Rhetoric over the Israel Hamas war is burning red hot. Some narratives blame Israel, some blame Hamas, some focus on the morality of Israeli tactics against the citizens of Gaza.

Underlying this fervid and unreconcilable debate are two fundamentally different ethical perspectives: universalist ethics, which develop a set of absolute principles which are to be applied everywhere (such as the Jewish maxim of tikkun olam — “repair the world”) and situational ethics, which suggest that individual cases are often different and actions should be assessed in light of realistic alternatives at the time (such as the Bill Belichik mantra “it is what it is”). 

From the universalist perspective, both sides have a lot of dirty laundry. From the situationalist perspective Hamas is clearly in the wrong, using civilians as shields and attacking citizens, and Israel has a mixed record. The situationalists’ challenge is to achieve the goal of repairing Israeli security by eliminating Hamas with minimal harm to the noncombatant population of Gaza. We know that civilian casualties are unavoidable given the way that Hamas has used Palestinians as pawns, but Israel can do its best to minimize them.

The Israel Defense Forces are brilliant proponents of situational ethics. They struggle mightily to do the right thing within the immediate political context. Thus they try hard to notify citizens of incoming fire, even though they continue to target civilian facilities because Hamas uses them to mask military operations.

While I am not a Middle East expert, I have studied and taught international relations for over 30 years, been to Israel on an academic study trip, and talked extensively with Israeli colleagues.

These perspectives disagree about key features of the Israeli response.

Universalists invoke international law to establish behavioral guardrails for the military, as well as an ethical basis for critiquing Israeli actions. They draw a clear distinction between combatants and noncombatants.

Situationalists stress that the law of war, and international law more generally, is often a thin screen masking hypocrisy as it is dictated by the powerful, and selectively violated whenever states deem it in their immediate interests. Israel stresses that Hamas intentionally blurs this distinction in practice (by locating munitions under hospitals and schools) and in its discourse. Since neither Israel nor Hamas are members of the International Criminal Court, there is no immediate means for prosecuting war crimes.

Universalists say that all citizens are part of a common global community and should be treated equally. Israeli situationalists assert the primacy of the security of Israel and seek to achieve individual rights as a secondary concern. This also implies that they value Israeli lives more than Palestinian lives, as Palestinian civilian deaths and casualties are accepted as collateral damage for saving Israeli lives – either directly by targeting citizens for military ends or indirectly by cutting off water, electricity, fuel and food to the Palestinian citizenry.

Unfortunately, neither of these perspectives offer a clear narrative at the moment. The proposals by universalists — reliance on international law, multilateralism, restraint and equivalency — are longer-term valid perspectives that seem unlikely to provide much traction in the short term.

Situationalist perspectives would tolerate a massive Israeli invasion and possible occupation, so long as the ugly choices to get there can be justified to Israeli citizens, the international community, and West Bank Palestinians. Unfortunately, Israel remains quiet about the reasons for its targeting decisions, so judgments about its actions remain a matter of faith, and thus come back to a matter of competing narratives.

Peter M. Haas is a retired professor of political science and international relations from UMass Amherst.