When is a killing a killing?

In my LiveJournal, wcg makes the very reasonable statement that comparing fatalities is not useful; people are not potatoes. And, for the most part, I think he's right. In this case, however, I think the comparison of numbers of fatalities, and more importantly, numbers of civilian casualties, goes directly to the issue of whether or not the Israeli response has been appropriate and proportionate.

Over the years, when talking with people in my family who unwaveringly support Israel, I am always told that the difference between Israel and the Palestinians is that the Israelis don't kill innocent people. Suicide bombings kill innocent people; the Israelis only shoot suspected terrorists.

I think that statement is factually suspect. I think that the killing of the Lebanese civilians in the current situation also gives the lie to that statement, as well.

But the situation is more complicated than that.

For the last several years, Liz Mulford, an honorary member of the board of the Four Homes of Mercy in the West Bank in Palestine, has come to my church to talk about the Four Homes.* The descriptions of conditions in the West Bank were far different than what one heard of in the American media: grinding poverty which became worse every year, draconian travel restrictions which made making a living difficult, hours spent waiting at checkpoints -- if one could get through at all, severely ill patients in ambulances headed to a hospital in Jerusalem being turned around and refused entry. Doctors being unable to get sorely-needed medicines. All a result of Israeli policies towards the Palestinians in the West Bank. (The travel restrictions were eased in 2005 [pdf].) If a patient dies because they are prevented from going to the hospital, my relatives would say that the Israelis would not be to blame.

Which raises a question, when is a killing a killing? Not when is a killing a murder, for that hinges upon justification, which an entirely different question. But when can responsibility for having caused death be said to have occured?

There is the legal definition, which applies to persons. Walking into a market with a bomb strapped around your waist and blowing yourself up, taking two dozen men, women, and children with you who were doing nothing more than trying to put food on their table is killing -- and murder too. I will not argue that.

Locking someone in a house, with no means of escape, and limited food or water, resulting in their death would be killing, too, if those actions were taken by an individual.

What makes it so different when it is a nation walling off hundreds of thousands of people, destroying the power plant that makes it possible for them to get clean water, and increases the likelihood of diseases and cholera, disrupts shipments of food, and other actions significantly impacting the very existence of those people? Such as Israel did in the Gaza strip?

People are going to die as a result. You can't say how many, and you can't say exactly who, but someone is going to die. Probably a lot of someones.

And that is killing. Just as much as the suicide bombings are killing. You can argue that the action is justified -- I would argue that it is not, inasmuch as it targets innocents -- but you cannot argue that it does not kill.

Killing begets killing. What is happening today in Gaza will make it all the easier for the next generation of suicide bombers to be recruited.

And the cycle of death will continue.


UPDATE: wcg also pointed me to this very perceptive article.
UPDATE II: A letter from an Anglican Bishop in Palestine.


* Our church gives money every Christmas to the Four Homes: everyone in the parish foregoes sending Christmas cards to other people in the parish, and the money we save on cards and postage we give to the Four Homes, and the names of the donors are listed in a "Parish Christmas Card" printed in the weekly bulletin on Epiphany.