You can’t support a “lesser evil” Genocide

By
Malcolm Evans
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44
905

Some writers have a way with words that just nail an issue. One such is Caitlin Johnstone, an independent reader-supported journalist from Melbourne. Here’s what she wrote on the subject of Genocide;

“You can’t support a “lesser evil” Genocide. That’s not a thing. Past a certain line some things are just plain evil, and if Genocide is not on the other side of that line for you, then it makes no sense for you to talk about “evil” – or any other moral distinction for that matter.”

By excusing a Genocide, the single worst thing someone can be a party to, as a forgivable infraction, because it feels less heinous than someone else’s identical support for it, you make all moral distinctions nonsensical. To do that is to live your life with your head in a moral universe where good and bad have no meaning apart from how things make you “feel”.

While you can say that you support one genocidal monster over another genocidal monster because you find them otherwise more acceptable, what you can’t do is claim you are supporting any kind of “lesser evil”. 

Genocide is genocide – “once you’ve have crossed into the same moral landscape that would argue for supporting a six-headed Hitler over a seven-headed Hitler, you are no longer standing in a place where it makes sense to talk about good and evil, at all.”

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Caitlin Johnstone’s writings can be found at; 

https://substack.com/@caitlinjohnstone

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/07/no_author/genocide-monster-drops-out-endorses-fellow-genocide-monster/

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2023/07/17/capitalism-is-a-giant-scam/

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2023/07/16/assange-exposes-the-empires-true-face-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix/

 

44 COMMENTS

  1. That is a line that can’t be crossed. Netanyahu talking to Congress may be fine as fuck with the Fascists but it’s a crime pic for the alleged Left. It will break up the rich-funded ‘Left’. Who wants to be in the picture? Not the Dem Presidential candidate. A Dem who claps at the genocidest will be known by that forever. A major sacrifice for their donors. And doing the bidding of their donors these years means definitionally self-sacrifice is not in their bones.

  3. Although I agree that we cannot support any genocide, this really has nothing to do with the backside of the world small-fry New Zealand. This is someone else’s problem.

    • This is USA’s problem with them being chief funder/backer of the genocidal state. And if its USA’s problem, then it is the world’s problem and even more specifically, it becomes a problem of all of USA’s most dedicated minions of which we are but one of these. Not to mention the fact that if the world can’t stop this genocide – arguably the worst slaughter of humanity since the big H – then this kicks the door open for more genocidal acts – more wholesale slaughter of human beings – to take place. This, is everybody’s problem!

    • Absolute nonsense. There are yank military bases here, yank embassies, and yank agents like Anne-Marie Brady who is on the payroll of the ‘National Endowment for Democracy’, a spy organization that was spun off from the CIA. A government which had an ounce of moral fibre would take drastic (but legal) action against all of these.

    • How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t see?
      You know where the answer is blowing

  4. ” However, even this Lancet estimate of nearly 200,000 dead might be only half the actual number of Palestinians killed, according to some counts.

    Norwegian Dr. Mads Gilbert, who has worked extensively from Gaza over the years – notably during times when Israel was waging wars on the Palestinian enclave – recently outlined the manifold preventable conditions which contribute to such “indirect” deaths, estimating the number dead or soon to die could be over 500,000.
    The act of theatre that shows Israel’s contempt for Gaza
    Read more
    The act of theatre that shows Israel’s contempt for Gaza

    As causes of indirect deaths, he details “the lack of food entering Gaza and the destruction the agriculture, the fisheries, the poultry, the dairy farms, and so on. The lack of water, which leads to dehydration and infections.”

    The third component of the “triangle of death” is common diseases, Gilbert notes. “There are maybe as many as 10,000 or more cancer patients in Gaza. The Israeli army bombed the Rantisi hospital for children with cancer and they bombed the Turkish friendship hospital for adult cancer patients. They do not allow cancer drugs to come in.”

    More than 1.2 million people, he says, are getting infected because of the bad hygiene conditions.

    Gilbert points out that in the high temperatures in Gaza now, the uncollected garbage, destroyed sewage pumps and resulting flooding of streets with raw sewage, “it makes a hell of parasites that can spread diseases.” ”

    https://www.rt.com/news/601544-uncounted-gaza-victims-israel/

  5. The apartheid state demise is inevitable and I say good riddance & good-job was a long time coming believing their false invincibility chosen-people BS manifested through zionism not to be mistaken with judaism. Apparently China has facilitated talks thru leaders of Hamas & Fatah to end the suffering and laying the foundation for the creation of a palestinian state.

    Which eva way you look at it apartheid Israel is done.

    https://apnews.com/article/china-palestinians-hamas-fatah-declaration-4bef2615307b656b99cb0e18f6b6d796

  6. Yep, agree.

    I’m sure the people of Gaza seeing their families and friends being slaughtered by the US/Israeli war machine, could care too hoots about whether its a white guy or a black woman doing it.

    Identity politics is completely and utterly fucked up. Its self-absorbed and selfish.

  7. I’m not sure if this will help or hinder readers from getting an objective understanding of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, but it’s a well established view for anyone working, or commenting on, international relations. It’s taught to all first year political science students.

    International relations doesn’t have ethics or morals, because it deals in reality. What is, not what should be, or could be. It deals in causes and effects. It accepts that states/nations/countries are sovereign and answer only to themselves, and that in protecting those interests, all things are permissable when survival is at stake.

    That’s the cornerstone of understanding of how and why states do what they do. It applies to all parties in any inter-state affairs. Until you, dear reader, understand and accept that premise, you’ll never understand international relations.

    Apply that premise to both the Palestinians and the Israelis, and to the USA and the UN, and you might find an explanation for behaviour of certain leaders.

    We, as civilians and non-state actors, have the advantage and luxury of applying morals and legal codes to measure the actions of states against. In particular, we in the west, have an entrenched and rooted philosophy of democracy and individual rights, that states do not have, especially newly established states that perceive themselves to be under threat.

    That said, individual leaders of states are bound by the treaties and agreements their countries have signed up to, and organisations they are members of. Consider how this applies to Bibi Netanyahu, the leadership of Hamas and Palestine, and the US president. Factor in the weight, or lack of enforcement of, the ICJ.

    For political scientists reading some of the comments made on this site, the degree of naivety displayed by some of you is extraordinary. Ideals are wonderful, but they are ideas and benchmarks set for others to achieve. Humans fail more often than not, so to do leaders and states.

    In the Israeli/Palestine conflict, 72% of voting Israelis oppose Netanyahu’s policy, according to the polls. That means almost 30% agree with him. That’s a sizable minority that feels threatened. They’ll take some shifting. That’s the reality that politicians face on this matter daily.

    Might this not be why the Democrats in the US are treading a fine line between what’s possible and what’s definitely not achievable? Might this also be a reason why they see the reality, that in order to persuade an ally to a certain course of action, first you have to be in power and in office to be able to do so?

    • I did a Pol Sci unit half a century ago and decided the premise of self interest of states was simplistic tosh. The idea that morality has no collective standing in how a country operates, and that you get away with whatever you can within your power is quite degenerate. I recall for example the struggle against apartheid which white South Africans and white governments around the world seemed to think was morally acceptable. A large part of the reason for the collapse of apartheid was because white people inside and outside of South Africa saw it as morally repugnant. Might was trumped by moral judgement. Israeli genocide will get the same treatment.

      • Well Nick, it’s clear you may have done “a unit”, as in took a course, probably in comparative politics. It’s also very clear to anyone who did courses – plural – in international relations, that you only remember a tiny part of what you were taught. You set up a nice strawman argument with South Africa that has absolutely nothing to do with State actors. In fact, the use of that argument insults all the individuals who struggled for decades to get rid of that system. In making the argument, you missed the point, which was that in order to be able to change anything politically, you have to be in office first. Secondly, once in office, you can’t act alone.
        To use you argument, apartheid wasn’t defeated by protests, it was defeated by a consensus of state actors using economic pressure. To pretend otherwise ignores reality. Our protests from the 60s through the 80s set the stage, but it was politicians who forced the issue, especially the EU acting in concert.
        That’s the theory at work, you know, the one you decried.
        The same thing will happen with Palestine. What’s happening now will set the stage for five years down the track, after Bibi has been turfed out.
        That’s what a graduate in pols does. Looks for patterns and trends to work out likely scenarios – several – and which is the most likely.

        • So Richard you attack my decision not to pursue Pol Sci and what I remember. How fucking arrogant. Oh, and you imply only people who took the courses you took actually know anything, more arrogance. You demonstrate exactly the simplistic conclusions I objected to then.

          So to apartheid, a straw man argument you say. Only those in power had the power to change it you contend. Individual and collective moral power only “set the stage”. That’s really typical materialistic cost benefit thinking, Randian nonsense. It reminds me of Thatcher telling us there was no society, only individuals prior to her releasing mental health patients into community care. Fortunately most politicians aren’t amoral, they are the product of civilisation that has long term patterns of moral thought that underpins their concepts of and use of power. You say you can see patterns, I’d suggest that you get wider optics.

          • Didn’t attack anything mate, just pointed out the flaws in your argument. Nothing arrogant about that either, except to the super sensitive little babies who can’t debate.
            As for the rest of your nonsense spouted, well, events proved you wrong, as was acknowledged by Nelson Mandela. Our protests shocked the South African regime to the core, as he said, but he also said it was the economic sanctions by the EU that brought that regime to a close. Check the history – it’s all there.
            Which proves the whole point I was making. States act outside ordinary people’s morality, but the individuals who make up the governments of states act usually in their own interests, usually for political survival.
            Apply that lesson to Palestine/Israel. What’s your take on where it’ll be in five years time, in 10 years time?

    • Our authorities faced with an ongoing internal conflict. would appoint a Commissioner and dismiss the body that is bogged down inextricably. Why doesn’t one of these pragmatic players amongst nations do that? Even better appoint a warrior champion to represent them and do it David and Goliath style. How’s that for naivety .

      • Very – naive – that is.

        Who would you have appointed?

        Who gets to choose? Putin? Trump?

        See my middle paragraph. States aren’t people, even if they’re made up of them. Not all governments are democracies, not even the majority!

        This is supposed to be an informed political blog. I see too much of one and not enough of the other.

    • “International relations doesn’t have ethics or morals, because it deals in reality. What is, not what should be, or could be. It deals in causes and effects. It accepts that states/nations/countries are sovereign and answer only to themselves, and that in protecting those interests, all things are permissable when survival is at stake. ”

      The true reality of this situation is that people answer to themselves and that people are easily swayed by money, power, self-interest and this reality usurps the book sense reality.

    • That’s complete nonsense. A majority of ‘israeli’ illegal invaders oppose Netanyahu only because they think he should murder more innocents. They are all evil.

      • Absolute rubbish, even antisemitic in labelling a whole people because of the actions of a minority. You do yourself and your family and your ancestry a grave disservice with that comment.
        I’d suggest you investigate the thousands of Israelis now imprisoned because they oppose the current regime and it’s actions.

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