Gaza: Moral Matters in Hard Times

Azmi Bishara

Prominent Arab intellectual, political philosopher, and researcher with numerous books and academic publications on political thought, social theory and philosophy. He was named by Le Nouveau Magazine Littéraire as one of the world’s most influential thinkers. His latest books are The Question of the State: Philosophy, Theory, and Context (2023) with a second volume titled The Arab State: Beginnings and Evolution (2024); and Palestine: Matters of Truth and Justice (2024), originally released in English in 2022 by Hurst Publishers in London, published concurrently with The Flood: The War on Palestine in Gaza (2024).

Bishara’s publications in Arabic, some of which have become key references within their respective field, include Civil Society: A Critical Study (1996); From the Jewishness of the State to Sharon (2004); On The Arab Question: An Introduction to an Arab Democratic Manifesto (2007); To Be an Arab in Our Times (2009); On Revolution and Susceptibility to Revolution (2012); Religion and Secularism in Historical Context (in 3 vols., 2013, 2015); The Army and Political Power in the Arab Context: Theoretical Problems (2017); The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Daesh): A General Framework and Critical Contribution to Understanding the Phenomenon (2018); What is Populism? (2019); and Democratic Transition and its Problems: Theoretical Lessons from Arab Experiences (2020).

His English publications include On Salafism: Concepts and Contexts (Stanford University Press, 2022); Sectarianism without Sects (Oxford University Press, 2021); and his trilogy on the Arab revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Syria, published by I.B. Tauris, Understanding Revolutions: Opening Acts in Tunisia (2021); Egypt: Revolution, Failed Transition and Counter-Revolution (2022); and Syria 2011-2013: Revolution and Tyranny before the Mayhem (2023), in which he provides a rich theoretical analysis in addition to a comprehensive and lucid assessment of the revolutions in three Arab countries.

Bishara serves as the General Director of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies and the Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.

This essay explores the moral dilemmas posed by the atrocities committed in Gaza and the stifling of any moral judgment of these crimes. It argues that morals are not limited to transcendent principles from which precepts are derived by analogy and rational judgment but that they stem from innate human dispositions. These dispositions, though not moral principles per se, constitute a seed from which morals emerge, forming the human potential for universal human values. These moral precepts are not rendered inoperative during wartime.

The essay contends that Israel and its allies’ claim of self-defence to justify their genocidal actions in Gaza and to marginalize moral judgements is a blatant lie. Occupying states do not have a right of self-defence before they end territorial occupation. The (conditional) right of self-defence rests with resistance to the occupation, also subject to moral standards. The claim that the Palestinian resistance in Gaza represents “absolute evil” is less a moral judgment than it is a strategy to deflect attention from the context of resistance operations. The essay also engages in a discussion of Jürgen Habermas and Seyla Benhabib’s positions on the war on Gaza, criticizing their bias toward Israel, and exposing the moral deficiencies of these positions.

*** This study was published in the 15th issue of AlMuntaqa, a peer-reviewed academic journal for the social sciences and humanities. You can read the full paper here.

Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies