An Unpleasant Debate
BY JOE LENOFF
This article is in response to Hen Mazzig’s article in JNS. Last week, J Street U and St. Louis Hillel invited Oded Na’aman, a philosophy student and member of the group Breaking the Silence, to speak at the St. Louis Hillel at Wash U. Mazzig attended the lecture and offered a criticism of it in his JNS article, but in so doing completely misrepresented the content of the lecture. Instead of criticizing the philosophy student that actually spoke, Mazzig criticized a strawman. Mazzig missed, or refused to acknowledge, the event’s purpose—a philosophical discussion of the morality of IDF presence in the West Bank and Gaza.
Mazzig reported that Na’aman “claimed that Israeli soldiers are trained to oppress the Palestinians individually and as a people, that they maliciously mistreat Palestinians in the West Bank, [etc.]” Na’aman did not say this. Rather, Na’aman said that the Israeli military offers guidance to soldiers in dangerous or ambiguous situations not by issuing strict guidelines, but by trusting the individual soldiers’ judgment. Na’aman said that on its face this is a refreshing and inspiring aspect of the IDF, but that in the end it corrupts the individual. The individual, according to Na’aman, is forced into countless situations of moral uncertainty where personal safety and maintenance of order is at jeopardy, and the only solution available is to exercise the authority given by the IDF to bend the rules. Na’aman claimed that these situations result in the individual corrupting their personal sense of morality. Na’aman assumed that the larger IDF presence in the West Bank and Gaza is moral as policy— because, as Mazzig pointed out, of Israeli security concerns, of support for Palestinian human rights, and the like— but argued that it becomes immoral in practice. Na’aman argued that the larger morality of the IDF presence is overshadowed by the corruption of individual soldiers through thousands of small decisions, and made clear that any oppression or mistreatment were not a result of training or malintent on the part of the Israeli government.
Now, we can debate if it is de facto required for Israeli soldiers to bend their personal morality for their own security and maintenance of order. We can debate if the IDF truly does export morality to its soldiers, or we can debate if the individual soldiers’ moralities overshadow the morality of general IDF policy. These are debates worth having, but Mazzig skips them entirely. Supporting his argument with nothing but personal experience, Mazzig came to the conclusion that the IDF presence is moral and that Na’aman’s lecture was not. This is why Mazzig “does not understand why Hillel and J Street U had sponsored a talk”. Mazzig’s disgust with Na’aman’s accounting of Palestinian mistreatment made him miss the point: a philosophy student came to give a philosophy lecture of collective individual micro-morality vs. larger macro-morality. Yes, Na’aman mentioned instances of individual soldiers abusing their authority, but they were part of a larger message, one Mazzig simply did not acknowledge in his JNS article.
Critiquing philosophy with accusations independent of the substance delivered at the event does not offer this issue the credibility it deserves. Na’aman’s lecture sparked a lot of productive debate on the Wash U campus, but Mazzig’s article, while being among the most widely shared opinions, unfortunately was not a part of that productive debate.
To be clear, I am in no way associated with J Steet U, StandWithUs, Hillel, or Breaking the Silence. I do have friends in the former two organizations, though.