Palestinian and Israeli flags fly in old Jerusalem. iStock / Getty Images Plus
When World War II broke out in Europe in 1939, the United States adopted a policy of isolationism. Most Americans were anti-war, but two distinct anti-war attitudes emerged: the conditional view and the absolute view. While the conditional anti-war viewpoint condemned armed action, it did support defensive wars. The absolute anti-war position maintained that human life was so valuable that war should never be conducted, not even in self-defense.
Then, on December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Four days later, on December 11th, Nazi Germany declared war against the United States. The majority of Americans abandoned their anti-war stance and rallied behind the war effort against Japan and Nazi Germany.
Those who were devoted to the absolute anti-war position continued to condemn war, but many found their opposition to war against Hitler reprehensible. The absolute anti-war activists saw no justification for war due to the moral equivalence they made between America’s flawed republic and Hitler’s fascist state. Making no distinction between the United States and Nazi Germany, or even the lesser of the two evils, was a moral failure, placing those anti-war activists on the wrong side of history.
Anti-war activists recently assembled in Washington, DC, to oppose Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress as well as protest Israel’s war in Gaza. The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel from Gaza, murdering over 1,000 civilians and seizing over 100 hostages. Israel declared war with the goal of recovering their hostages, eliminating Hamas’ military capabilities, and removing Hamas from power in Gaza.
ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) organized the anti-war protests.
ANSWER is a far-left, anti-imperialist umbrella group made up of numerous anti-war and civil rights organizations. It formed after Al-Qaeda’s terrorist attack on the United States on September 11, 2001. ANSWER’s first major demonstration occurred two weeks after 9/11 to protest the impending invasion of Afghanistan, which harbored the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization.
Supporters of Israel’s war in Gaza argue that Israel has the right to defend itself.
According to the anti-war rebuttal, Israel is a settler-colonial, apartheid state that occupies Palestine, and Hamas acted in self-defense, whereas Israel’s military reaction was motivated solely by revenge. Because the absolute anti-war perspective rejects self-defense and retaliation as justifiable reasons for war, the protesters called for a permanent cease-fire to prevent further civilian casualties in Palestine. (Estimates suggest that Israel’s military response resulted in the deaths of over 30,000 innocent Palestinians, many of whom were women and children.)
By demanding a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, anti-war activists hope to resolve a humanitarian crisis widely regarded as one of the worst of the twenty-first century.
The problem with this viewpoint is twofold: it establishes moral equivalency between Hamas and Israel by insinuating that Israel’s military reaction was no different from Hamas’ terror attack, and it fosters a negative peace. A negative peace arises when a third party forces the warring parties to stop fighting but fails to address and resolve the underlying causes of the conflict.
But the biggest problem with this viewpoint is that it fails to distinguish between fighting a defensive war and defeating an existential threat.
As previously noted, the absolute anti-war view condemns defensive wars, but because these protesters are based in America, they fail to understand existential threats. Even after Nazi Germany declared war on the United States, those opposing the war believed that Germany lacked the means to invade the mainland. When ANSWER was founded after 9/11, they believed Al-Qaeda couldn’t completely destroy the United States, and the invasion of Afghanistan was not a question of defense or national security; rather, it was a demonstration of destruction to warn other terrorist groups of the consequences of attacking America.
The anti-war protesters do not believe Hamas has the military capability to cause serious damage to Israel. Israel may have declared a defensive war, but it has instead undertaken a campaign of collective punishment and genocide to break the will of Palestinian resistance.
This entire line of criticism originates from anti-war protesters viewing the Gaza conflict as a David vs. Goliath battle, but in their anti-colonial worldview, Israel is Goliath. Israel would be a Goliath if Hamas were operating alone, but they are not. Hamas is part of an Iranian coalition that believes Israel has no right to exist and is determined to eradicate it from the earth.
Israel is not simply defending itself. Israel is fighting for its existence.
During Netanyahu’s congressional speech, he detailed Hamas’ attack on October 7th, and he explained that on October 8th, Hezbollah, an Islamic paramilitary group based in Lebanon, attacked Israel with thousands of missiles. Hezbollah continued its missile onslaught for months, forcing 80,000 Israelis to evacuate northern Israel. Netanyahu described the latest drone attack on Tel Aviv by the Houthis, a Yemen-based Islamic military organization. Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis are Iranian proxies.
Netanyahu stated that Iran is responsible for all of the terrorism, turmoil, and chaos in the Middle East. So, when Israel battles Hamas, Hezbollah, or the Houthis, it is fighting Iran.
Following Netanyahu’s speech, US Vice President Kamala Harris warned him that, while Israel has the right to self-defense, the humanitarian crisis generated by the war requires an immediate cease-fire agreement with Hamas.
There’s an old saying, “The bystander observes the battle from the moral high ground,” but from that lofty perch, the bystander’s moral compass frequently points in the wrong direction.
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