I welcomed the op-ed piece by Amos Oz, the Israeli novelist and journalist, in the New York Times, Israeli Force, Adrift on the Sea (June 2, 2010). He makes the case that the violent outcome of the Monday, May 31, Israeli military interception of a flotilla trying to break the blockade of the Gaza strip in which 9 civilians were killed was the result of Israel’s increasing reliance on methods of violence to maintain security. Oz writes that “since the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel has been fixated on military force” so much so that their mantra has become “what can’t be done by force can be done with even greater force.” While conceding the “efficacy of force” for a nation’s survival, Oz nevertheless pleads with Israel to understand the limits of violence.

Up to this point, I found myself in full agreement with his argument. As an American citizen who critiques her own government’s reliance on force to achieve peace and security, I felt a spiritual kinship with Oz as he performed the same role for his country. But in his conclusions, the kinship I felt frayed as he asserted that “force is effective only as a preventative – to prevent the destruction and conquest of Israel, to protect our lives and freedom. Every attempt to use force not as a preventative measure, not in self-defense, but instead as a means of smashing problems and squashing ideas, will lead to more disasters.” I offer this lengthy quote because it gives evidence of an all too common detour away from the truth about violence.

The detour is the claim of self-defense. In the blockade of Gaza, Israel’s December 2008 invasion of Gaza, and Monday’s raid on the flotilla, Israel claims to be acting in self-defense. Every rocket launch and every violent action taken by Hamas is also in the name of self-defense. The claim of self-defense is the number one justification of violence and it is always proffered in the name of peace. Combatants always claim to have had no other choice but to violently defend themselves against aggression and so, as René Girard writes so insightfully in Battling to the End, we become “warmongers out of pacificism” (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2010, 181).

The conclusion I wish Oz and every government would arrive at is that every attempt to use force, regardless of the reason, will lead to more disasters and more violence. That is the simple truth about violence.  Peace will become a possibility only when we stop detouring around it.