Read: 'Reflections on the War between Israel and Hamas: Voices of sanity are in danger of being drowned out by the rhetoricians of all-out war'
by Jeffrey C. Isaac
When violence answers violence in a growing frenzy that makes the simple language of reason impossible, the role of the intellectual cannot be … to excuse from a distance one of the violences and condemn the other … that role is clarify definitions in order to disintoxicate minds and to calm fanaticisms, even when this is against the current tendency
—Albert Camus, Algerian Chronicles (1958)
“I am no expert on Middle East politics. But I am a human being and a U.S. citizen who teaches and writes about politics for a living, who also happens to be a Jewish American and a person who believes in human rights and cares about the world. Failing to think through the current unfolding situation, and to share my thoughts, is not for me an option.”
Read the full piece on Democracy Seminar.
Photo: Hamas rockets blast into the southern Gaza Strip. Image credit: Anas-Mohammed / Shutterstock