Another way to look at it is that harming innocent people is done for the sake of some goal; the whole question is whether the goal justifies the harm. To declare that it’s forbidden to harm civilians is like a violent mugger coming to me at night and starting to beat me up, but announcing that I’m not allowed to kick him in the balls and am only allowed to use throws like in judo (in judo my dear mugger is much more skilled than I am). Of course I’d be happy not to kick, if you’d just get lost on your own.

The underground fighters were freedom and justice fighters. They carried out attacks against the British, who on the one hand did not come to the aid of the Jewish community in the various riots and massacres (all of which took place during the British Mandate), and on the other hand did not allow Jews to defend themselves (they confiscated weapons that Jews had stockpiled to defend themselves against the Arabs). Sound familiar? They were almost as bad as the Arabs. Every dead Brit had earned his death quite justly.

In addition, they prevented the immigration of Jews from Europe before the Holocaust, and by doing so prevented them from saving themselves from the Nazis. In that way they took a passive part in the destruction of the Jewish people. I don’t understand this infantile pity for them.

Emmanuel, do you think this moral claim has significant practical implications? Meaning, if let’s say you became convinced there is no difference between the underground fighters and Palestinian terrorists, would that affect your actual behavior—for example which party you vote for, which country you live in, whom you donate money to, and so on?

I have no problem with the Palestinian terrorists because they are terrorists, but because they are unjust enemies (in the war between us, we are the ones in the right). I have no problem with terror. It is only a form of warfare. The problem is the unjustified war itself, and that’s all. I don’t understand why “terror” is such a horrible word. Killing is allowed (in war), but frightening people isn’t? Killing me is fine. But scaring me? That’s too far. Now they’ve really crossed the line. Corrupt people that they are. How dare they. They violated the rules of war. Let’s call the referee so he can pull out a red card and they won’t play the next two games. I don’t understand how people don’t get this on their own. The public’s infantilism always amazes me anew every single time.

Where’s the answer to the question? I asked whether, if you became convinced that in the war between us and the Palestinians they are more in the right, would that affect your behavior?

Obviously. I just don’t see how that happens.

How would it affect you, for example?

I don’t know. I’d probably leave the country (once I had the financial means to do so). If they are right, then the land is not mine and I am an invader and occupier. There would be no point talking about voting for the Knesset. In that case I wouldn’t vote at all. But why discuss such a bizarre hypothetical.

Nice. Not that I believe it, God forbid, but I appreciate the courage to say it.

[But in my opinion that’s not what would happen to you. There are religious people who say, ‘Yes, if I were secular then I’d murder and steal—what’s the problem?’ In practice, when one curtain comes down, other reasons are discovered that until now there was no need to reach for (that is, moral commitment does not depend on Torah from heaven. And in my personal opinion, not on God either). Likewise the statement that ‘without believing in God and in the Tanakh we have no deed to the land and I would leave,’ and that’s how I see your bold statement too.]

Why not believe it, and what courage does it take to say that anyway? I’m not bold at all. I already said that this is a simple truth. If they are right, then we are wicked, and it isn’t good for me to live in a society of wicked people lest I be punished among them. What I would actually do—only God knows (it’s easy to talk; but even to be righteous you need heavenly assistance). But at least that is what I would want myself to do in such a case.

Wanting to do it—that’s the psychological courage. And I said that I believe you would indeed come to do it in practice. Very similar to what you yourself wrote.

On the other hand, it follows that you come to the discussion about “justice” with a very high level of bias. It’s not my place to present a Palestinian case here. But in my humble opinion, it is very possible that this level of bias affects judgment and the willingness to acknowledge.

Where I wrote “I believe,” it should say “I don’t believe.” Typo.

Like Rabbi Michi said, there is no case. There was a partition proposal and they refused and wanted to throw us into the sea, and at that very moment they also lost what they would have deserved under the partition. In the Six-Day War too, same story, and afterward in the Oslo Accords as well. In general, my impression is that they are not exactly human beings like us. They are more wild men than human beings. That is, closer to animals than to humans. It’s not just that they are less developed (primitive). I don’t know whether they have free choice at all, at least in everything connected to relations with the Jewish people living here. Even those who seem nice and well-intentioned (at least twice in my life Arabs did me favors, but I see and remember the general picture). Their attitude toward us in an emergency, in the best case, would be indifference. The society they live in would determine their behavior.

Why did they have to accept the partition proposal? And even if they sinned and didn’t accept it, how is that historical matter relevant to today’s reality, in which millions are groaning? In my view, digging into the past is categorically irrelevant morally, except insofar as it improves one’s assessment of future reality, both regarding individuals and all the more so regarding collectives.
The (partial) failure of Oslo and the disengagement does not undermine the Palestinian case (which, by the way, demands much more); it only says that although it may be just to give them such-and-such, it is too dangerous for us—just as you would confiscate a gun that belongs to a mugger because you know that if you return what is his, he will use it against you.
It is worth remembering that most of the world and its leaders think Israel is not behaving properly toward the Palestinians. In my opinion this stems from clinging to principles while showing great indifference to our Israeli interest (it is easy to uphold cosmic justice at other people’s expense), and in your opinion the people of the world are mistaken even about the principles themselves.

The fact is that the Jews also exist, and there was a Jewish community here (which settled rightfully, and every piece of land it settled on it bought with money, according to religion and law, from its legal owners), and it too deserves independent existence of its own. And they did not object only to that specific proposal, but to any proposal whatsoever. They simply wanted to rule over us or throw us into the sea. And it is relevant to today because it is the same group of people. The collective is the same collective even if its individual members are replaced (just as a person after 20 years is the same person even if all the cells in his body have been replaced). That is a true fact in itself, but in addition they themselves believe in it—that is, in the existence of this collective and the continuity of its existence since then—even more than we do. The Palestinian people, remember? And the view of the groaning individuals (as part of the view of the collective) has also not changed, and they still do not agree to the right of the Jews to independent existence of their own. With God’s help, they will go on groaning (maybe they’ll be silenced better) until the coming of the Messiah, speedily in our days.

I argued that on the level of justice, the moment they wanted to kill us, they themselves became liable to death. On the practical level, I do not oppose a Palestinian state on condition that they take collective responsibility for their actions, and every rocket from there would be answered with 1,000 of ours directed at population centers, old people, women, and children who would die by the tens of thousands until their cry rose to heaven (and God would rightly not heed it), and every terrorist attack would be answered by 1,000 attacks of ours in the same way, if that is what is needed. Except that again this is irrelevant, because they themselves oppose a Jewish state, thank God, and so this too is irrelevant on the practical level. The security reason you mentioned follows from all of the above.

Most of the world is stupid and wicked (really—lacking a natural sense of justice; see the Holocaust and all of history), and that proves nothing. There is no point talking about what they think, because they have no understanding with which to think anything at all. And we are not dealing with the wise. Their principles serve their ego and compete in the Jew-hatred ingrained in them from birth. I cannot rely on their lack of judgment.

There’s a lot to discuss, but I’ll address only one point: in my opinion, “the world,” given a precise description of reality, generally produces a correct moral judgment. Tell me of another global conflict in which you think most of the developed world takes a position that lacks a basic sense of justice.
What do we see in the Holocaust? On the side of the perpetrators themselves, they were not most of the world but a population within which Jews were a minority different in race, culture, and religion, and that population developed insane hatred toward them. As for most of the world, it obviously knew natural justice perfectly well, but that still did not cause it to roll up its sleeves on behalf of natural justice when that did not overlap with its own interest.

When it comes to the Jewish people, the world loses its basic sense of justice and also its common sense. The fact that we do not fire rockets back at Gaza is incomprehensible. And the world even opposes a war directed only at their army because of harm to “innocent people.” And it seems they really believe this nonsense. How is Gaza different from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq? Is the fact that Hamas, which rules them, is a “terror organization” fundamentally different from Saddam Hussein’s regime, which was a “terror regime”? Back then too, would it have been forbidden for us to fire Jericho missiles back at Iraq so as not to harm the poor civilian population?

Would the Americans not have fired nuclear missiles at Soviet cities in response to nuclear missiles launched from the USSR because Soviet rule—the Communist Party—was a “terror” government? It was the father of all terror regimes throughout the generations.

If this is not wickedness and stupidity, I do not know what is.

So most of the world definitely has a basic sense of justice except in the special case that aligns with your interest, and there suddenly most of the world lacks a basic sense of justice. That somewhat qualifies the sweeping statement above.

Their sense of justice says that the Palestinian terror organizations are trying by force to obtain what justice entitles them to, and so they treat with some forbearance the fact that they lose their temper and blow things up in the streets. And that same sense of justice says that the Israelis are trying by force to digest and appropriate what justice does not entitle them to, and so they react with outrage to the fact that the Israelis hit hard too.

With my interest in existing with dignity. Corrupt me—how dare I. Yes. What’s unclear? The world’s hatred of Jews blinds their eyes, with a pretty striking lack of self-awareness on their part. A person who lacks self-awareness to that extent—who is unable to say to himself, “I hate him and therefore I cannot judge him”—has no judgment in general. What’s unclear????????? It may be one case, but it is enough to tip the entire scale when it has gone on for thousands of years, and the truth is that when it comes packaged with built-in progressivism then it really is general wickedness and stupidity. By the way, the American story with Afghanistan is also a story of stupidity. Instead of going and bombing all the villages of al-Qaeda families, together with their family members, and then going home and smoking a cigarette, they tried to teach them the religion of democracy without understanding a basic truth—that you cannot replace essence with form. A system of government does not replace the fact that the Afghans are not even an ethnic nation, and even if they were a nation, they have not reached the level of development that would allow them to live under a democratic regime. They were like every Arab (or Eastern) nation that needs a strong dictator so that they do not swallow one another alive. That cost the Americans a trillion dollars and another 1,000 dead soldiers. There you have stupidity of the first order.

And the world is allowed to learn a bit of the history of the conflict. Whoever pronounces judgment without studying the subject he is judging has no judgment.

Correction: “A person who lacks self-awareness to that extent—who is unable to say to himself, ‘I hate him and therefore I cannot judge him’—has no judgment in general.”

It should be “who is unable to say” instead of “who is able to say.”