Barbaric Norms: Hamas, Israel, and Just War

<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW75856188 BCX4"> <p><span data-contrast="auto">The despicable and horrendous attacks by Hamas against civilians last week, including beheading children and kidnapping the elderly, seems a throwback to some distant, barbaric past of human history. We may have thought the world had long ago outgrown such barbarity, but it hasn’t. In fact, as shocking as it is, the kinds of atrocities carried out by the Hamas terrorists are the norms of warfare, at least throughout most of human history. Modern notions of just war, proportionality, and distinguishing between civilians and combatants are exceptions to the kinds of warfare conducted by the</span> <a href= "https://etc.worldhistory.org/photos/siege-lachish-reliefs-british-museum/"> <span data-contrast="none">Assyrians</span></a> <span data-contrast="auto">and Babylonians, ancient Greece, the Vikings, the Mongols, and the Aztecs. Massacre sites found by archaeologists in North America reveal how</span> <a href= "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crow_Creek_massacre"><span data-contrast="none"> entire villages were slaughtered by Native Americans centuries before European contact</span></a><span data-contrast= "auto">. </span><span data-ccp-props= "{"201341983":0,"335559731":720,"335559739":0,"335559740":480}"> </span></p> <p><span data-contrast="auto">Similar barbarity continues today, especially in modern undeclared wars such as the Rwandan genocide, the actions of terror groups like Boko Haram, and in African civil wars. Close parallels can be seen in the horrific treatment by government actors of the Uyghurs in China, the Rohingya in Burma, and dissidents in North Korea. </span><span data-ccp-props= "{"201341983":0,"335559731":720,"335559739":0,"335559740":480}"> </span></p> <p><span data-contrast="none">Such brutality should sicken us, though</span> <span data-contrast="auto">it is far more common in human history, even modern history, than we admit. But, if it’s so horrifyingly and historically “normal,” where did the world get the ide