Hatred warps reasoning as well
as ethical judgment along the lines of a warped time-space fabric around a large
mass. In other words, the sheer gravitational pull of self-centeredness can bend
both thought and judgment. As essentially egoist, this phenomenon can itself be
considered to be unethical, for what are actually equivalent ethical harms are
perceived as unequal at the expense of other people or peoples. Even though Israel’s
military attacks in, and invasion of, Lebanon in 2026 could be said to be in violation
of international law, Israel’s national security minister said on June 19th that all of Lebanon must burn because four Israeli soldiers had just been
killed in combat when their tank was hit near Kfar Tebnit. The official’s
statement is significant in that it lays bare the false equivalence of the
lives of four Israelis and the entire population of Lebanon. The warped judgment
and related ratiocination behind such a baseless equivalence can be grasped
from the standpoint of utilitarianism.
Along with saying, “all of Lebanon
must burn,” Itamar Ben-Gvir added, “For every tear of an Israeli mother, a
thousand Lebanese mothers must weep.”[1]
That four Israeli soldiers lost their lives is thus more of a loss than the
eighteen Lebanese who died in that particular military action. Moreover, wiping
out Gaza, whose Palestinian population stood at more than 1.5 million, is “ethically”
justified by Hamas’ attack in which 1,200 Israelis had been killed and a few
hundred taken hostage by a subjugated political group. More than Ben-Gvir “taunting
detained activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla” whom Israel had kidnapped in
international waters, his claims regarding the worth of human lives depending
on group-identification are astonishing in their directness in showing the
distorting impact of his ideology (and related group-identification as an
Israeli) on his judgment on what is ethical and unethical.[2]
The claim that the death of
one Israeli justifies the death of a thousand Lebanese runs directly counter to
Jeremy Bentham’s ethical theory of utilitarianism, wherein the greatest good to
the greatest number is the ethical rubric. If anything, saving the lives of a
thousand Lebanese would justify killing four Israelis. That the latter were
part of an illegal military invasion renders this verdict all the more
justified and legitimate ethically, for violating international law is itself
unethical and the government of Lebanon had not invaded Israel.
Such a warped, unethical
perspective as a senior government official in Israel voiced can itself be
taken as support for the argument that either the UN should be given its own
military force (not subject to any vetoes in the Security Council), or a new, semi-sovereign
international federation should be created with enough military power to counter
unethical actions stemming from ethically-warped mentalities at the national
level. Even with such a reform, Kant’s claim that a world federation would make
peace possible rather than probable can be read both as a bit of
realism as to the reform and an indictment on just how sordid even high
government officials can be in their reasoning and ethical judgment. Indeed,
Ben-Gvir’s statements fly in the face of Kant’s ethical imperative formulated
as the Kingdom of Ends, wherein rational beings should be treated not just as
means (e.g. to Israel’s interests), but also as ends in themselves. Moreover,
because human beings are rational beings, the life of a person of one
nationality is not worth more than the life of a person of another, even
conflicting, nationality. This imperative is like a straight stick against which
the warping of Ben-Gvir’s mind can be perceived and measured. Given the
severity of the warping, a world order with enough teeth, or enforcement power,
to restrain national governments was both needed and justified by 2026.
