Good War/Bad Terror: Morality, Violence, and the (De)Valuation of Palestinian Life

gaza_03212012Last Friday, the Israeli Air Force killed two members of the Palestinian Resistance Committee in Gaza, who were believed to be planning an attack on Israel from the Egyptian Sinai some time in the following days. This sparked an onslaught of rocket attacks from Gaza into Southern Israel, and Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, with civilian and militant casualties on both sides. In the wake of the attacks, Israeli journalist Larry Derfner, in an article in +972 Magazine, chose to address a common justification for military violence by the state of Israel, that “Palestinians have no right to lift a finger against our control of their lives and land,” and called for a rejection of the idea that “we [Israel] will always be totally innocent, while they will always be totally guilty.” Continue reading Good War/Bad Terror: Morality, Violence, and the (De)Valuation of Palestinian Life