James Edward Johnson

From VisionCare: "A telephoto ocular prosthesis. The central optical portion is a micro-lens system that renders a magnified image on the retina."

Although my blog rarely touches on it, my current career is in health care.  One thing you learn when you pay attention to health care and emerging technologies is that Israel is a dominant player.  Many new medical devices and techniques are developed in Israel (boycotters take note – stop using health care if you want to be consistent).

In recent days, one new technology has been getting a lot of press.  Age related macular degeneration (“AMD”) causes a person’s center vision to degrade – your peripheral vision works, but your area of focus does not.  An implantable telescopic device was just approved by the FDA that causes the center image to be shifted to the healthy part of a person’s retina.  It allows people with AMD to see much more normally again.

Many recent news reports talked about a California company named VisionCare that developed the technology.  To me, it just sounded too Israeli to have been developed in the US.  And, when I searched my feed reader, I saw that I had probably first heard of this technology five years ago … when it was first developed by an Israeli firm.  As the company matured, it adopted an American address.  But even today, much of the company’s operations and management remain in Petah Tikva, Israel.

This is just one of literally hundreds of amazing – almost magical – technologies developed in Israel every year.  Some of them are widely publicized as Israeli technologies.  Many, like this one, receive almost no publicity about its origins in Israel.

There is a good chance that every time you are a patient in a hospital, many Israeli products and innovations will be used in your care.  Consider that fact the next time you or a loved one needs treatment for a health condition.

Yemini Ben-Dror brings us some impressive observations over at Maariv (Hebrew).  The Gaza Strip has a higher life expectancy and a lower infant mortality than Iran, Turkey, and many Arab countries.  Moreover, in part because of high fertility and a young population, it has one of the lowest death rates in the world.  Indeed, the Gaza Strip has a booming population growth that outpaces almost every other country.

These facts would not be possible if Israel were cutting off needed food and medicine.  The simple reality is that Gazans are better off than most of their Arab and Muslim neighbors.  There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.  Israel’s blockade is in place for security reasons and these facts conclusively prove that allegations to the contrary are completely unsupported by data.

Nonie Darwish was raised in Gaza and her father was a Fedayeen Jihadi militant who was assassinated by Israel.  She places blame for Gaza’s prison-like conditions squarely on Arab states.  She writes in the Huffington Post, ” Arabs claim they love the Palestinian people, but they seem more interested in sacrificing them.”

It is worth reading her words.  They are illuminating.  Read ‘The Gaza Prison Camp’ by Nonie Darwish in the Huffington Post.

What is the ethical way to treat a terrorist, and when innocents are killed in stopping terrorists, who is responsible? I have a set of hypotheticals that I use to address the question.

The basic situation is this: A man is shooting into a crowd. He is using another person as a shield. You have a gun. What do you do? Assume you cannot kill the terrorist with certainty AND avoid killing the human shield with certainty.

Minor modifications to the question make it suited to any real world situation. Does it matter if the human shield is there willingly? What if the shield is a child of the shooter? An accomplice of the shooter? An innocent bystander?

What if the shooter has bad aim – most of his shots hit no one and most of the hits only cause casualties but not deaths? What if you expect that waiting will increase your chances of a “clean” kill where the human shield escapes unharmed? How long would you wait? How many people would you let get maimed or killed before shooting the shooter (and putting his human shield at risk)?

So imagine you shoot, kill the shooter, and maim or kill his human shield? Who is morally responsible for that person’s death? Does it matter if the human shield was a willing accomplice?

Personally, I would not hesitate to shoot. I would disable the murderer before he had an opportunity to kill again. If he was obviously a very bad shot, and there was little risk to his targets, I might pause for a better shot that would be less likely to harm the human shield. But such pause would have to come with a significant expectation that it would save lives on net. If the human shield were a willing accomplice I would not hesitate. In any event, any harm to the human shield would be a moral burden to the one using him or her as such. I would have sorrow if I killed either the shooter or the human shield, but the moral guilt would not be mine.

In the Israeli-Arab conflict – particularly in Gaza – this is the moral dilemma. The shooters are Palestinian Arab terrorists and their sponsoring organizations. The human shields are Palestinian Arab civilians, many of whom are, sadly, willing accomplices. The crowd is the Jewish people – the vast majority of them are innocent Jews. When I look at Palestinian Arab terrorists and the frequent hesitation of the Israeli government, I can easily put Israel in the moral right. I would rarely hesitate half as long.

Some will say that my hypothetical does not consider the oppression Palestinian Arabs suffer. Palestinian Arabs indeed suffer under Israeli security measures. But, think back to the hypothetical. Do you really care about the grievances of the shooter? He is shooting into a crowd of innocents. A motive may explain how a heinous act happened, but it cannot excuse it.

My friend, Adam, is safe. The reason why that is newsworthy is that he is pursuing his rabbinical studies in Jerusalem right now.

When I saw the news of the terror attack on a yeshiva (a Jewish religious school) in Jerusalem today, I was immediately concerned for my friend. Fortunately, just seconds later, when I read that the shooting took place at Mercaz HaRav, I felt the guilty relief that my friend was not likely among the dead. When my wife and I saw him in Jerusalem last summer, he told us about the places where he studied. Mercaz HaRav was not one of them and it would have been extremely unlikely that he would have been studying there. Not long thereafter, I saw that his Gmail status said he was safe and at home.

It did not take long, however, before my guilty relief was washed away. Gaza’s streets had turned into spontaneous celebrations at the news. Hamas announced, “We bless the [Jerusalem] operation. It will not be the last.” This is the difference between the dominant cultures in Israel and in Hamas-controlled Gaza. Just last week, Israelis held rallies calling for restraint in Israel’s Gaza operations. When Palestinian Arabs die, Israelis do not celebrate. Even when we find it necessary to go to war, we lament the deaths of our enemies. When Jews are murdered, Palestinian Arab militants and their supporters cheer. Most likely, these events will only bring tougher security measures on Palestinian Arabs, and yet the militants and enemies of peace among them celebrate.

Some people complain often about Israel’s security measures and military operations. Their arguments rely heavily on the assymetry of power between Israel and, say, Hamas. My simple response is that we should thank God that Israel is far more powerful. Because, what underlies this power assymetry is a deep morality assymetry. Israelis care about Jewish lives and Arab lives enough to seek to minimize deaths on both sides. Palestinian Arab militants hate life so much that they seek to maximize innocent deaths on both sides. Where Israel takes precautions to avoid killing innocent bystanders, Palestinian Arab militants target innocents like they did today and like they do every day when they launch rockets into Israeli population centers. Where Israel tries to protect its population from the ravages of war, Palestinian Arab militants shelter themselves behind human shields drawn from their own population. Where Israel protects accused Palestinian Arab militants with rights under domestic and international law, Palestinian Arab militants either torture and kill Israeli military personnel upon capture or hold them for ransom in violation of all laws regarding the treatment of POWs.

There is no comparison in the morality of these two sides. Israelis suffer grievous harm because of the disgusting immorality of Palestinian Arab militants. But, even moreso, the innocents who are simply trying to live in Gaza and the West Bank suffer the some of the most terrible inhumanities because they must live at the vicious whims of Palestinian Arab militants.

If you doubt this, consider these facts and the sources that lie behind them:

Israel takes care to minimize risks to Palestinian Arab civilians and ensure that responses are proportionate (pdf).

Israel gives terror suspects many rights – considerably more rights than terror suspects have in the US – even in spite of the greater risk from terror in Israel (pdf).

Palestinian Arab militants, particularly Hamas, make extensive use of Palestinian Arab civilians as human shields.

Let me suggest first, that there is little point in discussing the historical use of the bomb. It’s applicability today is mostly insignificant. I tend to agree with the pro-nuclear side on the historical use of nuclear weapons in Japan during WWII. But, I tend to agree with most disarmament advocates regarding the potential contemporary use. I would suggest that our current stockpiles of high-yield nuclear weapons are not useful and, importantly, serve only as a diplomatic barrier. However, I am not sure about our low-yield tactical nuclear weapons. If those weapons can take out a militant stronghold deep in a mountain and conventional weapons cannot, then I can see strategic reasons for keeping those weapons. However, none of our decisions in this regard are impacted by our obligations under the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), because all the states which signed the NPT did so without requiring the US (or other nuclear states) to disarm.

However, modern discussion of these issues relate less to the US and more to other states. Here, in my view, is the bottom line: Israel is not a signatory to the NPT and has never tested nuclear weapons (a key strategic capability limitation). India and Pakistan are not NPT signatories, but have tested nuclear weapons, for which they suffered economic and diplomatic consequences, even in the absence of a violation of treaty obligations. Iran is an NPT signatory, receives certain benefits as a signatory, and with its as-yet-limited steps towards nuclear weapons has already violated the NPT. These differences are critical differences that differentiate how we handle states’ nuclear aspirations. Whatever harm Israeli, Indian, or Pakistani nuclear weapons do to global security, they do no harm to international rule of law. And, there is no legal requirement that we punish those states for their nuclear activities. American, British, Russian, and certain other nuclear weapon states are specifically protected by the NPT in their status as nuclear states and whatever they do to global security, they do no harm to international rule of law. Iran, however, is a non-nuclear signatory to the NPT and its nuclear ambitions not only harm global security, but they also do irreparable damage to international rule of law, which if permitted without severe penalties, destabilizes the entire framework of international law.

Let me suggest that it is these considerations, and not the propriety of American use of nuclear weapons more than 60 years ago in the absence of the NPT and most of the Geneva Conventions, that should drive modern discussions of the use of nuclear weapons. I would also recommend reading about Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter. Their thoughts on these issues were truly ahead of their time and skillfully cut through the Cold War debate between the defenders of MAD (mutually-assured destruction) and the defenders of total disarmament.