Is Violence Ever Justified

 

This Monday, my bus ride home had to route around the Penn campus. Looking out the window I saw heavy police presence, which I later searched for online to learn it was a pro-Palestine march that had taken over the main autostreet through campus. According to this post by an independent campus newsorganization, protestors chanted things like “Israel is a terrorist state” and “Intifada, intifada, long live the intifada.” 

As I wrote a couple of months ago, this generation is outraged, so much so that a large proportion found the murder of an insurance executivelast year to be justified. I am trying to give wide berth to the notion that things can get so messed up that violence, while hard to justify in cold blood, at the very least evokes some empathy. Friends of mine who I respect have instructed me on the logic of revolutions, which are sometimes necessary and seldom bloodless. 

I remain unconvinced that we should celebrate people who kill leaders we don’t like, and am horrified at who else’s hit would be applauded rather than condemned. I’m just trying to hold that in tension with people feeling so aggrieved that drastic measures seem not only acceptable but warranted. 

But I also want to say that words matter. I am certainly no expert on the Middle East, including the positions and emotions held by all sides on this complex issue. But, I think that makes mine a reasonable perspective to consider, as a reasonably well-educated but lay observer to these events. And, from that perspective, I have to express grave reservations against the rhetoric being employed in these protests.

 Again, I want to give wide berth to all kinds of viewpoints and statements. Free speech is a hallowed right in this country, and even and especially words that we disagree with and even rile us up ought to be protected and not silenced. 

But, inflammatory words do have consequence. “Intifada,” “river to the sea,” “hands drenched in blood,” and other words with violent connotations cannot possibly be interpreted in any other way than to be incendiary. Either those marching and yelling these words are ignorant of the historical weaponization of those words, or they are quite aware and are using them with intent. I find either possibility deeply troubling. 

I will be the first to tell you that disagreement is the bedrock of our country. I am eager to keep an open mind, to be told I’m wrong and that I need to take something more seriously, that wholesale change is needed and revolution is the only means to effect that change. And, I cannot say I have a clear sense of how to register justified outrage, let alone how to move towards lasting change. But I do know that deeply hurtful claims, whether said out of ignorance or intention, are harmful.