Israel Must Avoid Hamlet’s Tragic Fate

Can a just and moral people defeat a ruthless enemy without moral compromise? Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” offers a valuable perspective on Israel’s agonizing moral conundrum. As Israel stands poised to eradicate Hamas from Gaza, the nation wrestles with the ethical issues “Hamlet” explores. A philosopher and a humanist, Hamlet cannot bring himself to act swiftly and decisively to punish Claudius, his father’s vicious murderer. Consequently, critics have accused the tormented prince of weakness, overthinking and indecision—qualities that ultimately lead to his tragic death, as well as the deaths of his mother, his beloved Ophelia, her brother Laertes, and a stage littered with corpses by the end of the play. Well-meaning humanitarians who are now asking Israel to “show restraint” have much to learn from Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy.

I thought of “Hamlet” as I watched on CNN the brother of a young pacifist killed by Hamas terrorists tearfully plead for an end to Israel’s plans to invade Gaza. With beloved members of his own family and community destroyed, this grieving young man agonizes over the fate of Palestinian families. Those who love life and value human beings do not share the terrorists’ “eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth” mentality. Israel is doing everything in its power to minimize the suffering it is now forced to inflict on Gaza’s civilian population. But how can it destroy the Hamas terrorists intent on destroying Israel without creating more innocent victims?

The possibility of having to punish an innocent individual unjustly drives Hamlet to despair. When his father’s ghost appears to him and demands revenge for his murder by treacherous Uncle Claudius, Hamlet feels stuck in a moral quagmire. The young prince’s keen sense of justice and morality is such that he cannot pronounce a man guilty of a crime without carefully examining the evidence. Forced to be both judge and executioner of the accused, Hamlet proceeds slowly, not out of cowardice, but out of a deep respect for the suspect’s humanity, which makes it impossible for the young prince to take life lightly. “What a piece of work is man, “Hamlet exclaims in a one of his famous soliloquies. “How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!”

Hamlet values human life too much to kill a man without compunction. “A killer is a guy without imagination: He doesn’t give a damn for death because he has no idea of what life is,” says Hoerderer, a modern Hamlet, in Jean Paul Sartre’s “Dirty Hands,” a post-World War II reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s tragedy. Hoerderer is a young intellectual who, like Hamlet, is asked to execute a traitor but cannot bring himself to take another man’s life.

Hamlet’s moral compunctions prevent him from assassinating King Claudius before Claudius conceives an intricate plot to assassinate him. Finally convinced of his uncle’s guilt, Hamlet stumbles on the king from behind, as he kneels in prayer. The prince draws out his sword, about to strike the villain. But then, he stops, unable to kill a man in prayer. Claudius, by contrast, has no such compunctions. He convinces Hamlet’s former friend, Laertes, to “cut” Hamlet’s “throat I’th’ Church” because “revenge should have no bounds.” For ruthless power-hungry tyrants like King Claudius, ethical choices are easy: The ends justify the means. Objectives are clear: absolute power, annihilation of the opposition, domination of the weak by the strong, survival of the fittest.

On the other hand, Shakespeare demonstrates that for a moral individual forced to commit an act of cruelty, objectives are muddled and choices unclear. In their article, “Endgame in Gaza Is Far from Clear” (WSJ 16/23), Margherita Stancati and Dio Nissenbaum write that as it prepares to invade Gaza to “destroy the ability of Hamas to rule there,” Israel has “no good options.”  Neither does Hamlet. Tormented by paralyzing doubts and hesitations, Hamlet compares himself with Fortinbras, the young Prince of Norway. This “man of iron” has no qualms about sending “two thousand souls” to their deaths over a small, worthless piece of land that he is disputing with the king of Poland. Hamlet laments these rulers’ disregard for the sanctity of human life: “What is a man /If his chief good and market of his time/Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more/ Sure he that made us with such large discourse/Looking before and after, gave us not/ That capability and godlike reason/To fust in us unused.” Hamlet cannot understand how any leader can bring himself to “expose what is mortal and unsure/To all that fortune, death and danger dare/even for an eggshell.” Unlike such rulers, Hamlet recognizes the divine essence of human beings and would never send his soldiers to die out of lust for power and glory. However, Shakespeare shows us that this noble, high-minded prince is not cut out to lead armies. He is a poet, not a warrior. He cannot make the kind of fast and hard decisions a leader must make in order to survive in a treacherous world.

On the other hand, Shakespeare demonstrates that for a moral individual forced to commit an act of cruelty, objectives are muddled and choices unclear.

Though Hamlet is morally superior to Fortinbras, it is the prince of Norway who takes over the country after Hamlet falls victim to Claudius’ villainy. And it is the “man of iron” who ultimately has the last word in Shakespeare’s tragedy. The Bard tells us the truth. It is impossible for a leader to survive in a world of villains without moral compromise. Hamlet’s beautiful, poetic spirit makes us cry at his death, just as we cry for the all the beautiful, innocent, idealistic spirits that Hamas terrorists snuffed out or took hostage on October 7. But tears alone will not keep Israel safe. Tragically, in order to defeat its ruthless enemies, Israel, a humane nation, must steel its heart with some of Fortinbras’ iron.

Irina Bragin is a Los Angeles writer and head of the English Department at Touro College, Los Angeles. She is the author of “Subterranean Towers: A Father-Daughter Story.” You can follow her on X at@bragin_Irina