The Bombing of Gaza and the Justification of Killing

War is killing. I hesitate to use the word 'murder', as war rarely involves the deliberate killing of specific individuals; but it certainly is premeditated. We shouldn't let ourselves be fooled by phrases such as 'surgical strike' or 'avoidance of collateral damage'. When high-explosive bombs are dropped on densely populated civilian centres with the avowed intention of destroying missile-launching sites located there, the people ordering the attacks know full well that many civilians will be killed and injured. They are therefore intending those deaths.

Israel – or at least, its government – is effectively claiming that its actions are motivated by self-defence: it is trying to prevent the killing of its own civilians by missiles launched on Israel from Gaza. In a court of law, however, a case of self-defence would have to prove that the actions taken were proportionate to the aim of eliminating the threat. For instance, if you were in an airport, and a terrorist or madman started firing a machine gun into the crowds of people on the side of the departure lounge where you were sitting, you couldn't say you were acting in self-defence if you got up and sprayed the other side of the lounge with machine-gun fire in order to eliminate the attacker: you'd have to prove you were aiming at the gunman alone and that you had a reasonable chance of killing him. Israel cannot claim that it is aiming at the missile sites alone, as the means it is deploying to eliminate them are more akin to the spray machine gunning: deliberately intending to cause loss of life to surrounding people. Similarly, the fact that Hamas redoubled its attacks on Israel in the wake of the Israeli bombing raids would tend to indicate that Israel has not succeeded in its aim of preventing those attacks. If indeed that was its aim. Guilty, m'lud.

But guilty of what? In a way, what you call it is irrelevant: murder, killing, homicide, self-defence, genocide. Whatever word you use inevitably carries overtones that then get wrapped up into either a justification for the acts in question or a condemnation of them. The more you try to build your understanding of the facts around such words and narratives, the more you risk blinding yourself to the brute reality: that innocent people are dying and suffering in a horrifying manner, and in large numbers. You have to think of them as individuals, families and communities. Think of them as your neighbours, because that's what they are: the next-door post office and its customers, all wiped out; the people who live across the green and their Labrador puppy, bought for the little daughter (also dead) for Christmas; the passengers on the No. 9 bus going shopping – all killed apart from Johnny, who's now an orphan. If someone thought fit to drop bombs on your street and your community because they thought you were harbouring a terrorist bomb factory, would they be justified? Use your imagination, picture the horror, think of your loved-ones and acquaintances lying dead and bloodied in what was once your home; and then say it's justified. Think of it as yourself: would your death be justified in stopping a deranged fanatic living in your neighbourhood from attacking some other neighbours of yours? Would you be willing to die if you thought your death might prevent someone else in the neighbouring town from dying? Which option would you choose?

Of course, the Israelis say, 'well, what about our communities and citizens who are getting killed and injured by Hamas's missiles?'. Well, yes, and that's not justified, either; but two wrongs don't make a right. As I said above, if the claim of self-defence is to stand, then it has to be proven that the measures taken are proportionate and effective. Prima facie, the overwhelming evidence appears to be that they're not. And the assessment is similar if you use the criteria for a just war: you have to prove that the evil you are trying to put an end to is so overwhelming that it justifies the by definition evil means taken to end it; but those means are justified only if you don't escalate the evil you yourself are perpetrating – particularly, through the mass killing of non-combatants, which immediately rules it out – and the end itself can be achieved by your actions. Again, not proven.

In any case, the point I am trying to make is that the justifications that tend to be advanced for this sort of thing are designed to blind people to the realities involved by substituting a logic of means and ends for empathy with terrible human suffering. If you were to experience at first hand the reality of death and destruction – on both sides of the Gazan border – especially if it were your loved-ones who were the victims, you wouldn't say, 'well, our Israeli / our Palestinian neighbours were right to do this to try to put an end to our attacks on Israel / our oppression of the Palestinian people'. The question of who is in the right, and whose life is worth more than another's, often just boils down to which side of the border or other divide you're on. The reality is people are dying on both sides; and the question should be 'how can we stop this', not 'how can we justify our killing while condemning theirs?' The way to stop it is through peace. And the way to peace is not a life for a life, or in this instance ten lives for a life or whatever the ratio is. Peace can come only through a massive and mutual effort towards reconciliation, forgiveness and atonement. But I can't see much prospect of that right now.

The same false logic of justifying killing by reference to a suffering it is ostensibly intended to end is employed in other circumstances where we try to circumvent the commandment 'thou shalt not kill'. In the cases of abortions and stem-cell research, for instance, defenders of such practices claim they are justified because they will prevent suffering: that of the unwanted child, the unwilling mother or sick persons for whom new treatments could be discovered. Such 'ends justify the means' arguments again help to blind us to the reality of the killing involved, which is personal, dirty and bloody: the beautiful, wonderful human embryo or foetus that could have developed into a baby capable of surviving and thriving outside the womb, but instead is destroyed to suit our own purposes – and just as much a human being as you or I, whether inside or outside the womb or test tube. Again, we must employ the 'what if it were me?' test: 'would my parents have been right to have me aborted if they hadn't wanted me?' Most people, I think, would prefer to have been born, albeit amid troubled personal circumstances, than to have been denied the chance of life. And yet, we think we're justified in denying the same chance to millions of living unborn humans aborted every year. 'It's not killing, it's "termination", we try to say'; but whatever terminology we try to wrap it up in, it's killing all the same. And does the trauma a mother might experience about an unwanted pregnancy really outweigh the fact of taking another human being's life; and if so, by what code of ethics? And who gives us the right to decree that an unwanted child will have such a miserable life that we're actually showing mercy by preventing them from being born? This is pure bad faith designed to assuage our consciences. How do we know a child born in such circumstances won't end up being loved and cherished, even if not by ourselves? And does the aim of preventing diseases really justify creating human embryos (living human beings) purely for the purpose of extracting stem cells from them and thereby destroying them – especially if this prevents us from developing other methods to achieve the same ends? 'It's research, science and progress', we say; yes, and it's also killing.

The irony is that the same people who defend abortions or stem-cell research often reject other forms of killing, for some of which a more credible justification could arguably be put together. I always remember the Labour MP for Hampstead and former actress Glenda Jackson saying she was as ardently in favour of the 'right' of women to have abortions as she was ardently opposed to capital punishment. And yet, capital punishment for people guilty of murder or other violent crimes is superficially a far more proportionate act than taking the life of a totally innocent human being, albeit an unborn one. However, we deny that abortion does represent human-killing, partly because we can't or won't see the unborn human – hidden in its mother's womb – as a real, living human being (and certainly not as a 'citizen' with rights) in the same way as a visible, clearly separate and independent, sentient human being and citizen, such as a murderer. But this is just a lack of 'vision', in both senses: because we can't see the unborn human as a living human, we can't or won't accept the ending of that life as killing. But it was human and alive, and our own life started in that form; and our decision to abort it ends that life. That's killing by any definition.

In a similar way, many people who favour stem-cell research are opposed to vivisection and drug testing on animals. Again, the 'logic' is astounding: it's OK to destroy human life for the purposes of medical research if that human life is far removed from how we imagine and perceive human beings as fully human, and as having full human rights (as born, living-breathing-moving beings of flesh and blood), but not fully grown animals that clearly are capable of experiencing pain. Admitted, the embryos in question may not – may not – feel pain when they are manipulated and destroyed in the test tube, or even when they are injected with animal genes. But they were human and alive, and now they're not: that's human-killing, whatever gloss or justification you put on it. They could have been implanted in a womb and could have grown into normal babies; but they were destroyed to help alleviate the sickness of other human beings, whose suffering is clearly thought more important than their deaths.

Now, I personally am not in favour of capital punishment. In fact, I think this is another case where human societies attempt to justify their murderous desire to circumvent the divine commandment not to kill; in this case, by dressing it up as a 'proportionate' punishment that fits the crime. But this is the same talion logic (eye for an eye, life for a life) that the Israelis are employing in Gaza. Does the taking of one innocent life exonerate the killing of those responsible, with the distinction that in the case of Gaza, the Israelis are taking so many innocent lives as well? If you sanction the execution of violent criminals, then you have reduced yourself to their level; and the violence and evil that led them to commit their crimes has taken hold of you. In the case of Gaza, we can see that the danger is that the cycle of mutual violence and hatred is perpetuated. In the case of crimes such as murder, can the rage and grief of the victim's loved-ones ever really be assuaged, and in some sense neutralised and 'dealt with', by taking the life of the person responsible, assuming society has identified the correct person? Is this really better for those loved-ones than long-term imprisonment? Killing the guilty person removes any possibility for those surviving the murdered individual to come to any understanding of, and maybe eventually forgiveness for, the crime; and it certainly eliminates any chance that the murderer themself may come to repent of their crime and seek reconciliation with the bereaved, albeit that that repentance should be accompanied, indeed facilitated, by a long period of atonement and of paying for the crime. Such an outcome has to be the hope of any Christian society; and is the only way that the murder of one person can in time lead to new life and hope for all affected, rather than death taking hold in the mind, hearts and actions of killer and victims alike.

Another example of this tendency to selectively justify killing (i.e. one form of killing, such as stem-cell research, is OK but others are not) is what's now referred to as 'assisted dying' (formerly known as 'assisted suicide' and, before that, euthanasia). Again, some people who are vehemently in favour of abortion or stem-cell research are opposed to assisted dying, which arguably has much stronger claims to being justified. Only the other day, Gordon Brown, the UK prime minister, went on record as saying that he was opposed to bringing in legislation to allow relatives and medical staff to assist those suffering from painful, long-term chronic conditions from taking their own lives. And yet, he was firmly behind the recent Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, which continues to sanction abortions in certain cases up to 28 weeks into the pregnancy and the creation of hybrid human-animal embryos for the purpose of experimentation, alongside conventional stem-cell research. At one point, it even looked as though Brown would insist that Catholic Labour MPs should toe the party line and support the bill, which would involve voting against their consciences. However, he eventually backed down.

From my perspective, such late abortions and the experimental tampering with human embryos, and indeed with the human genome, are far more horrendous and human life-denying than enabling people suffering acute pain and terminal conditions to take their own lives. At least, in the latter instance, the death is chosen and self-inflicted by the person affected, rather than being perpetrated upon helpless, silent, unborn humans. All the same, it's still killing, as the increasingly euphemistic expressions employed negatively testify: they try to distance us and blind us ever more to the reality of killing involved.

But is this 'justified killing'. Well, the point I've been trying to make is that killing can and always will be justified: we'll always come up with words, arguments and explanations that sanction killing in one set of circumstances or another. But it's still killing, and it still contravenes the commandment 'thou shalt not kill'. The focus tends to be placed on the sick individuals seeking to end their lives; and understandably so. But in assisted dying, this still involves other people consenting to that death and effectively carrying it out, or at least 'conspiring' in it. And those individuals will have to answer for that killing, if not in a court of law, then maybe in another tribunal. The commandment is clear; and I don't think a plea of 'well, I never believed in all that religion malarkey' will necessarily wash. And even if that final judgement never comes, there's still the tribunal of conscience; and that still small voice that says 'killing is killing' and 'you have killed'.

We can justify our killing as much as we like; but in our hearts, we know it's killing, all the same.

 

Control Orders: A Better Alternative

The trouble with Control Orders - the UK security measure whereby terror suspects against whom a conventional legal case cannot easily be built can effectively be placed under indefinite house arrest - is that in practice they embody a presumption of guilt. This is in contrast to the long-established British legal convention that a suspect is to be considered innocent until proven guilty. Yesterday, the government launched an appeal to the House of Lords against a legal ruling previously obtained by six Iraqi Control-Order detainees that their detention violated their rights to liberty and a fair trial.

As in all such cases, it is important to try to strike a balance between the legal and human rights of suspects, and the right of the public to be protected against potential murderers. But the de facto presumption of guilt is clear: if the police who press for a particular suspect to be controlled did not think that the evidence they had gathered strongly suggested the person in question was a terrorist, then there would be no point in the measures - other than the exercise of political coercion to try to intimidate radical groups and individuals into behaving in a more moderate manner. But while a sense of injustice persists about the way in which suspects’ guilt is accepted by the judges who ratify Control Orders, so the suspicion that these measures are just such a coercive political measure will linger, to the detriment of the so-called battle to win hearts and minds.

There is an alternative that would bring more fairness back into the legal process surrounding suspects of this sort. If indeed there is a presumption of guilt, why not formalise this and say that it is then down to the suspect to demonstrate his or her innocence through a fair, open judicial proceeding? The suspect would have the right to know on what basis their guilt was being presumed and could appoint a legal team to build a case in their defence. The issue could then be decided in an adversarial manner just like any other case (albeit that, for security purposes, this might not involve a jury). The difference from the assumption of innocence would be that if, on the balance of evidence, it was not conclusive whether the individual either was or was not a terrorist, the Control Order or other restrictive measure would remain in place - subject to fairly regular (e.g. six-monthly or annual) review. If the verdict was guilty, however, this would enable the suspect to be imprisoned, thus doing away with the anomalous legal no-man’s land of the current system. And obviously, a not-guilty verdict would allow the individuals affected to regain their rightful liberty.

Clearly, there are potential pitfalls behind this idea, and legal safeguards protecting both the rights of the individual and the prerogatives of the state would need to be put in place. The main issue would be whether society would be able to accept a derogation from the presumption of innocence and would be able to overcome concerns that this would lead to further erosion of this basic right. But under the present set up, the presumption of innocence is in fact not working either to protect the rights of suspects or the state’s duty of protection. It’s because the formal process of law demands that the accused be presumed innocent until proven guilty that the case against them can’t be taken to court and the suspects are left in a legal limbo. And because a democratic state can’t arbitrarily impose imprisonment without trial, it has had to come up with the Control Order compromise; but this is not secure, as recent evasions have demonstrated - so society is not being protected.

The limited admission of a formal presumption of guilt that I am advocating would recognise the realities of fighting terrorism, which are that absolute guilt is sometimes impossible to prove beyond all reasonable doubt and that therefore guilt is having to be presumed in certain cases. And, at the same time, this would allow suspects to be given a fair hearing and chance to exonerate themselves if indeed they are without blame. And this would also defuse the charge made in some quarters that Control Orders are politically motivated and are placing the legal system at the service of an oppressive, anti-Islamic state.

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