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| Ongoing conflicts (via Wikipedia) |
A great many people around the world believe that Israel’s government and military have committed and continue to commit crimes against humanity, the ethics of armed conflict, ethnic cleansing, and even genocide in Gaza since the attacks by Hamas in October 2023. Many also believe that Israel as a state was and remains founded on a colonialist principle of ethnic supremacy and the systematic practice of mass atrocity crimes. Many of these observers conclude, further, that they have a moral duty to respond to these crimes by criticising and directing attention to Israel’s behaviour, and also by calling for intervention by relevant political actors such as their own national governments, but also (international) civil society organisations such as Human Rights Watch, universities, business corporations, and internationally authorised actors like the International Court of Justice and the United Nations Security Council.
The charges against Israel can be and are disputed. I will leave the adjudication of claims about the relevant facts and their legal and ethical implications to others more expert in such matters. For the purposes of this analysis I need only note that many people sincerely believe that these charges are substantially correct. In that case – believing what they do - those criticising Israel and calling for interventions may appear to be responding correctly. Injustice on such a scale would deserve the world’s attention, condemnation, and at least consideration of appropriate external interventions. Nevertheless, the cumulative result of many apparently individually correct actions can be unjust, and this is the case here. This much criticism of Israel is too much - a grave moral failure - insofar as it comes at the cost of neglecting other injustices that also deserve the world’s attention.
My argument comes in two parts. First I will take up the (deontological) principle that mass atrocity crimes straightforwardly deserve the world’s attention and condemnation, and show that directing a disproportionate share of the world’s attention to Israel’s crimes is inconsistent with this principle. Second I will consider the case from an alternative consequentialist principle that the world’s attention should be directed towards cases where it can be most effective at deterring, ending, or ameliorating mass atrocity crimes. Here, again, I conclude that the share of attention directed towards Israel cannot be justified because it necessarily entails neglecting many other ongoing and arguably more ameliorable mass atrocity crimes.
