Scott Horton: Israel’s War on Terror

Terrorism usually encompasses killing, robbery and coercion committed by groups that lack state authority. In this sense, Hamas is the strongest and most ruthless gang in the “Israeli prison,” a sort of subcontractor of Israel and America to enforce the occupation of Palestine. The attack on Israel on October 7th was akin to a jail break and was purposefully atrocious to trigger the ferocious reaction by Israel and shake up the rest of the Middle East and beyond. Much like the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, it was a logical consequence of neoconservative politics carried out by elites looking to undermine the American republic by bankrupting it with perpetual wars, believes Scott Horton of the Libertarian Institute and Antiwar.com.
In this in-depth interview with The New American, Mr. Horton dives into the intricacies of Middle Eastern politics that created fertile ground for terrorism. One of the aspects of these policies is the apartheid existing in Isarel. While under Resolution 242 of the U.N. Security Council, Israel was supposed to withdraw from Palestinian territories, it never did, which made the country an occupier, from which the Palestinians have the right to defend themselves. That by no means includes the slaughter of innocents, stressed the expert. At the same time, Israel’s military doctrine of “moving the lawn” is not just military ineffective against the terrorists but unlawful and immoral, as it takes an enormous death toll on the civilian population Israel has the obligation to protect. “You have to be willfully blind to think that it is somehow self-defense [exercised by Israel],” said Mr. Horton.
Israel should have learned the lessons of the America’s War of Terror in the early 2000s, on which Mr. Horton authored the book Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terror. Quoting William Normal Grigg, the late editor of The New American magazine, Horton said that one of the most important lessons is “not to be stupid” by blindly falling for terrorist provocations, no matter how bloody, as doing so is nothing but stepping into a trap. Another lesson is for the decisionmakers to reject the idea that “ends justify the means,” since that eliminates moral and any other limitations on allowable actions and ultimately makes “our side” indistinguishable from terrorists. Surely, this kind of approach created many bin Ladens over the past decades, said Horton.
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