The Art of War

September 6, 2014 12:20 PM

In discursive terms, war – if it is not a total war of annihilation – constitutes a form of discourse between enemies. The Art of War: how the Israeli Defense Forces are using critical theory.
posted by stonepharisee (19 comments total)

Previously on this subject: Nakatomi Space
posted by pmdboi at 12:32 PM on September 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

This exemplifies one of my big problem with the entire post-modernist approach to political thought. If you're not working in simple terms with clear ethical principles, you're just as likely to be appropriated by the enemy as if you'd been working for them. This is exactly what happened with Marx in the Soviet Union, and it's what's happening with the body of critical theory here.
posted by cthuljew at 12:50 PM on September 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Yup, but clear ethical principles are the first thing to go when you become seriously concerned with getting and wielding power.
posted by languagehat at 12:53 PM on September 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Which is why I'm an anarchist! \o/
posted by cthuljew at 12:59 PM on September 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

[The IDF] used none of the city’s streets, roads, alleys or courtyards, or any of the external doors, internal stairwells and windows, but moved horizontally through walls and vertically through holes blasted in ceilings and floors. This form of movement, described by the military as ‘infestation’, seeks to redefine inside as outside, and domestic interiors as thoroughfares.

WTF???? What about the people who live there and happen to be in the way??? Reading on...

‘Imagine it – you’re sitting in your living-room, which you know so well; this is the room where the family watches television together after the evening meal, and suddenly that wall disappears with a deafening roar, the room fills with dust and debris, and through the wall pours one soldier after the other, screaming orders. You have no idea if they’re after you, if they’ve come to take over your home, or if your house just lies on their route to somewhere else. The children are screaming, panicking. Is it possible to even begin to imagine the horror experienced by a five-year-old child as four, six, eight, 12 soldiers, their faces painted black, sub-machine-guns pointed everywhere, antennas protruding from their backpacks, making them look like giant alien bugs, blast their way through that wall?’

Ah. That seems perfectly fine then. Surely that won't breed more ill will.
posted by RedOrGreen at 1:03 PM on September 6, 2014 [4 favorites]

I'm surprised at how many people take this seriously. What the IDF is saying is just a fancy way to describe demolishing parts of an urban environment for some kind of tactical advantage. I bet Kokhavi had a good laugh about it later.
posted by fivebells at 1:04 PM on September 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

I think it's possible to have both clear ethical principles and respect the complexity of reality without using ethical clarity in service to oppression. The notion that this isn't possible seems to me to be a childish nihilism that sees a difficult task and rejects it in preference for a different kind of clarity that's no less false and prone to abuse for coercive purposes. The Kochs and their ilk are living proof that the absence of principle can be used as a powerful tool of oppression, too.
posted by saulgoodman at 1:07 PM on September 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

I keep thinking of Orwell's point about language being used to make palatable the indefensible.
posted by fatbird at 1:34 PM on September 6, 2014

"Ethnic cleansing" just wasn't fancy enough.
posted by Artw at 1:39 PM on September 6, 2014 [4 favorites]

WTF???? What about the people who live there and happen to be in the way???

I believe the Likud party line is "they shouldn't have elected Hamas in the first place".
posted by Talez at 1:43 PM on September 6, 2014

I keep thinking of Orwell's point about language being used to make palatable the indefensible.

This stuff makes me so mad I have a hard time engaging it. Bullshit used as cover.
posted by saulgoodman at 1:47 PM on September 6, 2014

Hamas didn't even have anything to do with the pretext for the latest land grab, according to the official investigations.
posted by saulgoodman at 1:48 PM on September 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Hamas didn't even have anything to do with the pretext for the latest land grab, according to the official investigations.

The overarching reasoning behind the continued Gaza blockade and the human suffering contained within has been the Hamas governance (and subsequent purging of Fatah) of the Gaza strip.
posted by Talez at 1:57 PM on September 6, 2014

‘Imagine it – you’re sitting in your living-room, which you know so well; this is the room where the family watches television together after the evening meal, and suddenly that wall disappears with a deafening roar, the room fills with dust and debris, and through the wall pours one soldier after the other, screaming orders. You have no idea if they’re after you, if they’ve come to take over your home, or if your house just lies on their route to somewhere else. The children are screaming, panicking. Is it possible to even begin to imagine the horror experienced by a five-year-old child as four, six, eight, 12 soldiers, their faces painted black, sub-machine-guns pointed everywhere, antennas protruding from their backpacks, making them look like giant alien bugs, blast their way through that wall?’

Terry Gilliam must be so proud.
posted by scalefree at 2:08 PM on September 6, 2014 [7 favorites]

Terry Gilliam must be so proud.
The people I took to that movie when it first ran were very mad at me!
It wouldn't have been so bad, but one of them was my wife.
posted by hexatron at 3:28 PM on September 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

I keep thinking that Israel learned a whole lot of lessons from how the Jews were treated by Germany in the lead up to World War II

I also keep wishing that they had learned lessons of compassion rather than efficiency
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:36 PM on September 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

Yup, but clear ethical principles are the first thing to go when you become seriously concerned with getting and wielding power.

Ethical principles, yes. But I think often we assume those getting and wielding power are crude and not theoretically informed, when in fact they very much are. Plenty of ethical theorists of both the left and the right can and have been repurposed for political effect, which must be an odd thing to see happen to your own ideas.
posted by Dip Flash at 3:52 PM on September 6, 2014

Firstly, DoctorFedora, this is either a humorous piece or the author was having his leg pulled. More importantly, your criticism is both false and extraordinarily offensive.

It's false because Israel is fighting a literal war against literal attackers, backed by neighboring states that are hundreds of times larger than it. Israel's military casualties in operations like these come about specifically because it is not willing to countenance the huge number of civilian casualties that would be caused by normal military methods. Palestinian health, life expectancy, and child mortality are surprisingly unaffected by this conflict; they are better than most places in the region and in fact many places in the so-called developed world. It is ignorant or delusional to compare this to the German machinery of death, which applied industrial techniques to the business of murdering unarmed and inoffensive civilians.

Finally, the comparison is especially offensive because it is attacking Jews for being victims. It is the old Christian blood libel, secularised and brought up to date: everything Jews do is worse; because Jews should have learned their lesson.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:05 PM on September 6, 2014 [8 favorites]

Palestinian health, life expectancy, and child mortality are surprisingly unaffected by this conflict; they are better than most places in the region and in fact many places in the so-called developed world. It is ignorant or delusional to compare this to the German machinery of death, which applied industrial techniques to the business of murdering unarmed and inoffensive civilians.

Only in the West Bank. In the Gaza Strip the life expectancy is on average 5 years lower and infant mortality is almost twice as high.
posted by Talez at 4:08 PM on September 6, 2014 [2 favorites]