Bloodless Coup

The Moral Difference Between Wives and Children

At some point I might have a lot to say about Jeffrey Goldberg's fascinating Reporter at Large column in the May 31 issue of The New Yorker. But I'd like to save most of my thoughts until I've finished reading it. I've had quite a hard time finishing it actually. The picture it paints of the settlers, the Palestinians and Israeli politics is exceedingly depressing. And with it being so thorough and vivid, well, I just haven't had the heart to finish it yet since any implications he draws at the end are likely to be harrowing and bleak. But I do want to comment on one point.

In the article the Chief of Staff of the IDF is discussing past decisions relating to the circumstances in which terrorist leaders would be targeted for assassination. In one instance he notes that a decision was made to kill a particular leader if he was just in the company of his wife, but not if he was in the company of his children. Now I'm sure some people and theologies have their own justifications for why the lives of children are more pure and sacred than those of adults -- though personally I think that's ridiculous and appalling. But more to the point I really would have thought that a state with as Realist a foreign policy as Israel's wouldn't be subscribing to the view that killing certain types of supposed civilians is worse than killing other types of supposed civilians (I say supposed since I know nothing about the wife or minors in question). I know that in many cases they've called off attacks because of possible civilian deaths. But that they're rank ordering the value of the lives of different types of civilians, that strikes me as a little odd.

Oh, and yes, I'm aware that there are perfectly good political reasons for avoiding killing children. But given the stakes involved in this case and the fact that Israel has few friends and little likelihood of gaining friends, I would think that it would be less likely than your average democracy to adjust national security decisions on the basis of public opinion.