I hope everyone, whatever their stance on Gaza and Israel, measures the responses to the assassination of the two Israeli embassy officials. I don’t mean everyone should get lost in the specifics like the particular merits of this or that detailed argument offered by so-and-so, but the generalities: how much people say, how often, how clearly, how committed they are, how loud or strident their language is, etc. My hunch: the overwhelming majority of people who present themselves as profoundly committed to the Palestinian cause won’t say a word. If so, I think that silence says a lot.
It’s not that everyone must have opinions on every little thing ever, but assassinating diplomats in DC isn’t exactly every little thing ever. If I’m not mistaken, the previous instances of diplomats being assassinated in DC were Orlando Letelier in ’73 and one obscure Israeli military official in ’76. So: (1) the last ones were FIFTY YEARS AGO, and (2) 3 out of 4 victims were Israelis. Assassinating diplomats anywhere is BIG FUCKING DEAL, but in DC is it’s a REALLY BIG FUCKING DEAL.
There is no world, no “timeline” or “playbook” as fake-savvy people like to say, in which this event can remotely be construed as acceptable. Pick your favorite despotic regime from the last half-century (Cambodia, Equatorial Guinea, Belarus, whatever), pick your favorite extenuating circumstance (covert operative of a murderous secret service, corrupt officials caught in intrigues, whatever), it should NEVER, EVER happen anywhere, let alone in DC (and “not here” is an excellent application of American exceptionalism).
tl;dr: This isn’t a question where anyone gets to, you know, not really have an opinion or, whatever, not feel too strongly about it or wait-and-see. If someone has ever said “violence isn’t the solution” or “opposed military aid” (an implicit appeal to diplomacy), or made some argument involving the right’s use of “stochastic terrorism,” or argued that “we must speak out now,” their view on this event should be a predetermined and resounding NO — NEVER.
And that’s why I hope everyone, whatever their stance on Gaza and Israel, measures the responses to this assassination. Because — as I reluctantly come to believe more and more with every day that passes — what people don’t say matters more than what they do say. And if they don’t say anything, their silence says they don’t really GAF.
I’ll leave it to others to ask what they don’t really GAF about, but my guess is that if the diplomats were from another country — let’s say Sweden, Botswana, or Costa Rica — people would be more inclined to say, very plainly, that this is completely unacceptable. The obvious implication is that Israel’s conduct over the last year and a half — which many people very reasonably see as genocidal — makes it somehow “understandable.”
If I’m right, spend a few moments meditating on the implications of that. For example, generalizing it: how would you draw the line between Israelis whose assassination would be somehow “understandable” versus those that wouldn’t be? Or flip it: what would you think if two Palestinian diplomats had been assassinated by someone who later shouted a kahanist slogan? Or broadened it: what would you think if this kind of assassination became a semi-regular event in the US, like mass-shootings? Or if many more Israelis had been assassinated — say, a dozen or two?
tl;dr: This one’s a no-brainer. If you have the moral and ethical compass to call Israel’s actions genocidal, you have the moral and ethical compass to call assassinating diplomats absolutely unacceptable.
Like I said, though, I expect very few people will say that. And I think their silence says a lot.