In their current war against Hamas, the Israelis recently bombed buildings at the Islamic University of Gaza. As reported in the Chronicle, an Israeli army spokeswoman said the facilities had been used as “a research and development center for Hamas weapons.”
In response to the bombing, the Canadian Union of Public Employees in Ontario, the largest labor union representing staff members at the province’s universities, announced its plan to introduce a resolution at its forthcoming conference to ban Israeli academics from all schoolarly activity at Ontario universities if they do not first condemn Israeli operations in Gaza.
The Globe and Mail quotes CUPE Ontario president Sid Ryan as saying, ”Attacking an institution of learning is just beyond the pale. They deliberately targeted an institution of learning. That’s what the Nazis did.”
CUPE could use a refresher course in just-war theory (if indeed the union’s leaders and its members ever studied it in the first place). In light of the Gaza war, Eli Bernstein, a commentator on Middle Eastern affairs, reviews the general principles of this doctrine, which was formulated by Aristotle, Cicero, and Augustine, and incorporated in modern times in the U.N. Charter.
Writing at Pajamas Media, Bernstein painstakingly shows that Israel’s military operation, aimed at preventing rocket fire by Hamas into Israel and thus protecting the lives of one million civilians within firing range, fulfills all the criteria for justice (justice preceding the war, justice in war, and post-war justice).
Another requirement of justice in war is that the use of force must be proportional to the desired outcome. Israel’s efforts to eliminate facilities for producing (as well as stockpiling, launching, etc.) weapons are compatible with its just cause. Its efforts are also proportional, insofar as it is using only a small part of its military power, pinpointing as much as possible its targets so as to avoid harming civilians, and has no territorial ambitions over Gaza.
Within this framework, bombing buildings at the Islamic University used for the research and development of weapons is not “beyond the pale,” but rather morally and legally legitimate, i.e., just. Academic organizations such as CUPE need to rethink their blind and bigoted condemnation of Israel’s need and right to defend itself.