World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

Whenever there is a war, such as the one going on in the Gaza Strip, we are all tempted to choose one side or the other.  The need to make a moral judgment in the face of killing is probably inevitable, but it ill serves our role as analysts.  The killing is evil, but it is not explained by evil.  Wars are fought largely because both sides have persuaded themselves that the “other” deserves to die.  As analysts we need to figure out how “desert” is determined and try to address the underlying cause of that rationalization.  The need to maintain that clinical perspective is necessary because the Israelis and Palestinians are now far beyond the point where they can view the conflict with clear eyes.

The death toll in the Gaza war increased quite dramatically overnight.  Thirteen Israeli soldiers were killed, and that is the highest number of soldiers killed in recent years.  The Palestinian death toll stands at more than 425, with the vast majority of those dead civilians.

Roger Berkowitz has written an essay in The American Interest that is incredibly sobering.  He thinks about the possibility that there is no solution to the crisis between the Israelis and the Palestinians.  We are reluctant to think about conflicts that defy reconciliation–even the atrocity of apartheid ultimately disappeared.  But Berkowitz’s rumination leads us to a different way of thinking about the nature of world politics: that the nature of the state, the bedrock of the international order since the 17th century, must be profoundly transformed.  If the problem cannot be solved, perhaps it is time to redefine the problem.