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Sydney Peace Prize Lecture: 2003#2--Just war

I want to return to Hanan Ashrawi's 2003 Sydney Peace Prize Lecture entitled entitled Peace in the Middle East. The title appears to be as much an utopian desire as Kant's perpetual peace.

So how does Hanan deal with this? Remember that she said that the prospect of peace was the most effective means of dislodging the rising power of extremism, fundamentalism and militarism in the region. She adds:

"The legacy of colonialism clearly has served the interests of those in power, predominantly client regimes, who sought to maintain control, thereby leading to the collusion of internal and external forces in the exclusion of the people as a whole. A just and comprehensive solution to the Palestinian-Israeli (and hence Arab-Israeli) conflict would unleash all those forces so far held in abeyance, but forming the indispensable energy for sustainable progress, development, democratization, and regional integration."

A just and comprehensive solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict? Is that possible in a region marked by realpolitik and national self-interest? What Hanaan appears to be doing to carving out a space for a moral regime even in the midst of hell. She says that the energy (desire?) energy for sustainable progress, development, democratization, and regional integration threatens:

"... short-term stability based on restrictive and constrictive norms and patterns, [but] constitutes the sole mechanism for any stability that can lay claim to permanence on the basis of contemporary and future-oriented political, social, cultural, and economic systems of cooperation and interdependence."

Is this tacitly implying some notion of just war? It would appear to be so. Recall that she had previously said:

"....the just solution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, can be addressed in its proper context as the longest standing case of military occupation and as the most persistent unresolved case of denial, dispossession and exile in contemporary history. As such, it is also an anachronism in that it has all the components of a colonial condition in a post neo-colonial world, plus the requirements of national self-determination as a basis of nascent statehood in a world moving towards regional and global redefinitions."

A colonial condition is unjust whilst national self-determination is good. The lecture is based on the distinction between struggles against tyranny or oppression involving struggles for self-determination. She tacitly appeals to the basic norm governing humanitarian intervention: such intervention is justified to prevent or halt massive violations of personal security rights or the destruction of a national group.

Does the idea of a just war have any relevance? Or is it limited to colonial struggles?

One example of a just war is the first major intervention of the post-cold war period was designed to oust Iraqi forces from Kuwait, which had been invaded in August 1990. In this case the diplomatic options had to be backed by a credible threat of force against a fixed deadline. Secondly, the UN war sought only to restore things to the state they were in before the act of aggression. The war against Iraq had a limited aim of expelling Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

In contrast we can we argue, (and the UN did), that the military intervention to address Saddam Hussein's bad behaviour, was not warranted since the conditions for a just-war intervention in Iraq did not exist. Inspections yes, war no. Regime change is not a justification for war and the containment of Saddam was a better course of action than war.So America, Britain and Australia's war is unjust because there were alternatives to war that could have achieved disarmament at lower cost.

Hanan is quite right to tactily appeal to just war to support her case.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at October 4, 2004 11:10 PM | TrackBack