An edited version of this piece appeared in `the Friend’ of 22 February 2024 (login required)

As a Quaker I find myself reluctant to embrace the term ‘war crime’. It invites us to sometimes say: but this is only war, not a crime.

Twelve Friends declared for the information of Charles Stuart (called King) in 1660 that

All bloody Principles & Practices [we] do utterly deny, with all outward Wars, and Strife, and Fightings with outward Weapons, for any end, or under any pretence whatsoever.

‘A declaration from the harmles & innocent people of God, called Quakers, against all plotters and fighters in the world’ full text, original document

All and any.  Not ‘some’; all. No buts.

In 2002 it was just such a clear position on the proposed invasion of Iraq which first got me into a Quaker Meetinghouse. The mainstream churches were quick to find reasons to claim a ‘just war’; the Society of Friends stood firm for peace. I knew where I should be.

Penn wrote in 1693:

A good end cannot sanctify evil means; nor must we ever do evil, that good may come of it.

See Quaker Faith & Practice, 24.03

And yet I find myself these days conversing with Friends who do find ends that might sanctify evil means. ‘But…’ they say. Some Friends do seem to think that in the case of Israel there might be a just war.

On the 7th of October 2023 after more than twenty years of launching from Gaza indiscriminate rocket bombardments of civilians in southern Israel the terrorist group Hamas changed their tactics. They also launched an incursion by land and by air. Their fighters took hostages, some held still at the time of writing. Their fighters raped women, murdered children, and mutilated the remains of some victims. Some Friends think ‘it may be so, but…’ 

Here in the UK some left wing groups, such as the Socialist Workers Party, celebrated that incursion as a blow against an oppressor, a step towards liberation. A justified act in a struggle. SWP began to plan events in support of the action. And to encourage working people around the world to follow the example of Hamas, which they described as ‘heroic’ and ‘magnificent’. That’s on their conscience. But many of those events were booked into rooms in Quaker Meetinghouses. Posters showing a digger breaking through the Gaza border fence and inviting people to learn why that was right started to appear, with the address of a Meetinghouse at the bottom. Many on the hard left certainly do believe that a good end very much can sanctify evil means, that some good may come of doing evil. And they expected to use rooms in Meetinghouses to spread that message.

Amid growing alarm amongst Friends, including myself, in the UK and abroad, the wardens of Meetinghouses and Trustees of Area Meetings were encouraged by Britain YM to examine closely bookings for space in their buildings. To consider how closely aligned those events were with our principles. Many of those events were cancelled by the Meetinghouse. Some Friends think ‘but…’

Much of the world came to a stand-still in February 1990 to watch Nelson Mandela walk free. Yasser Arafat never reached that degree of regard, nor of success, although in the eyes of many in the western left-wing he should have been next. Mandela made the journey from (self-declared and unashamed) terrorist to statesman, and along the way came to see peace as a precondition for successful negotiations with an oppressor to secure freedom. In that order, not the reverse. Arafat was on that journey and Fatah is something like an ordinary political party. Hamas are not.

Their founding principles include the destruction of Israel, and their original charter is explicitly antisemitic. Their leadership have, perhaps, modulated that stance, and may claim now to be fighting Israelis because Israel has dispossessed them of their land and not because it is a Jewish state. Hamas to begin with saw itself as the Palestinian branch of the totalitarian Muslim Brotherhood, declaring that ‘Allah is its goal, the Prophet is the model, the Quran its constitution, jihad its path, and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes’. Its charter also contained a range of well-known antisemitic tropes, such as that Jews control of the world’s media and fomented both World Wars for their own benefit. That World War II was a Jewish plot intended to lead to the creation of the state of Israel. Their 2017 charter tries to be more clearly secular and more pragmatic. How accurate that is as a summary of Hamas’ actual position is open to debate. It uses the language of international law, of identity politics, of resistance to and freedom from settler colonialism; of liberation, self-defense, and self-determination. These ideas fit very comfortably into Western ‘progressive’ thought. They encourage one to think ‘but…’

I fear that this can make it hard for Friends to find a principled response to events. The Ecumenical Accompaniers and others who work for peace on the ground in Israel/Palestine and elsewhere emphasis the vital importance of principled impartiality to their work. My Area Meeting heard this first-hand from an EA a few weeks ago. For peace-makers to be effective no party in a conflict must get the idea that the peace-makers are against them. Quaker conciliators know this well. To be for peace we cannot be against Israel, and we cannot be for Hamas, nor really for Palestine the state as such…while being emphatically for the people injured by the conflict on all sides. Is there a ‘but…’?

Some Friends do agree, as it turns out, with the SWP that any and all violent action by Hamas is justified by the idea that Israel is a settler colony. I’ve been told to my face in a Quaker space by someone identifying as a Quaker that any concerns that I may have about violence done by Hamas are ‘petty’. I won’t repeat the details of that Friend’s virulent criticism of my character and intellect. The situation in and around Gaza is blowing the fuses in some Friends’ heads. In the darkness following, perhaps a voice says ‘But…’

It’s hard: Amos Oz described Israel and Palestine not as a fight between right and wrong, but between two rights. Two historically disadvantaged, oppressed peoples both with a history of being shunted around by well-established states who don’t want them both see their only hope of safety and security in the same small area of land. There’s no easy answer to this. My Quaker principles tell me that peace is where any answer, however complex, must start. So it must start with Israel ending their campaign. And it must start with Hamas ending their campaign. And it must start with Hezbollah not starting a new one. Is there a ‘but…’ to that?

As Ali Abu Awwad, a first intifada veteran turned peace campaigner, said to an audience split between pro-Palestine and pro-Israel sides,

‘Can’t you be pro-solution? Are you expecting that either Israelis or Palestinians are going to disappear?’

in ‘Fathom’, 2016

Neither of them are going to, so let us not say ‘but…’ and choose a side in the conflict. Let us choose peace.