Violence and just borders in the Middle East
What does the flotilla incident mean for the Israel-Palestine border?
Many viewed the recent flotilla incident in the waters off of Gaza as relevant to larger questions about Israel’s legitimacy and what constitutes a just outcome to the peace process. This argument, whereby the legitimacy of Israel (or Palestine) depends upon their policies toward the other side, seems inappropriate. What makes a state legitimate? What should the borders be between two states? These are hard questions. Whatever the answers are, as a matter of political morality, I doubt that it includes much analysis of how one side treats the other.
Consider this example: People A have lived in and governed Land Area Q for 500 years. People B invade Q to exploit its natural resource and they push out People A. In their attempt to regain control, People A resort to tactics that threaten the innocent members of People B.
We don’t generally believe (I think) that the right of People A to their land would be affected. Their tactics may be unjust and reprehensible, but it seems they’re unrelated to the deeper question of who should live in and govern a land area. There may, in theory, be a breaking point, such that if People A aim to commit genocide against People B, we might conclude that they’ve lost all rights, including the right to rule Q. But even this is uncertain; it’s not as if the German people after WWII lost all their rights to control land, such that the French could justly take their land.
When thinking about the big questions on Israel from a moral perspective (e.g. what’s a just border?), it’s maybe irrelevant when and whether one side commit actions deemed inappropriate, unjust, egregious, etc. It’s surely relevant from a policy perspective, insofar as some actions may be better or worse for one’s desired end-game. And it’s relevant in regard to other moral questions about how people ought to treat each other in such a conflict.
In just war theory, there’s a distinction often made between the justice of a nation’s cause and larger goals in the conflict (e.g. colonialism or self-defense?) and the justice of how a nation carries out the war (e.g. do they kill non-combatants purposefully?). The flotilla and other similar incidents in the Israel-Palestine conflict are in the latter category. The issue of what constitutes a just border is distinct, and resides in the former category.
If it’s not how a nation fights its enemies, what are the principles and concerns we should consider when determining the question of just borders? In international law, there exists the principle of ute posidatus, which entails a strong presumption in favor of historical state borders. So, the boundary lines of African nations are thick with legitimacy, even though they were drawn in European capitals. The goal is to prevent endless border conflicts. Consequentialist worries about preventing war prevention trump more detailed, complex arguments regarding the collective rights to self-determination, or whatever they may be.
But what to do when historical borders aren’t very old, or entirely unclear, as in the case of Israel? For now it’s interesting to note how relatively unequipped we are to answer this question, insofar as for the most nations (and developed ones in particular) the issue of the justice of their borders is a historical matter: something happened a long time ago to set the border, it stayed that way for a long while, and now it would be absurd to think about changing it. It’s not a moral question we worry about, even though most of the lines were set by violence and war. We don’t debate where the Canada and US border should really be, as a matter of justice. Were we do to have that debate, what are the principles we would consider? Those are the principles we have to apply to Israel. And how one side conducts itself strategically or military against the other (e.g. how the US treated innocent Canadians in the War of 1812) is probably not included on the list, with some possible qualifications for conduct completely beyond the pale.
-Jake
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- A state by any other name
- Flotilla folly
- How must we help Haiti?
- Swine flu and global justice
- For Sale: Acropolis
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Excellent article!I wish this was published in all of the world’s papers for the world to see!