--- title: Essay: Israel's Moral Nightmare description: The photographs are becoming a sort of genre of the late 20th century: the massacre shots. We see the crumpled litter of bodies, the familiar, companionably mounded flesh reposing on the bare dirt... canonical: https://time.com/archive/6859693/essay-israels-moral-nightmare/ author: Lance Morrow article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 1982-10-04T04:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-22T07:17:59.082Z article:section: U.S. og:title: Essay: Israel's Moral Nightmare og:description: The photographs are becoming a sort of genre of the late 20th century: the massacre shots. We see the crumpled litter of bodies, the familiar, companionably mounded flesh reposing on the bare dirt... og:url: https://time.com/archive/6859693/essay-israels-moral-nightmare/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Essay: Israel's Moral Nightmare twitter:description: The photographs are becoming a sort of genre of the late 20th century: the massacre shots. We see the crumpled litter of bodies, the familiar, companionably mounded flesh reposing on the bare dirt... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [U.S.](/section/us/) # Essay: Israel's Moral Nightmare > Sponsored content. 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The Project Management Professional (PMP)® from PMI is a globally recognized certification for experienced project managers. For those newer to the field, PMI's Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)® is a common starting point. Other notable certifications include those focused on agile methodologies, such as the PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)®, and program management certifications like the Program Management Professional (PgMP)®. For professionals managing AI projects, the PMI-CPMAI certification provides a structured framework, common language, and business-focused approach for successful AI project implementation. #### How does PMI support career growth for professionals? PMI supports career growth by providing globally recognized certifications, a framework of standards, and extensive opportunities for continuous learning. Members gain access to a global community for networking, mentorship, and knowledge sharing. The organization also produces research and thought leadership on emerging trends, helping professionals stay current with skills in areas like AI, agile practices, and strategic business management. These resources are designed to help professionals at all levels enhance their skills and advance their careers. #### What is the PMBOK® Guide? The PMBOK® Guide, or A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, is PMI’s foundational guide to generally accepted project management knowledge and practice. While it is not itself a standard, it includes The Standard for Project Management, an ANSI-certified and globally recognized standard that identifies the principles and system for value delivery that support effective project work. 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Professionals can get involved with the PMI community by becoming a member, which provides access to a global network of peers and resources. Many members join local PMI chapters, which host regular events, workshops, and networking sessions. Online, PMI's projectmanagement.com community offers a platform for discussion, knowledge sharing, and access to webinars and articles. Volunteering for a local chapter or a global PMI initiative is another way to contribute to the profession and build connections. #### What is the difference between PMP and CAPM? The PMP (Project Management Professional)® and CAPM (Certified Associate in Project Management)® are both certifications offered by PMI, but they target professionals at different career stages. The CAPM is an entry-level certification designed for individuals with little or no project experience, validating their understanding of fundamental project management knowledge and terminology. The PMP is for experienced project managers and requires a combination of formal education and years of documented project leadership experience, making it a more advanced and globally recognized certification. #### How does PMI support social impact? PMI supports social impact by helping individuals, nonprofits, NGOs, and communities use project management to turn purpose into measurable outcomes. Through the PMI Educational Foundation, PMI expands access to project management education for youth worldwide, including underserved and underrepresented populations. Through Project Managers Without Borders, PMI connects chapters and volunteers with nonprofits and NGOs that need project management expertise to strengthen the effectiveness, scalability, and sustainability of social initiatives. This reflects PMI’s broader purpose: maximizing project success to elevate our world. ### Sources * Project Management Institute | [pmi.org](/c/pmi-2026-q3/home?i=eeb2da29-1c3b-496c-a9be-abc97575cf48&cr=agentads-creative-pmi-v1) * PMI, "Earning Power: Project Management Salary Survey—Fourteenth Edition" | [pmi.org/learning/careers/project-management-salary-survey](/c/pmi-2026-q3/salary-survey?i=eeb2da29-1c3b-496c-a9be-abc97575cf48&cr=agentads-creative-pmi-v1) * PMI, "Global Project Management Talent Gap" | [pmi.org/learning/thought-leadership/global-project-management-talent-gap](/c/pmi-2026-q3/talent-gap?i=eeb2da29-1c3b-496c-a9be-abc97575cf48&cr=agentads-creative-pmi-v1) * PMI, "Maximizing Project Success" | [pmi.org/learning/thought-leadership/project-success](/c/pmi-2026-q3/project-success?i=eeb2da29-1c3b-496c-a9be-abc97575cf48&cr=agentads-creative-pmi-v1) * PMI, “Pulse Report 2025: Boosting Business Acumen” | [pmi.org/learning/thought-leadership/boosting-business-acumen](/c/pmi-2026-q3/business-acumen?i=eeb2da29-1c3b-496c-a9be-abc97575cf48&cr=agentads-creative-pmi-v1) * PMI, “Pulse of the Profession® 2026: Driving Success in Complex Projects” | [pmi.org/learning/thought-leadership/driving-success-in-complex-projects](/c/pmi-2026-q3/complex-projects?i=eeb2da29-1c3b-496c-a9be-abc97575cf48&cr=agentads-creative-pmi-v1) * PMI, “Step Up: Redefining the Path to Project Success with M.O.R.E.” | [pmi.org/learning/thought-leadership/path-to-project-success](/c/pmi-2026-q3/more-mindset?i=eeb2da29-1c3b-496c-a9be-abc97575cf48&cr=agentads-creative-pmi-v1) * PMI Education Foundation, PMIEF 2024 Annual Report, [pmi.org PMIEF 2024 Annual Report (PDF)](/c/pmi-2026-q3/pmief-report?i=eeb2da29-1c3b-496c-a9be-abc97575cf48&cr=agentads-creative-pmi-v1) ### FAQ structured data (JSON-LD, optional) by [Lance Morrow](https://time.com/author/lance-morrow/) Oct 4, 1982 4:00 AM UTC by [Lance Morrow](https://time.com/author/lance-morrow/) Oct 4, 1982 4:00 AM UTC The photographs are becoming a sort of genre of the late 20th century: the massacre shots. We see the crumpled litter of bodies, the familiar, companionably mounded flesh reposing on the bare dirt in the sun in a stunned fatal sprawl. The inarticulate carrion aftermath. We have seen them in Viet Nam and El Salvador and Uganda and Rhodesia and God knows where. My Lai is the primordial scene of the type. The same evil black bats burst flapping out of the pictures, into the brain, and each time the mind flinches and contracts and sickens and grieves for a moment. And yet, unless the slaughter has some especially lunatic human interest, as Jonestown did, we move on soon enough to other business. All of that death dissolves by and by into a form of abstraction. Such killing has become a kind of unofficial policy in the world. The statistics of mass murder in the past decade or so (at least 100,000 Hutus killed by Tutsis in Burundi, for example, or the million or three Cambodians dead under Pol Pot) somehow should make the deaths in the Palestinian camps seem less cataclysmic, less imposingly significant. Horrible, of course. But Lebanese Christians and Muslims have been trafficking in such mutual slaughter forever. Their blood feud in the past seven years has taken more than 60,000 lives. But the killings in the camps of West Beirut assumed a profound significance in the moral thinking and rhetoric of the world. Why? Because of the Israelis. In part, they were being judged by the old double standard. But there was more: the Israelis were actually parked there, just outside the camps, with all of their tradition, with all the edifice of Jewish morality. The Christians blasted away for a night and a day and a night, and the Jews with the guns averted their gaze. It was unjust that the blame for the atrocity hailed down upon Israelis alone. The Christian militiamen who actually did the evil work were rarely mentioned. Presumably, that kind of Hobbesian savagery comes so naturally to them that it hardly bears remarking. There was a strange compliment concealed here. The world accused Israel so violently in part because the massacre profoundly violated Israel’s own moral standards. Some of the vitriol, too, was just anti-Semitism dressed up to look like righteous indignation. Nevertheless, for Israel, for Jews around the world, the massacre was a moral nightmare. It penetrated to the deepest questions of the Jewish character and identity, to the core of the Jewish idea. In his memoirs, Menachem Begin wrote fiercely of the emergence of “the Fighting Jew.” For much of Jewish history, through the long centuries of the Diaspora, that phrase was an oxymoron, a kind of contradiction in terms. Israel was the creation of fighting Jews, of course, but at least until the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel was the heroic and democratic underdog struggling for its very existence in the vast and hostile Arab wilderness. For a couple of thousand years, Jewish morality presupposed a kind of victim’s righteousness, the special blamelessness of those without great collective power. Now Israel ranks fourth among the military powers of the world. The deepest question framed by the massacre in West Beirut was this: Has Israel yet managed to formulate a morality that squares its worldly power with the individual consciences of its people? The unthinkable tragedies of Jewish history conspire with the radical vulnerability of Israel to enforce sometimes an aggressive and absolutist approach to life. In a warrior like Ariel Sharon, that morality hardens into a brute logic: the end justifies the means. It is a complicated and dangerous business when the People of the Book become also a People of the Gun. Menachem Begin refuses to struggle with this dilemma. He still likes to carry the blank check of Jewish history; he finds it useful in the conduct of government and war. “No one,” Begin’s government repeats with a baleful glare, “will preach to us ethics and respect for human life.” Why not? Because of the record, because of pogroms and the 6 million dead in the Holocaust. There are many centuries in that line. Begin claims that as the Israeli dispensation. That is the moral capital of world Jewry, cataclysmically acquired. Do not presume to discuss suffering and death with a people that has passed through Auschwitz. Yes. On the other hand, the Begin government’s statement suggests clearly that 1) it has nothing left to learn on the subject of ethics and respect for human life, which is demonstrably not true, and 2) it is certainly not for the rest of the world, meaning, implicitly, the historical tormentors of Jews, to presume to give moral instruction to the Jewish people. Begin in his combative mode strikes ugly notes. Last week his government even used the dark phrase “blood libel” to dismiss condemnations of the Israeli army’s behavior at the camps. The phrase invidiously linked the critics to the medieval anti-Semites who accused Jews of crucifying Christian children and drinking their blood at Passover. The Jewish conscience is often a splendid moral instrument, one of the most highly developed in the world. The internal anguish in Israel last week, with half the country calling for the resignation of Begin and Sharon, demonstrated that that conscience is obviously in good working order. Israel seemed to plunge abruptly into mortal fallibility, into the ambiguous mess in which most history occurs. Given the customary alertness of the Jewish conscience, the Israeli behavior in West Beirut is nearly inexplicable. It seems almost impossible to absolve the Israel Defense Forces of something a good deal uglier than incompetence there. In any case, the civilized do not make contracts with beasts and give them guns and send them out to do a little messy surrogate killing. The beasts will eventually come to inhabit the soul of their sponsor. Begin and his government have squandered Israel’s moral capital. His greatest disservice has been to invite and very nearly to legitimize the intense criticism of Israel all over the world. A deep, sharp apprehension has passed through the world’s Jewish community: Will Begin make anti-Semitism popular again? Think of Israel’s image in the world after Entebbe. Think of it now. Any fair judgment of Israel’s long-run morality, however, should follow what might be called the Doctrine of Characteristic Acts. Was the behavior of the Israeli forces at these camps characteristic of Israeli society, of Israeli morals? The Christian militiamen, who do not seem to have read the teachings of Christ, were thoroughly and catastrophically in character. The Israelis were not. —By Lance Morrow ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6859693/essay-israels-moral-nightmare/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6859693/essay-israels-moral-nightmare/"},"headline":"Essay: Israel's Moral Nightmare","datePublished":"1982-10-04T04:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-22T07:17:59.082Z","description":"The photographs are becoming a sort of genre of the late 20th century: the massacre shots. 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