Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices: War and National Security

Introduction

xi Introduction Seek peace and pursue it. (Psalms 34:15) When you take the field against your enemies … (Deuteronomy 20:1) SOME TRADITIONS do not approve of war under any circumstances. For example, Quakers, as a matter of conscience, do not fight in any wars, even if attacked. On the other end of the spectrum, ancient Roman religions valorized warriors as heroes. Furthermore, the language of “holy war” has appeared a number of times throughout the course of history and is used by some religious proponents today. As the opening quotations from the Bible indicate, Judaism lies somewhere in between these stances. On the one hand, Judaism certainly does not see war as an ideal state. As a result, every major prayer in Jewish liturgy—including the Amidah, said three times daily, the Kaddish, said multiple times daily, and the Birkat ha-Mazon, grace after meals—ends with a prayer for peace. And yet, the Torah spells out some rules for war, and the Bible depicts many wars, some of which were commanded by God. Furthermore, the Babylonian Talmud demands that we defend ourselves: “If someone comes to kill you, rise up early in the morning and kill him first” (Sanh. 72a). In addition, it delineates the standards and procedures for determining whether several kinds of wars are justified, and both the Torah and the Talmud define criteria for acceptable military conduct in war. Historically, however, Jews have not had a lot of experience in making decisions about which wars to wage. This is because Jews have ruled themselves only three times in Jewish history: in the period from the conquest of the Land of Israel to the fall of the First Jewish Commonwealth (approximately 12th century B.C.E. to 586 B.C.E.); during the Maccabean period (165 B.C.E. to 63 B.C.E.); and in the modern State of Israel (1948 to present). As a result, the guidelines that come from the Talmud and later Jewish legal literature may not be relevant to modern military conditions. This is for two reasons: first, these guidelines were often created in the absence of real military experience; second, modern military technology transforms the nature of war—at least in degree, if not in kind. Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices: WAR AND NATIONAL SECURITY xii Thus, in order to gain insight from the Jewish tradition on issues regarding war, we need to consider not only traditional sources, but also the values that have shaped the Jewish tradition’s views on war and the Jewish tradition in general. Israelis’ attempts to consider traditional sources and values in the course of defending their country on a daily basis prove illuminating to the discussion in this volume, especially because these attempts to follow the guidance of traditional Jewish sources on war are grounded in contemporary military realities. The experiences of Jews living outside of Israel also prove instructive as they take part in their own nations’ debates over proper rationales for going to war and acceptable wartime conduct. Some of the questions that have arisen since the earliest human conflicts began are the same as those we face now. They include: • Is it ever proper to attack someone else? If so, what are cogent justifications for doing so? If not, what should you do if someone attacks you? • Does it make a difference if you are seeking not to kill, but only to disarm or injure the other person to remove him or her as a threat? How would you apply that analysis to nations at war? • What should happen to the spoils of war? Why? • What should happen to prisoners of war? Why? • Are the justifications and rules of conduct for defense and attack the same for nations as they are for individuals? If not, what are the differences? Contemporary factors, however, have changed the ways that war is waged in the modern world, raising new questions: • Given the authority of the United Nations and the World Court to adjudicate disputes, must one try these avenues of resolving conflict before going to war? • Do the catastrophic implications of the potential use of nuclear and biological weapons undermine all justifications for war? • New technologies such as stealth bombers, drones, and longrange missiles make it easier to kill people at a distance. What are the moral implications of these developments? Introduction xiii • The technology of modern communications can help to avert war by allowing people to convey their intentions clearly and instantaneously, but it...