donation, where I prove this).
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Oren:
A correction regarding the plane: I just read on Wikipedia that it was not bombed, but crashed because of an internal struggle between the passengers and the hijackers.
As for what you said about psik reisha: if someone kills his fellow in a way that appears to be psik reisha (dragging a bench over him), if he intended it, then it does not have the status of psik reisha, because what determines whether this is psik reisha is the intention (and not the technique of the act). That is, one cannot treat some action as an “unintended act” unless there truly was no intention to do it. But if he really intended only to move the bench, although he knew that his fellow would die as a result, and he had no intention at all to kill his fellow, then apparently there is something essentially different here from premeditated murder. Likewise, in the case where I threaten Ploni with death unless he kills his fellow, if Ploni kills his fellow by dragging a bench, it is clear that he intended to kill his fellow (and not to drag a bench), so he does not have the status of one performing an “unintended act.”
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The rabbi:
In any case, it seems obvious to me that in murder there is no exemption for an unintended act (in a case where he dragged a bench and killed a person). See Middot Le-Cheker HaHalakhah, vol. 3, 23–71, and Kovetz Shiurim, vol. 2, 23:7 (who connect this to the fact that murder is a result-based prohibition, though that itself can be debated; see for example Mefa’ane’ach Tzefunot 12:5). It seems to me there is proof for this from the sugya of one who throws a stone into a group, at the end of the first chapter of Ketubot (the sugya of fixed status).
And also regarding your comment about the case of coercion: I can drag the bench anyway to the place where I really wanted to pull it even without the threat, hoping that the victim will die. There is definitely reason to think that this is still a case of an unintended act (perhaps by subterfuge), but this depends on several issues, and this is not the place to clarify them.
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Oren:
If murder is a result-based prohibition, then apparently an inadvertent murderer should have the same law as an intentional murderer (because the result is the same). I found support for my position in compensation for humiliation damages (in the case of one who injures his fellow), where one is liable to pay only if he intended it (Bava Kamma 86b, in the Mishnah). And the Meiri’s view is that even there the law of psik reisha applies, so that if it is psik reisha he is liable even if he did not intend it (Kuntresei Shiurim, Bava Kamma 14:3, discusses this in the Meiri’s words).
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The rabbi:
Even if murder is a result-based prohibition, an inadvertent murderer does not have the same law as an intentional murderer. The result was indeed produced, but the culpability is not similar. Punishment depends on culpability (as a condition for punishment: if the result occurred, there is grounds to punish; and if there is culpability, then one punishes for that). But in murder, when it is an unintended act, the culpability is complete (because an unintended act is an action done intentionally and deliberately, as I wrote).
The requirement of intention in compensation for humiliation is precisely because there is an element here of punishment for wrongdoing and not only compensation for the result. But humiliation is an exceptional law (for one who causes damage while asleep is liable for the other four payments, since a person is always forewarned). Incidentally, according to Rambam it appears that all payments by a person who causes damage are of this nature, but this is not the place. And when intention is required, then perhaps the law of psik reisha is also relevant. (Incidentally, one must check whether this is intention in the sense of an unintended act. The sugya there discusses one who, while asleep, caused humiliation, and that is a different case. The discussion there is about intention as opposed to inadvertence, not a case like dragging a bench or sprinkling wine on burning coals, where the intention is the purpose for which the act is done; but this is not the place.)