Q&A: Collective Pursuer
Collective Pursuer
Question
You wrote in the past that there is a law of a collective pursuer, and therefore the law of a pursuer applies to a people as well, including innocent people among them. According to your view, is this a sweeping rule such that we would say it is preferable to kill thousands of innocent people who are part of the pursuing collective even in order to save one Jewish soldier / civilian so that he will not die (let a thousand Arabs die and not a single hair fall from a soldier’s head)? Does it make a difference whether a large part of that people generally supports and rejoices in the actions of those pursuers who actually carried out the pursuit?
Answer
It seems to me that in the same place where I wrote that, I also wrote that there is room for considerations of proportionality. It is not black and white. And the line certainly depends on the degree of guilt / support of the others for the pursuers.
Discussion on Answer
The question is not well defined. It depends on the importance of the step under discussion for achieving the objective, on the expected severity of the harm, and more. As for the building, that also depends on whether this is the typical case or a one-off case. Whether the residents were forced to be there. And so on and so on.
Which formulation do you think is more correct (or neither)? 1. The goal should stand before our eyes with almost no consideration for innocents except in extreme cases. 2. We need to be careful not to harm innocents; sometimes there is no choice, and when the harm is slight and the gain is great, it is permissible to harm innocents?
Suppose we reached the conclusion that we need to collapse Hamas in order to save ourselves, and we had the option of bombing Gaza with all its inhabitants—would that be the right thing to do? Is it right to bring down a building with dozens of its residents in order to eliminate several terrorists staying inside it?