Some 150 people came to Yeshivat Or Chaim Yeshiva on Nov. 7 to hear MP Irwin Cotler, Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, Wall Street Journal foreign affairs columnist Bret Stephens and Prof. Michael Walzer speak about war, human rights and morality. Elliott Malamet, director of the Jewish teacher education program at York University, moderated the discussion.

The panel discussion was part of Torah in Motion’s eighth annual Renewing Our Spirit conference, held in memory of Nathan Krauss, and sponsored by the Krauss family.

During the discussion, Walzer, professor emeritus of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study in New Jersey, raised the subject of Israel’s settler movement.

“The greatest threat to the existence of a Jewish state is the far right in Israel and the settler movement,” he said, to a mingling of clapping and boos from the audience.

“The goal of the settler movement, which they are rapidly achieving, is to make a two-state solution impossible. If the two-state solution is impossible, then we will be faced with one state… And that one state will not be for long a Jewish state.”

“Your logic is bogus!” someone in the audience cried out, which led some people to start yelling at each other.

At that point, Malamet intervened with some stern words. “Just because you hear something you don’t agree with doesn’t mean the rules of discourse get thrown out the window,” he said.

Walzer also spoke about the importance of morality when fighting wars against guerrilla and terrorist groups.

“In these kinds of wars, where people ruthlessly exploit the civilian population, if you become like them, which is what they want you to do, you will lose,” he said.

“If we fight well, with patience and skill and determination, we can win.”

Stephens, who from 2002 to 2004 was the youngest-ever editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post, discussed his worry that Israel’s focus on moral performance has clouded its judgment.

“By becoming so concerned about our own moral performance, we lose sight of a basic objective, or we lose sight of the facts of our enemies’ moral performance, and we lose sight, too, of an overriding need to defeat these people, and to kill them, more often than not,” he said.

“I’ve been to Gaza many times. In Gaza, Hamas is overwhelmingly popular. And that fact needs to be taken into account considering our overall moral question.”

Stephens also touched on worldwide perceptions of Israel, disagreeing with Walzer, who stated that Israel has support in Europe.

“One of the facts that I find most striking is that as Israel has become increasingly discriminating and careful in the way it goes about conducting its operations vis-à-vis Hamas, Hezbollah, etc., the fury of the rest of the world has increased,” he said.

“I do not agree with [Walzer’s] characterization… that Israel has friends in Europe,” he added, to applause from the audience. “It’s depressing for me to consider what is happening on that continent vis-à-vis reviews of Israel. I think among the older generation there is a vestigial sense of admiration or obligation toward Israel, whether out of guilt or whatever. Among my generation, there’s no restraint.

“My fear is an Israel that has to wait upon the ‘supreme emergency’ in order to act with decision and vigour… I think there’s a danger in saying we have to wait upon events, we have to wait, in effect, until the Iranians are at our throats before we act, because you’re rolling the dice on your children’s future that way.”

Rabbi Soloveichik – associate rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in New York and a doctoral student in philosophy of religion at Princeton University – discussed the rules of war in Jewish tradition.

“Every innocent life, and this is in the original axiom of Jewish ethics, is of infinite value, therefore the taking of life is sinful, and that sin cannot be committed for any reason,” he said. “[However] the Jewish sensitivity to the preciousness of human life mandates that if a pursuer can’t be stopped and the pursued saved…without the loss of life, then that is the course of action that must be pursued.

“If one society is threatened by another, if that threat can be negated by targeting the direct source of the threat… then that course must be pursued. But if the only way to neutralize the threat is with collateral damage to the civilians, then a state, acting in self-defence of its citizens, which is essentially the equivalent of a state acting in defence of itself, is entitled and indeed obligated to act to neutralize that threat.

“If necessary, the death of civilians is cause for sorrow, but not guilt. And so the Israeli action is tragic, but not sinful.”

Cotler, an international human rights lawyer and Canada’s justice minister and attorney general from 2003 to 2006, focused on how Israel is being delegitimized.

“Israel, like any other state, is responsible for any violations of human rights and humanitarian law,” he said. “The important point here is, like any other state… Israel is being singled out for differential and discriminatory treatment in enforcement and application of such law.

“The problem [is] when they single out only one state in the international community and require that state to be held accountable while all others, and in particular terrorist states, are given a kind of exculpatory immunity.”

He also discussed the constant referrals to Israel as an apartheid state.

“Calling Israel an apartheid state is not simply using a derogatory metaphor, because apartheid is defined as a crime against humanity… to refer to Israel, and indict it as, an apartheid state, as a crime against humanity, you are effectively calling for the dismantling of that state… But if that is not enough, you refer also to Israel as a Nazi state, so the dismantling of that state is not only something that is required because it is a crime against humanity but it is morally and legally obligatory because an apartheid, Nazi state has no right to exist and the international committee has every obligation to do away with it.”

Cotler noted that 80 per cent of the resolutions of the United Nations Council of Human Rights “have singled out one member state – Israel – while the major human rights violators – Iran, Sudan, and the like – enjoy exculpatory immunity. Not one resolution against them.  

He added that “at every council hearing there’s an agenda. Item seven – a permanent agenda item seven – speaks of Israeli human rights violations in the occupied territories. Agenda item number eight speaks of human rights violations in the rest of the world. There is a permanent agenda item singling out Israel for condemnation, even before the meeting or hearing begins.”

Cotler also noted that each year, the UN has 20 or more resolutions condemning Israel – more than those against the rest of the world combined.

On the topic of Iran, he noted that it “has  not only been a serious violator of UN council resolutions, but it’s been a serial deceiver in terms of its lies and deception… Iran has already committed the crime of incitement to genocide…The governments can initiate an interstate complaint against Iran before the international court of justice.

“I’m a great believer in naming and shaming, and turning the delegitimization around.”