Moral tragedies and the Israel-Palestine conflict

Some of these issues of conflict appear to be moral tragedies i.e., cases of conflicts in which there is no good option to choose.

'Your views will be controversial but at least you would have provided a solution rather than settle for an impasse,' says Nigam Nuggehalli.

Written by: Nigam Nuggehalli

5 min readNew DelhiOct 30, 2023 01:38 PM IST First published on: Oct 29, 2023 at 09:59 AM IST

My dear students,

As you can imagine from reading the news in the last few weeks, the world is in some kind of turmoil. There are old issues, like the climate change and refugees crisis, and then there are some recent ones like the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza conflicts. You are now forming your own opinions on how to engage with these issues. You might even have strong opinions about these seemingly intractable problems. The issues of international politics concern all of us. You can’t just leave it to the politicians, even if the politicians are the ones closest to the action.

In many of these issues, there appear to be conflicts that don’t have a solution. That’s what makes these issues interesting and challenging. Some of these issues of conflict appear to be moral tragedies i.e., cases of conflicts in which there is no good option to choose. All of the available options appear to end in tragedy. I was reminded of this when I read a powerful obituary (written in 1956) for a young Israeli soldier called Roi Rotberg who was killed by Palestinians. His commanding officer, General Moshe Dayan wrote a eulogy at the slain soldier’s funeral, and here is an excerpt:

‘Let us not hurl blame at the murderers. Why should we complain of their hatred for us? Eight years have they sat in the refugee camps of Gaza, and seen, with their own eyes, how we have made a homeland of the soil and the villages where they and their forebears once dwelt. Not from the Arabs of Gaza must we demand the blood of Roi, but from ourselves. How our eyes are closed to the reality of our fate, unwilling to see the destiny of our generation in its full cruelty. Have we forgotten that this small band of youths, settled in Nahal Oz, carries on its shoulders the heavy gates of Gaza, beyond which hundreds of thousands of eyes and arms huddle together and pray for the onset of our weakness so that they may tear us to pieces — has this been forgotten?’

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Now these are fighting and frightening words, but they also portray a moral tragedy. What General Moshe is saying is that the Palestinians will continue violently and legitimately to regain their homeland, while the Israelis will continue to fight for the same land that they believe is in their destiny. There are no good moral options on the table. According to Moshe Dayan, every option leads to a standstill between two sets of people who are determined to harm each other. Both are morally right or at least neither of them is morally wrong.

This kind of attitude is indeed tragic, and once you recognise this, you might begin to identify tragedies in many situations found in life, whether it is the mundane and local (shall I lie to my friend or tell him his jokes are not funny-I believe most of my acquaintances are faced with this moral tragedy) or the dramatic and global (will countries industrialise rapidly to eliminate poverty or take measures to prevent climate change). I want to tell you today that a better alternative is available. We must be more optimistic than Moshe, not because we fetishise optimism but because it’s a better moral option in principle.

Why are we inclined to believe in moral tragedies? Because this is somewhat tempting in a comforting sort of way: the world presumably consists of values that can’t all be realised at the same time. You can have liberty and equality but not both at the same time, at least not always. I think a reason for this powerful belief is because one often feels stuck, as General Moshe did, and when one is stuck, one tends to believe in the status quo. But there is no reason that this must be inevitable. Surely, when things look intractable, they may not actually be so, and there must be a way out.

Why is this important? Not only because optimism is good for its own sake. But because solving difficult issues need not come to a standstill just because there is no solution on the horizon. There is usually no solution because the solutions are hard to find, not because there are no solutions at all. I don’t mean ad hoc solutions, which sometimes make things worse but solutions that are principled, that treat all parties to the issue with equal respect, and that demonstrate a willingness to listen to other people’s points of view. People might disagree with your solution; you cannot expect unanimous agreement with your views. Your views will be controversial but at least you would have provided a solution rather than settle for an impasse.

(‘My dear students’, a fortnightly column that is a conversation with young minds on current events, books, popular culture — just about anything that’s worth talking over a cup of coffee.)