About the author ESSaY

Gaza and After: An Interview with

Michelle Sieff
Michelle Sieff is a freelance writer. An
Paul Berman
Africa specialist who has previously By Michelle Sieff March 2009
worked for the Eurasia Group, Human
Rights Watch, and the Open Society
Institute, her work has been published
in the Christian Science Monitor, The World
Today, InterPress News Service, World
Politics Review, the New York Sun, and other
publications.

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The gathering storm: Hamas in Gaza
PAUL BERMAN IS A writer on politics and literature, an editor at Dissent
and The New Republic, a professor of Journalism at New York University,
and a preeminent public intellectual. He has written or edited eight
books, including, most recently, Carl Sandburg: Selected Poems, edited
with an introduction, published by the Library of America in 2006.
Many of Berman’s political writings have analyzed progressive political move-
ments and their ideas as well as the political movements and ideologies that have
challenged these ideas in the modern era. In two of his books—A Tale of Two
Utopias, published in 1996 and Power and the Idealists, published in 2005—Berman
analyzed the intellectual evolution of the student radicals of 1968, both in the
United States and Europe. In Terror and Liberalism, published in 2003, Berman
examined the ideas which underpin radical Islamist political movements and il-
luminated the connections between Islamist and European totalitarian ideologies.
In the wake of Israel’s war against Hamas, I sat down with Paul
Berman to discuss the war, the Obama Administration and the Middle
East, and the persistence of antisemitism in our own time.

How have you judged Israel’s actions against Hamas? Do you think Israel
used disproportionate force against Hamas?

There is an obligation to live, which means that Israel has not just the
right but the obligation to defend herself. Judging
the proportionality of the Israeli actions runs into a
complication, though—something of a logical bind.
It is now and then noted in the press that Hamas, in
its charter, calls for the elimination of Israel—though,
actually, the charter goes further yet, which is almost
never noted. Article Seven of the charter, citing one of
the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, makes clear that
Hamas acknowledges a religious duty to kill the Jews. It’s
all pretty explicit. Which Jews in particular must be killed,
in order to bring about, as the charter puts it, the “Last
Hour?” Article Seven merely stipulates “the Jews”—which
leaves open the possibility, I would think, of killing all
of the Jews, or at least (judging from other sections of
the charter) the Jews who inhabit any place that is now
or used to be Islamic. In any case, the Jews of Israel.
“History has some experience with political
movements that proclaim in their founding
documents the intention of killing the Jews”
What is Israel trying to fend off, then? Two possibilities.
First: it’s not so hard to imagine that, if Hamas were allowed
to prosper unimpeded, and if its allies and fellow-thinkers
in Hezbollah and the Iranian government and its nuclear
program likewise prospered, the goal announced in Article
Seven could be largely achieved. History has some experi-
ence with political movements that proclaim in their found-
ing documents the intention of killing the Jews. And so, a
first possibility is that Israel is up against military enemies
who have every intention of committing a genocide, and
who might conceivably succeed. The possibility that Israel
is defending itself against a genocide ought to lead any rea-
sonable person to grant the Israelis a degree of latitude in
judging what is a proportionate action—even if, as Michael
Walzer points out, an invocation of genocidal dangers
could also end up as a justification for doing too much.
However, a second possibility. The Hamas charter
is full of wild language—not just the part about kill-
ing the Jews, but also the invocation of the Protocols
of Zion and of an antisemitic theory of history. But
maybe all of this stuff should be regarded merely as an
overwrought cry of pain—an expression of powerless-
ness. Maybe there is a kind of pathos of victimhood
and suffering in Hamas’ ideas, and not much more.
I think that, around the world, a lot of people look
at Hamas in that light. They see in Hamas the ugliness
that clings to the powerless, and, out of compassion, they
excuse the ugliness. Or they choose to overlook it, in the
way that, out of courtesy, you might choose not even to
notice a dreadful deformity on someone’s face or body.
Now, if Hamas were, in fact, extremely weak and
doomed to remain so—if Hamas were capable of noth-
ing more than lobbing primitive rockets at Israel, which
might kill a few people but not more than a few—well, the
question of proportionality in Israel’s military response
would look a little different. Israel, in that case, would
have acted just now in a grotesquely criminal way, like
some deranged police force that, in its efforts to put
down a street gang, has ended up leveling an entire city.
But which of these is the correct analysis—that Hamas
poses a genocidal threat in the making? Or that Hamas
expresses mostly the ugliness of the powerless, and poses a
relatively small danger? Everything hangs on the answer to
that question. People tend to assume that the proportional-
ity of a military action should be measured against what has
already taken place—that somebody who has been attacked
has the right to counter-attack on roughly the same level.
“The law of even-Steven,” in Walzer’s dismissive phrase.
But it is the future that has to be taken into account.
Unfortunately, we cannot predict the future. We stand
in the dark, and we make guesses. Those of us who look
on the Gaza war from thousands of miles of away enjoy
the luxury of speculating this way or that way. But if you
were in the Israeli government, it wouldn’t be so easy to
gamble on the answer. So Israel is in a bind. No matter what
the Israelis choose to do, they have to recognize that they
might be tragically wrong—either in their failure to defend
themselves, or in the suffering they inflict on other people.
One aspect of the proportionality debate has been
pretty much ignored, and this has to do with the rest of
the world, and not Israel—the rest of us. People ought
to have noticed by now that any number of humanitar-
ian catastrophes lie just over the horizon and are per-
fectly predictable—the catastrophes that will follow
Gaza and After: An Interview with Paul Berman 2
ineluctably from any future wars in Gaza or Lebanon, Back in the 1930s, people used to assume that, once the
or from an attack that Israel, out of fear of the Iranian Nazis had found their way into a position of responsibility
nuclear program, could conceivably launch on Iran. for the well-being of Germany, they would stop saying
Now, if the rest of the world really wants to worry and wild things and would certainly think twice about put-
be upset over humanitarian disasters, there would be every ting their program into action. Power was supposed to
reason to start worrying right now over the prospect of sober the Nazis up. But maybe there is something about
those future wars. A humanitarian logic ought to lead us to ideologies of group hatred that makes it hard to sober up.
ask, how can those wars be stopped, pre-emptively, so to Then again, I think that a certain number of people see
speak—instead of merely deploring them, after the fact. I nothing especially crazy or hateful in Hamas’ arguments
know that a lot of people would say that, well, Israel ought and goals. They see points that are fairly reasonable, even
to dismantle its West Bank settlements and do a thousand if Hamas’ way of expressing those points seems a little
other things to allow their enemies to calm down. Me, I’ve crude. The Jews should not be killed, all reasonable people
never had any patience for West Bank settlements, and agree; but (so goes a very popular argument) neither do
I can picture a lot of ways that Israel could improve. the Jews have a right to defend themselves. The Protocols
of the Elders of Zion is not a sophisticated document;
but Walt and Mearsheimer’s book “The Israel Lobby” is
“Power was supposed to sober the Nazis (in some people’s view) a sophisticated document. And
up. But maybe there is something about the sophisticated document makes the unsophisticated
ideologies of group hatred that makes it hard one seem like it is on to something. By reasoning in this
fashion, people end up concluding that Hamas’ doctrines
to sober up” have a purchase on truth—something that quite a few
people believe. But they choose not to say it because
they don’t want to look unsophisticated or coarse.
Still, it would be disingenuous not to notice another Anyway, history does not lack for genocides, and we
obvious reality. An Iran without a nuclear program would have to assume that a lot of people have figured that, for one
be in no danger of Israeli attack. Here is an impending war reason or another, genocide is a good idea. The people who
that rests on a single variable. Why not alter the variable? think in this fashion are not just the fanatics who engage in
Equally obvious: Israel is not going to launch a war against the massacres, but also a larger public that gazes from the
any of the groups on its own borders that remain at peace. sidelines without objecting, and sometimes even applauds.
Why not do everything possible to disarm those groups?
Protests, moral pressures, diplomatic pressures, not to During the Gaza conflict, there were several anti-Israel
mention grand international alliances, not to mention protests where Israel was routinely demonized as a
human rights reports!. There are a lot of things that could Nazi or Apartheid state. Why do you think so many
be done. But it may be that, around the world, some of activists, especially on the left, demonize Israel? Is it a
the people who weep over the sufferings caused by war sign of antisemitism?
would rather see still further wars than undertake even
the simplest and most obvious steps to avoid the wars. Oh, as Irving Howe said, “There is no heart so warm
that it doesn’t have a cold spot for the Jews.” We like
You laid out two interpretations of Hamas. Why do you to think of hatred of the Jews as a low, base sentiment
think so many outside observers are wedded to the that is entertained by nasty, ignorant people, wallow-
interpretation of Hamas as a weak, powerless organiza- ing in their own hatefulness. But normally it’s not like
tion? that. Hatred for the Jews has generally taken the form
of a lofty sentiment, instead of a lowly one—a noble
It’s human nature to believe that a political movement feeling embraced by people who believe they stand
like Hamas is weak—or, if it is strong, that its wild lan- for the highest and most admirable of moral views.
guage is merely blather, and not to be taken seriously. In the Middle Ages, Christians felt they were upholding

Gaza and After: An Interview with Paul Berman 3

the principles of universal redemption, and they looked on lack a state but because, on the contrary, they have a state.
the Jews as terrible people because the Jews had refused the They seem keen on keeping their state. And once again the
word of God—had insisted on remaining Jews. And so, the Jews are seen to be affirming a principle that high-minded
loftiest of religious sentiments led to hatred of the Jews. people used to uphold but have now rejected as antiquated.
In the 18th century, the Enlightenment philosophers In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, people with
looked on the Enlightenment itself as the loftiest form advanced ideas began to look on Christian hatred of the
of thought—the truest of all possible guides to universal Jews as a retrograde prejudice—and the advanced thinkers
justice and happiness. The Enlightenment philosophers de- embraced, instead, the pseudo-science of racism. They
tested Christianity because it was a font of superstition and no longer hated the Jews on religious grounds—they
oppression. But this only led them to despise the Jews even hated the Jews on racial grounds. The word “racism”
more—no longer because the Jews had refused the message originally applied to hatred of the Jews. Racial hatred
of Christianity, but because the Jews had engendered the seemed up to date. Today, however, racism itself has come
message of Christianity. And the damnable Jews insisted on to seem like a retrograde prejudice. And so, people with
remaining Jews, instead of repudiating religion altogether. advanced opinions hate the Jews on anti-racist grounds,
The religious wars wreaked all kinds of damage on and they regard the Jews as the world’s leading racists.
Europe. But the Treaty of Westphalia came along in 1648 And so forth. The unstated assumption is always
and put an end to religious wars by establishing a system the same. To wit: the universal system for man’s happi-
of states with recognized borders, each state with its ness has already arrived (namely, Christianity, or else
own religion. The new Westphalian system embodied Enlightenment anti-Christianity; the Westphalian
yet another Enlightenment idea of lofty ideals—the state system, or else the post-modern system of interna-
grandest guarantee of universal peace and justice. But tional institutions; racial theory, or else the anti-racist
the Jews were scattered throughout Europe, instead of doctrine in a certain interpretation). And the universal
being gathered together in a single state. The new state system for man’s happiness would right now have
system was supposed to be a comfortable shoe, and achieved perfection—were it not for the Jews. The
Jews are always standing in the way. The higher one’s
opinion of oneself, the more one detests the Jews.
The political left has always been of two minds on
“The Jews are always standing in the way. these matters. An opposition to anti-Semitism (and to
The higher one’s opinion of oneself, the all kinds of bigotry) did use to be one of the pillars of the
more one detests the Jews” modern left. But the left has always rested on more than
one pillar, and some of those pillars are a little wobbly. And
there is the left-wing conceit that, today at last, the system
for universal justice and happiness has been discovered,
the Jews were a pebble. And they insisted on remaining and should be embraced by all advanced thinkers. The
Jews, instead of helpfully disappearing. So one hated the cosmopolitan abolition of states, let us say. And here are
Jews for failing to conform to the new system of states. the Jews resisting it. In short, nothing leads more quickly
Today we have arrived at yet another idea about how to a disdain for the Jews than a feeling of smug loftiness.
to bring about universal peace and justice—the loftiest, To be sure, lofty disdain comes in different ver-
most advanced idea of our own time. Instead of looking on sions. In its respectable version, lofty disdain right now
well-established states with solid borders to keep the peace, adopts a position of long-faced sadness over Israel for
Westphalia-style, we look on states as a formula for oppres- being such a reprehensible place, for existing at a mo-
sion and war. Lofty opinion nowadays calls for post-state ment when states ought to fade away, for being racist, for
political systems, like the European Union. Unfortunately, perpetuating religion, for being an example of European
nowadays the Jews possess a state. Thus one hates the Jews imperialism, and so forth. One shakes one’s head in
in the name of lofty opinion, no longer because the Jews sorrowful regret that the Israelis are the way they are.

Gaza and After: An Interview with Paul Berman 4

 But the disdain takes another shape, too, which is cruder, and disasters are not among the hugest that have taken
though it follows more or less from the first version. In the place in the last sixty years, or even the last six years.
cruder version, the Jews are not just regrettable for being But the statistics, as I say, are irrelevant, given the
retrograde. Much worse: the Jews have done something peculiar philosophical light that people shine on Israel.
really terrible. By forming their state and standing by Israel’s struggle puts it at odds with the entire principle of
it, they have set out actively to oppose the principle of universal justice and happiness, as people imagine it—no
universal justice and happiness—the principle that de- matter how they choose to define the principle. Other coun-
crees that a people like the Jews should not have a state. tries commit relative crimes, which can be measured and
So, yes, the comparisons to apartheid—or, more compared. But Israel commits an absolute crime. In the end,
radically and these days more typically, to the Nazis. it is the grand accusation against the Jews, in ever newer
The comparison to the Nazis began to emerge in the versions: the Jews as cosmic enemy of the universal good.
1970s in Western Europe and also in the Arab world,
and by now it is pretty much everywhere you look. You sound like you might be talking about human
rights activists. Are you suggesting that human rights
activists are now acting in the service of an antisemitic
agenda?
“By comparing Israel to the Nazis, people
mean to suggest that Israel is likewise one of In the service of an antisemitic agenda? No, no, the phrase
the worst, most evil political institutions that is wrong. The only conscious program in the human rights
could possibly exist” movement is a good program. I hugely respect the Israeli
human rights activists. To try to keep track of what has
taken place during the Gaza war and may still be taking
place—this is totally necessary. We know very well that the
It’s a remarkable comparison in all kinds of ways, but IDF has done terrible things in Gaza—perhaps by not tak-
I’ll point out just one aspect. The Nazis are generally ing judicious care, or by falling into the temptations of blind
regarded as the worst, most evil political movement in all hatred, but mostly because any kind of warfare at all is what
of history—a political movement that not only committed it is. But how will we ever learn what exactly has been done,
crimes but stood for the principle of crime. By comparing if the human rights groups don’t work up their reports?
Israel to the Nazis, people mean to suggest that Israel is There is a human value merely in recording what has
likewise one of the worst, most evil political institutions taken place. If I myself had suffered in Gaza, I would
that could possibly exist. The accusation is cosmically definitely want human rights groups to come record
huge. And the cosmically huge accusation makes perfect what I had been through. Anyway, the Israeli human
sense—if you keep in mind the venerable idea that the rights groups help keep the IDF honest. And so forth
Jews stand in the way of mankind’s achievement of a with other human rights organizations—at least in
perfected system of universal justice and happiness. principle, even if there is a lot to say about the practise.
From the standpoint of the venerable idea, Israel’s Still, even those of us who think of ourselves as the
problems with its borders and its neighbors do not resemble friends and champions of the human rights movement—
the difficulties that other states have with their own even we ought to be able to look around and, in a spirit
borders and neighbors. There is no point in making statisti- of lucidity, notice a couple of peculiarities. I do think
cal comparisons—the comparisons that might show how that, in some of the human rights reports on Israeli
many people have been killed in Israel’s wars, or how many military action in the past, you could see a kind of in-built
people have been displaced from their homes by Israel, analytic distortion. The human rights investigators
compared to the number of people killed and displaced by work up analyses of what they ascertain to be facts; but
other wars and other states around the world. The statistics, their notion of facts excludes political motivations. And
if you looked at them, would reflect the fact that Israel is yet, if you ignore the political reasoning behind certain
a small place, and its borders none too large, and its wars kinds of violent acts, you really cannot account for

Gaza and After: An Interview with Paul Berman 5

what has happened. Once you have ruled out making
an examination of political motivations, you are abso-
lutely guaranteed to conclude that Israel has acted with
disproportionate force. It’s predictable in advance.
A further problem: the human rights groups make their
reports or accusations—and, somehow or another, the re-
ports and accusations end up resonating all over the world.
During the Gaza war, the front page of every major newspa-
per in the world was filled with reports and photos of Israeli
violence, which became, not for the first time, a world-wide
controversy. The same thing will happen, on a smaller scale,
when the human rights reports come out with their accusa-
tions of Israeli war crimes, in a few weeks or months. It is
as if all the news organizations of the world have agreed
that, if a major problem with human rights exists anywhere
in the Middle East, it comes from the one country in the
region that most obviously cares about human rights. The
greater is someone’s high-mindedness about this kind of
thing, the more that person is likely to end up singling out
Israel for its assault on human rights. Statistics make up
a big part of the human rights picture of reality; and yet,
judged statistically, something has got to be very odd in
the repeated emphatic focus on a single place. These are
the peculiarities of the human rights movement right now.
Some of the most serious criticisms of Israel and Zion-
ism come from Jews themselves. How do you interpret
this response?
Well, sometimes the criticisms are rightly made. But,
yes, a very curious phenomenon does pop up now and
then. An old phenomenon. Back in the time of the
European ghettos, most of the Jews were stuck behind
the walls, and were despised for being there. But some
of the Jews got out, and they did their best to blend into
the majority population, and they even did their best to
highlight the difference between themselves and their
despised ghetto brethren. I happen just now to be read-
ing Bernard Lewis on Lessing, the German writer.
I quote Bernard Lewis: “Lessing, perhaps the greatest
of European philosemites, subtly realizes this attitude. In
one of his plays, a vulgar and loud-mouthed antisemitic
servant, suddenly discovering that his revered master is
a Jew, tries to atone for his previously hostile remarks
by observing in defense of the Jews that ‘there are Jews
who are not at all Jewish.’ Some Jews responded to this
kind of defense and implied invitation with eager en-
thusiasm, others with outrage. Both kinds of responses
can still be found among Jews in the present day.”
“[T]his election has been the most inspiring
event in American history”
Lessing lived in the 18th century, and Lewis wrote
the lines I’ve just quoted in the 1980s, in his book
Semites & Anti-Semites. But it’s really about our own
moment, isn’t it? There do seem to be a fair number of
Jews who are tremendously eager to show how innocent
they are—unlike the other Jews, the guilty ones.
What does the election of Barack Obama mean for
America? Do you think that American support for Israel
will continue under his Administration?
I’m enthused by Obama. And, in my enthusiasm, I find
myself thinking: this election has been the most inspiring
event in American history. The American Revolution was
inspiring, and the Civil War and Lincoln likewise, and
Franklin Roosevelt and the victory over fascism, and all
that—inspiring events because they signaled big forward
steps for democracy. But there has always been something
wrong with America, and the claim to be democratic has
always contained an extra clause. And so, each of those
big successes in the American past has been accompanied
by a small, unobtrusive asterisk, which leads your eye to
the bottom of the page, where you find the extra clause,
which says: “Democracy is fine and good for most people,
and yet, for various unfortunate reasons, one part of the
American population is hereby excluded.” The asterisk
has meant that America is living a lie. Even at America’s
grandest moments. But no longer! Not on this one point,
anyway. The election just now is the first large event in
American history that can be recorded without an asterisk.
The old-fashioned antisemitic right-wing is com-
pletely on the outs, for now. As for the anti-Zionist left in
America: The Nation magazine, the Answer movement,
the professors who want to boycott Israel (now, that’s an
Gaza and After: An Interview with Paul Berman 6
interesting phenomenon!)—these kinds of tendencies
are pretty marginal, in America. The views of The Nation
magazine on the Middle East are represented in the
degree of about five percent in the Obama administration.
We have every reason to believe that President Obama
will be totally sympathetic to Israel’s principle policy,
namely, the policy of continuing to exist. I don’t know
everything that Obama will do—but he won’t adopt his
measures on the basis of an unstated antipathy to Israel.

“There is every reason for the United States

to do whatever can be done to help the
Palestinians to a better life, liberated from
these pathological ideologies”

Now, if the new administration were capable of taking

a wider view of the problem in the Middle East than the
Israelis themselves are sometimes capable of taking—
would that be bad? It’s good that Obama has expressed a
compassion for the Israelis who have lately suffered—but
also for the Palestinians. There is every reason to weep for
Gaza, even if we can understand why the government of
Israel is not awash right now in those particular tears. And
there is every reason for the United States to do whatever
can be done to help the Palestinians to a better life, liber-
ated from these pathological ideologies whose adherents
keep condemning their fellow Palestinians to ever lower
rungs of suffering and sorrow. I don’t know how much the
United States can do to help the Palestinians throw off
Hamas and a number of other groups, but, however much it
is, I hope that Obama does it. To be pro-Israel is good—but
the United States should show herself to be pro-Palestinian,
too, in the simple belief that, in the long run, a pro-Israel
position has to be pro-Palestinian, too, and vice versa.