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Frank Visser, graduated as a psychologist of culture and religion, founded IntegralWorld in 1997. He worked as production manager for various publishing houses and as service manager for various internet companies and lives in Amsterdam. Books: Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion (SUNY, 2003), and The Corona Conspiracy: Combatting Disinformation about the Coronavirus (Kindle, 2020).

Realism and Idealism in the Gaza War

Can the Narratives Be Reconciled?

Frank Visser / ChatGPT

1. Introduction: Two Moral Universes

The war in Gaza, reignited by the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, and Israel's devastating military response, has become one of the most polarizing conflicts of the 21st century. Beneath the tragedy lies a deeper philosophical divide in international thought: the clash between Realism and Idealism.

These two lenses—one grounded in power and security, the other in morality and justice—shape not only how nations act, but how the world interprets those actions. The Gaza war, more than any other recent conflict, reveals their mutual incomprehension and the urgent need for synthesis.

2. The Realist Perspective: Power, Survival, and Strategic Necessity

For geopolitical realists, the Gaza war must be understood through the iron laws of security and deterrence.

Realists view the international system as anarchic: no world government exists to enforce peace, and states must rely on their own strength to survive. From this standpoint, Israel's response—however tragic in human cost—is not primarily moral but existential.

Key tenets of the realist interpretation include:

• Security Dilemma: Hamas's attack confirmed for many Israelis that coexistence with an armed, hostile neighbor is impossible. The destruction of Hamas's military infrastructure is therefore a strategic necessity, not revenge.
• Deterrence Logic: Allowing Hamas to strike without a crushing response would invite further assaults, not only from Gaza but from Hezbollah or Iran.
• Moral Tragedy of Realpolitik: Civilian suffering is seen as an inevitable—though regrettable—byproduct of warfare in densely populated areas, where combatants use human shields and hide in tunnels.
• Regional Balances: The Abraham Accords, U.S. influence, and Iranian proxy networks are part of the same chessboard. Gaza cannot be separated from the wider balance of power in the Middle East.

To realists, the fundamental question is not who is right, but who survives. The ultimate measure of policy is security, not sentiment.

3. The Idealist Perspective: Justice, Human Rights, and Moral Universality

Idealists—whether liberal internationalists or moral humanitarians—see Gaza through the prism of universal ethics. They argue that power must be constrained by law, that security without justice is unsustainable, and that moral outrage is not naivety but conscience.

Their main convictions include:

• Humanitarian Universalism: The killing of civilians, destruction of infrastructure, and collective punishment of an entire population violate fundamental principles of human rights and international law.
• Moral Asymmetry: Idealists reject “both-sidesism” when the military imbalance is so extreme. Israel's overwhelming force, they argue, imposes a moral responsibility to show restraint.
• International Legitimacy: True security cannot be achieved through dominance but through justice, diplomacy, and addressing root causes—chiefly occupation, blockade, and statelessness.
• The Global Moral Order: The Gaza war, like Ukraine for Europe, has become a test of whether the international community still believes in universal norms, or whether cynicism has won.

For idealists, the realist fixation on power perpetuates endless violence. Without moral accountability, they warn, Israel's military victories will yield political and moral defeat.

4. Mutual Misunderstanding: How Realists and Idealists Talk Past Each Other

Each side tends to see the other as dangerously misguided.

Realists view Idealists as naïve. They argue that moral appeals cannot protect a nation surrounded by enemies or deter groups committed to its destruction. To them, idealism is a luxury of the safe.

Idealists view Realists as amoral. They see realpolitik as a mask for domination and moral blindness, a worldview that excuses atrocities in the name of necessity.

This mutual incomprehension leads to moral paralysis: realists dismiss global outrage as hypocrisy, while idealists denounce strategic logic as barbarism. Each camp insists it alone sees the world “as it truly is.”

5. The Historical Layer: From Zionism to Globalized Morality

The Israel-Palestine conflict has always carried both realist and idealist dimensions.

Zionism itself emerged from realist necessity—the survival of the Jewish people after millennia of persecution—but also from idealist aspiration, the vision of a homeland embodying justice and renewal. Similarly, Palestinian nationalism fuses realist self-determination with idealist resistance to oppression.

In the post-World War II era, these two moral arcs collided under the shadow of the Holocaust and decolonization.

Israel saw itself as a reborn nation-state defending its right to exist. Palestinians saw themselves as the dispossessed, denied that same right. The realist and idealist narratives became not merely analytical frameworks but moral identities, each sanctified by trauma.

6. Case Study: The Genocide Claim

Nowhere is the clash between realism and idealism sharper than in the accusation of genocide—a charge brought by South Africa before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2024.

For idealists, the charge reflects a moral imperative: the belief that the deliberate or reckless killing of tens of thousands of civilians under siege conditions constitutes not just excessive force but an attempt to destroy a people “in whole or in part.” They cite the destruction of hospitals, universities, and housing; the deprivation of food, water, and electricity; and dehumanizing rhetoric by Israeli officials as evidence of genocidal intent.

From this view, silence or neutrality in the face of mass civilian suffering is complicity.

For realists, the genocide claim is seen as an overreach of moral language into the realm of strategic necessity. They argue that Israel's aim is not extermination but the elimination of a militant organization that murdered civilians on an unprecedented scale. The high civilian toll, in this view, results from urban warfare against a group embedding itself among civilians, not from intent to destroy a people.

To realists, labeling Israel's campaign as “genocide” cheapens the term, turning a moral category into a political weapon.

At stake are two incompatible logics of accountability:

• Idealist logic prioritizes moral and legal categories—intent, proportionality, and universal human rights.
• Realist logic prioritizes context, security imperatives, and the unpredictability of war.

The ICJ's cautious interim rulings—ordering Israel to prevent genocidal acts but stopping short of declaring genocide—reflect the world's struggle to mediate between these moral and pragmatic dimensions. The case thus becomes a mirror for the broader conflict: a moral judgment colliding with a security calculus.

7. The Crisis of Moral Authority in the 21st Century

The Gaza war exposes a broader crisis: the erosion of global consensus about moral authority.

The liberal international order—founded on idealist institutions like the UN and Geneva Conventions—has lost credibility. Realists point to selective enforcement: Western outrage over Ukraine contrasts with muted responses to Gaza. Idealists reply that such double standards only prove the need to restore moral coherence, not abandon it.

Meanwhile, the digital public sphere amplifies outrage but fragments consensus. Competing images of suffering become ideological weapons, not foundations for empathy. The result: moral noise without moral clarity.

8. Towards a Synthesis: Tragic Realism and Ethical Pragmatism

If the two worldviews are to be reconciled, each must learn from the other.

From Realism to Idealism: Realists must recognize that long-term security cannot rest solely on deterrence. Without addressing Palestinian dignity and statehood, Israel's military victories will sow the seeds of endless rebellion.

From Idealism to Realism: Idealists must acknowledge that moral appeals without enforceable power risk irrelevance. Hamas's atrocities and rejectionism cannot be explained away as mere reactions to occupation.

The way forward may lie in what some have called “Tragic Realism” or “Ethical Pragmatism”—the recognition that politics is the art of the possible, but that moral progress requires expanding what is possible.

This means grounding diplomacy in realism but orienting it toward justice: a two-state framework renewed not as utopia, but as the only pragmatic path to end perpetual war.

9. Conclusion: Beyond Competing Absolutes

The Gaza war, like so many before it, forces humanity to confront the limits of both power and virtue. Realism reminds us that survival is non-negotiable; idealism that humanity without conscience is hollow.

Neither paradigm alone can resolve this tragedy. The future depends on their uneasy partnership—on a realism that learns compassion, and an idealism that learns discipline.

The true resolution of the Gaza conflict will not come from defeating one side's narrative, but from transcending the binary itself: a moral realism capable of seeing that power without justice is brittle, and justice without power is blind.