On war

Here is an article by Senator Joe Lieberman, making a case for US intervention in Syria:
"What is happening in Syria is a humanitarian catastrophe, with at least 10,000 dead, more than 1 million people displaced and horrific human rights abuses perpetrated daily, including the widespread and deliberate use of rape and other sexual violence as weapons of war."

Predictably, many of the comments following the article accuse Lieberman of  war-mongering and being a "neo-con". As I show below, there is no perfectly moral way to take a position in regard to a war, but there is one way that is clearly wrong: making one's position fit the one's biases or political preferences.

One may oppose any war and all violence. This is a highly principled, although a somewhat naive position. On the surface it also looks like a highly moral one. Yet, the morality of confronting violence with inaction is questionable, as is illustrated by the famous poem "First they came...".

One may adopt the "responsibility to protect" attitude, and always take the side of victims against the oppressors. This is a principled position as well, which perhaps culminated in the George W. Bush's "Freedom agenda". The problem is with deciding who is a victim and who is the oppressor, since one can easily transform into the other. In addition, killing in the name of protecting someone is still killing. Oppressors are no less human their victims.

One may adopt a "realistic" view and support a war when one may benefit from it economically, politically or in terms of one's own safety, while opposing it when no benefit is forthcoming. This is a cynical and cruel attitude, but it is a consistent position... and perhaps the only one that a national leader should adopt.

The attitude that one shouldn't adopt is the hypocritical one: such as supporting the military action initiated by a Democratic President, while opposing the "Republican" wars; or supporting the "resistance" by Hamas/Hezbollah, while opposing Israel's self-defense measures.

Unfortunately, the fact that the events in Syria are largely overlooked, while much smaller scale events in other places, for example in Israel, trigger worldwide protests, is a testimony to the widespread hypocricy. The same can be said about those who passionately oppose the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, while cheering the "real leadership" that President Obama has shown in ordering the raid against Osama bin Laden, in "leading from behind" the "humanitarian" strikes in Libya, and in waging the "smart war" using unmanned aerial vehicles in Pakistan and Yemen, which has taken thousands of lives.

Lieberman: Jordan is not Palestine

A strange statement from Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli foreign minister, whom western media routinely call "far right" or simply "fascist":
"Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Monday that the claim that Jordan is the Palestinian state is not based in reality and those who push such a view do so at the detriment of Israeli interests.

Speaking at a Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting, Lieberman added that the claim that Jordan is Palestine contradicts international law and the Israeli-Jordanian peace agreement."

On the one hand, the Lieberman's statement contradicts the well-known demographic reality - according to Wikipedia there are 2,700,000 Palestinian people living in Jordan, whose total population is about 6,400,000. This number is greater than the number of Palestinians living either in the West Bank (2,345,000) or in Gaza (1,416,000). While this number is not enough to claim that Jordan is the fulfillment fo the Palestinian aspirations for a statehood, it is sufficient to make it impossible for the Palestinian problem to be truly resolved outside of the Jordanian borders.

On the other hand, the good relations between Israel and Jordan require that the Israeli government join the game with King Abdullah and the Western powers in pretending that the solution of the Palestinian problem can be achieved at the expense of Israel only.

The fact that it is Lieberman, who is being so diplomatic, is amusing, but not totally ridiculous - being the head of the third largest political party, he may be trying to position himself as a serious statesman... he would definitely need to look more serious the day when he takes a shot at becoming the prime minister.