Issues in war, peace, and the Jewish traditionAssignment4/24 War and Peace – traditional sourcesRead:1. Deuteronomy 20: What are the rules for war outlined here? What should be done to the Hittites, Amorites, etc., who live in the land of Canaan? 2. Joshua 9 – What did the Gibeonites do to trick the Israelites into not exterminating them? 3. Maimonides on the laws of war – read On Kings and Their Wars, a selection from Book 14 of the Mishneh Torah. What are the different types of war that Maimonides derives from the biblical laws and stories about war? How should they be fought? Is what he says relevant to our time? 4. Reform Responsum on war (available as an attachment on the bottom of the page at War in the Jewish Tradition). a. What are the main categories that Jewish law applies to war? Which wars are justifiable and on what grounds? b. Are discretionary wars morally permitted in our time? On what basis? c. What is a defensive war? How can it be defined? Does a preventive war fit into this category? Is preventive war the same as a pre-emptive strike? d. Is pre-emptive war against a nation that may plausibly present a threat in the future (but does not now present a clear threat) be considered a war that it is morally justifiable to fight? e. What does the Jewish legal tradition have to say about the waging of a preventive war, one not fought in a situation of immediate national self-defense? 4/27 War and Peace in the contemporary world – modern Jewish thinkersRead:1. Segal, 232-234. 2. Louis Newman, “Three Case Studies: War,” pp. 169-176 (available at Introduction to Jewish Ethics - scroll down to the bottom and download the file, which is named "Jewish ethics - war.pdf"). 3. Michael Walzer, “Ethics of Jewish War.” Recommended reading: Combat and Conflict (from MyJewishLearning, it's an introduction to the various aspects of Jewish thinking on war). For a more extensive discussion of whether the halakhah also includes the idea of prohibited wars - wars that it is forbidden for a nation to wage, see the article by Aviezer Ravitsky, which I have partially excerpted at Ravitsky - Forbidden Wars. 4/29 War in Gaza, December 27, 2008 - January 18, 2009What happened in the Gaza War? How and why did the fighting start (and end), and how did both Hamas and Israel act?Read: 1. Read the summary article on Gaza on the New York Times website - http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/gaza_strip/index.html?inline=nyt-geo 2. If you don't know what Hamas is, read the summary article on Hamas - http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/h/hamas/index.html 3. Read through the timeline on Israel and Gaza at http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/01/04/world/20090104_ISRAEL-HAMAS_TIMELINE.html - scroll through the entire timeline. At each timepoint there are links to relevant New York Times articles. 4. For details of the fighting from January 5-15, 2009, go to http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/01/15/world/20080104-conflict-graphic.html and scroll through the updates. 5/1 Ethics of war in GazaThe war in Gaza raised many ethical questions, which have been hotly debated during and after the war. Some people argued that there was no ethical basis to the war (see, for example, the discussion of Andrew Sullivan in his blog - he applies Catholic just war theory to the war), while others argued that Israel was fully justified in attacking Hamas, due to the firing of barrages of missiles against nearby Israeli cities and towns by Hamas fighters. Other questions were raised about the conduct of the war - did Israel act proportionately in fighting against Hamas? Did Israel violate the laws of war in its treatment of Palestinian civilians? In today's discussion we will focus on one issue - proportionality.Read the following articles: Michael Walzer on "Proportionality" Howard Schweber, Proportionality I and Proportionality II. 5/1 - Paper due on the ethics of war. Questions to consider in the paper: 1) According to Jewish tradition (including the rabbis of the Talmud and Maimonides), what are the different types of war? (Louis Newman's article goes over this question on pages 170-173). Which categories of war might be relevant for Jewish moral thinking on war today? 2) How should war be conducted, according to Jewish tradition? Are there certain acts that should not be committed in war? (Deuteronomy 20 and Maimonides both cover this issue). 3) Is the Jewish tradition of thinking about war relevant or helpful in thinking about contemporary wars, for example, the recent fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in December 2008-January 2009? Or, on the other hand, should Jews principally engage with modern secular ideas about just wars and the proper conduct of warfare (as embodied, for example, in the Geneva Conventions)? |