Morality and Power: Contemporary Jewish Views
Introduction
Daniel J. Elazar
In September 1988, as the intifada approached the end of its
first year, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs invited a
distinguished group of leaders in academic and public affairs in
Israel and the diaspora to participate in a symposium on the
problems of relating morality and power in contemporary
statecraft. We asked participants to respond to three questions:
Is there a difference between individual morality and the
morality of public policy choices for a state or other political
community?
Assuming a less than perfect world, how should political
communities, their leaders and members deal with the problem of
maintaining moral positions under duress or at times of crisis?
To what extent does or should a morally relativistic or
morally absolutist position influence one's conclusions with
regard to the first two questions?
We initiated the symposium for three reasons. The immediate one
was the spate of callow and superficial moral criticisms of
Israel on the part of the mass media covering events in the
territories, joined by the reactions of "anguished" professional
Jewish moralists, principally but not exclusively in the
diaspora, as well as the usual critics of Israel who exploited
the opportunity to the hilt. We at the Jerusalem Center came to
the conclusion that whatever the rights and wrongs of the
intifada itself, we could not leave the moral field to those
self-proclaimed moral arbiters.
Beyond that, the decade of the 1980s has seen an erosion of
Israel's moral position in the world for real or imagined
reasons. The political consequences of that erosion are clear to
behold, both in the form of new challenges to Israel's position
abroad and in increasing divisiveness and loss of self-confidence
at home.
There is also the larger question of the relationship between
morality and power which confronts every polity in determining its
policies and actions and which we as Jews must fully confront
once again as a result of our return to statehood. Those of us
who have argued that the reestablishment of the State of Israel
is not only morally challenging but enables Jews to test the
norms of their civilization and the premises of their faith in
the most concrete and practical ways, must engage in
consideration of the issues of morality and power as they are
played out in the life and actions of the Jewish state and must
seek to develop guidelines for Israeli and Jewish public policy
through the most serious inquiry into the question. We view this
symposium as a step in that direction.
The symposium itself grows out of that special combination of
concern for the Jewish political tradition and the contemporary
Jewish public agenda which is characteristic of our Center and
has been the focal point of its work. Many of the contributors
have been involved in that effort as Fellows, Associates or
Overseers of the Jerusalem Center or members of one of its
workshops. Others have not. Nevertheless, the responses of all
are consciously Jewish and deliberately rest upon -- and usually
explicitly refer to -- Jewish sources, beginning with the Bible.
In most cases they felicitously combine this Jewish grounding
with a consideration of the concerns and works of Western
political philosophy. Thus we find Machiavelli contrasted with
Bahya ibn Pakuda, Hillel the Elder linked with Emanuel Kant, and
halakhah weighed in connection with the principles of natural law
and justice. In that respect this symposium is potentially a
significant contribution to political thought, dealing as it does
with a universal question from a perspective that is at once
universal and appropriately rooted in the concrete situation of a
concrete people.
Our authors move back and forth between the general and the
specific, interweaving the two just as they interweave Jewish and
general sources. The end result is that, within a wide spectrum
of viewpoints presented by people of varying backgrounds and
vocations, cutting across much of the political spectrum -- left,
right, and center -- we have a near consensus that fits squarely
within the mainstream of Jewish political thought. There is
general agreement on the existence of absolute moral parameters,
binding public as well as private behavior, states as well as
individuals, but with much room for consequential moral decisions
within those parameters, more for states than for individuals.
Moreover, there is a general consensus that moral decisions
require serious consideration of ends and means, with certain
highly moral ends justifying means which if taken alone would be
of questionable morality, while at the same time certain means
are too immoral to be considered, even for the best ends.
Throughout all of the contributions, with a few exceptions, runs
a strong rejection of oversimplification. This effort to avoid
oversimplification unites people whose conclusions with regard to
the specific problems of Israel and the intifada and in relation
to the Palestinian Arabs are very different indeed. It is what
makes this symposium a dialogue in which people talk to one
another from within a common moral understanding rather than
separately or past one another. This is reflected in the way in
which there are overlapping references in the essays although
none of the participants saw those of any of the others.
There is a frequent recurrence to the teachings of Machiavelli,
sometimes with approval, sometimes through explication, and
sometimes in rejection. The dilemmas of Abraham Lincoln and the
American Civil War receive their share of attention, as does
Franklin Delano Roosevelt's incarceration of Japanese Americans
at the beginning of World War II. But within those parameters
there is a vigorous discussion which tends to meet in the middle
around such basic Jewish political principles as legitimacy of
national self-expression, the necessity for developing the world
community as a community of nations, the need to wrestle with
moral questions in the exercise of power, and the moral dignity
that striving brings to human actions, even when human behavior
is inevitably flawed.
In this the Bible particularly and halakhic sources secondarily
play a major role for most of the participants, whether they lean
toward religious Orthodoxy or religious liberalism. Nor is
Scripture quoted as proof test as is often the case in
theological discussions of these questions. Rather it is
searched for political teachings the way it should be. Only when
some of our political analysts slide over into a homiletic
posture do they sometimes violate this consensus. Abraham,
Joseph and his brothers, Moses, Joshua, Jeptha, and Samuel
provide us with hard teachings about the relationship between
morality and power according to our essayists, most of whom
remain "hard-nosed" throughout.
The participants are a varied group. Seven are Israelis and
fourteen Americans. Seven are political scientists by training
and four others are political philosophers or political
commentators whose background was originally in other
disciplines. Six have published in the field of Jewish political
studies. Other academic disciplines represented are economics,
history, law and sociology. Six are political activists. One is
a Jewish communal worker. Two others are Jewish communal
leaders. One was a judge, one was a member of the United States
Cabinet, and another occupies a similar position in Israel. Five
are rabbis including leading figures in the three mainstream
branches of contemporary Judaism.
What can we conclude from all this? There is clear agreement
that nations and all but fundamentally immoral states have the
right to survive and the obligation to protect the lives and
security of their members or citizens. In doing so they may use
appropriate methods which in themselves would not be considered
moral from an absolute perspective, such as deceit and force,
provided that they are used in context with appropriate humility
and subject to the limitations of certain absolute moral
parameters. It is generally understood that , given human flaws,
mistakes will be made and excesses committed, some of which
should be punished if found to be deliberate, but always with an
understanding of the circumstances involved.
There is further agreement that however high the obligation of
leaders of states to act to protect the lives of their citizens
and those under their protection, they must also consider
the lives and legitimate concerns of those whom they are
confronting. Moreover, since in this imperfect world individuals
may have to pay a more drastic price than do their nations or
states, as for example when an individual sacrifices his life in
a war to preserve his nation which, while paying a price,
survives as a collectivity, that is part of the tragedy of human
existence. It calls for reciprocal concern on the part of
the national or state leadership to try to safeguard the members
of the body politic.
While a number of the essayists hint at or clearly state their
reservations about Israel's present policies, with regard to the
peace-making process as a whole, and particularly with regard to
the future of the territories, only one suggests that Israel is
not morally justified, nay, required to preserve order in those
territories as long as it is responsible for them. Indeed, even
those who do not want Israel to retain permanent control over the
territories make their argument on prudential as much as on moral
grounds.
The moral issues posed by Israel's situation are among the most
difficult that humans confront in our time since they involve
conflicting rights as well as interests and the problem of a
people who were committed for nearly 4,000 years to maintaining
the highest of moral standards, even when exercising political
power. No symposium, nor for that matter, no philosopher can be
expected to resolve these problems. What is necessary, however,
is to seriously consider them on the highest plane but with an
eye to the most practical application of the results of that
inquiry, without abandoning either the exercise of political
power or the pursuit of justice.
