> So what are you saying, Luke, suicide bombing lacks
> any redeeming merits,
No. The _current_ wave of suicide bombing lacks any redeeming merits for the following reasons:
1) It directly leads to the deaths of many Israelis and, indirectly, to the deaths of many more Palestinians. (One does not absolve Israel's government of responsibility by observing that the current cycle of violence would come to a halt if Palestianian terrorism ceased.)
2) I suspect that the best offer the Palestinians could hope to extract from Israel is the one Arafat failed to negotiate for at Camp David in 2000. Further terror will not yield further concessions.
> but maybe not, because it makes Israel have to think about negotiating?
This tension
> shows the limits and stupidities of your utilitarianism.
I thought you wanted to leave philosophy out of our political conversations. (Although, of course, that's impossible: the question isn't whether or not to discuss it, but rather whether it ought to be discussed explicitly or implicitly.)
> Here's a real life version of the "framed!" counterexample. the
utilitarian has to
> entertain the possibility that it may be morally right, indeed morally
obligatory, to
> blow up discoteques full of teenagers, buses carrying grandmas
> and babies, coffee shops packed with Israeli opponents
> of Sharon's policies, if that will have beneficial results. That's pretty
sick, if you ask
> me.
No more disgusting than what was _necessary_ (in the strictest counterfactual sense) to win the second World War. It's funny, Justin: like most, you strike me as one who reverts to consequentialism when the stakes are hightest.
> The Intifadeh, when it was fairly peaceful (violence limited to stone
throwing and the > like), did put pressure on Israel to negotiate. And I
don't see
> how any fair-minded pesron could object to Palestinian military attacks on
the Israeli > occupying forces, though whether these would be prudent would
have be
> carefully assessed. But suicide bombings have been strategic as well as a
moral
> disaster.
We agree that the violence of the current intifada is a disaster in every respect. I'd like to agree with you that stone throwing and the like alone would've been enough to get Israel to exchange land for peace, but that seems pretty implausible to me.
-- Luke
> jks