Violence Never Settles Anything
Or does it?
The ongoing Israeli attacks against Gaza put me to mind of one of my favorite science fiction books as a teenager, Robert Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers.” In that book, a military veteran and teacher of “history and moral philosophy” is discussing violence with high school students. One of them blithely says violence never solves anything, which draws this memorable response from her hard-nosed instructor:
Anyone who clings to the historically untrue—and thoroughly immoral—doctrine that 'violence never settles anything,' I would advise to conjure the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms.
In Heinlein’s book, humans were at war with an alien species and those who chose military service to fight against “the bugs” got the right to vote and participate as citizens in government.
In a fight to the death, Heinlein suggested, the only choice right-thinking humans had was violence and a commitment to the total destruction of the enemy. There was no other solution.
How might this apply to Gaza? Members of Hamas are Heinlein’s enemy bugs; in fact, all of Gaza is apparently an alien land that must be ravaged as the bugs are either killed or driven off the land. Violence will settle the issue of who controls Gaza, and by extension the West Bank, once and for all, with the IDF serving as Israel’s “Starship Troopers.”
Don’t get me wrong. My memory flashback to Heinlein was painful. It was not in any way a vote in favor of massive violence by Israel to solve the Gaza “problem.” Rather, I think Heinlein’s insight captures the mindset of those in authority in Israel at this moment. Kill or drive off the “bugs.” Settle this. No ceasefires, no pauses, no compromises. Total victory through massive violence is the decisive option.
In this mindset they are enabled by the U.S. president and Congress, who boast loudly of having Israel’s back, come what may. Indeed, the president and Congress eagerly wish to provide Israel all the weapons it needs to kill or drive off the “bugs.”
Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers” remains a controversial book for its depiction of a thoroughly militarized neo-fascist society, a vision captured in Paul Verhoeven’s movie version of the same name, a biting satire of militarism run amuck, though the satire is apparently lost on more than a few viewers.
To echo Heinlein, violence certainly did settle things for the dodo and for the passenger pigeon. They are no more. Yet it’s also true that those who live by the sword will often die by it. And if that sword proves to be a nuclear one, we as humans may yet be joining the dodo in extinction.
You are right to a degree. History shows peoples little short of joyous at the prospect of war because "now we will solve the problem once and for all" and in the short term it can appear that for one side the statement is true.
Certainly Israel is a good example of might making right. It happened first back in 1948 when the Arabs were hardly worth considering as the plucky Zionists showed that Jews could really fight! The Western world was supportive, though Britain had, just before it bowed out of the region, issued the famous 1939 White Paper that proposed a division into two states and a stop to further Jewish immigration. The proposal was still favorable to the Zionists, but it at least acknowledged the plight and rights of the Palestinian Arabs.
Ben Gurion vowed to fight the White Paper once WW2 was over and he did so. The movie "Exodus", propaganda for Israel that it is, showed the emotional bias created when Britain attempted to prevent a shipload of holocaust survivors from landing in Palestine. The movie was a blockbuster and definitely made emotional hostages in America for Israel.
Right up to now, might has made right in what was Palestine. Though the US State Department under George Marshall was opposed to recognition of Israel to the point of telling Truman that he (Marshall) would not vote for Truman if Truman bowed to political pressure to recognize the Jewish State, setting the stage for the endless strife that has followed as Marshall predicted it would. For the details, see the book "Against Our Better Judgement"
Though might makes right on the micro scale of history, there is no example of an empire surviving, all have collapsed and America's will be no exception, though we don't know how it will happen or when. All I can say is that our mighty nation in the last century adamantly opposed colonialism, expressed the desire for the freedom of all people around the world and worked diplomatically within the UN to make that happen.
Now, we don't even consider the UN or international law, siding with the colonizer that we have shielded from international law for decades and committing our nation to defend it against all comers. We will be the sword by which Netanyahu says Israel must live holding the fort against almost the entire world. We do nothing to intervene as the natives are slaughtered, nothing new in that as we stood by in previous Israeli slaughters of Gazans by air attacks on a regular basis starting in 2009.
History remembers. What is happening now will proclaim to all in the future how America turned about in what it stood for, repudiating in action the principles that made it so impressive to all the world, acting without hesitation to destroy its reputation for a colony even as the Speaker of the House aped the words of Israeli PM Netanyahu that Israel (and the US) are on the side of light against darkness.
I ask readers to recall the movie "Spartacus". Toward the end of the show, Rome has crushed the rebels and is demanding Spartacus be turned over to them. As Kirk Douglas is about to rise and identify himself, others around him jump up and say "I am Spartacus!"
Right now, Israel claims it will stop the slaughter when HAMAS is eliminated. I predict that as time goes on, groups inside and outside of what was Palestine will proclaim "We are HAMAS!"
Indeed, violence will settle this, but in the way of South Africa not Hiroshima. There is some number of murdered Palestinians that will cause the world to say “enough”. And then, there will emerge a constitutional democracy from the river to the sea. The Ethno-religious state of Israel will be no more, but a better, democratic State will stand in its place that remains a homeland for Jews, and also for Palestinians.