The recent escalation in Gaza is often discussed through moral, legal, or political frames: who is “right,” who is “wrong,” who must be condemned. Here, we approach the events differently — using the architecture developed in the Ethics Without Moral Foundations series. The aim is to clarify responsibility, harm, care, and ethical limits without relying on value-laden or moralised interpretations.
1. Harm as relational destabilisation
Harm in Gaza is extreme, multidimensional, and systemic:
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Local relational fields: Individuals, families, and communities experience direct destruction, trauma, and disruption of coordinated activity. Homes, schools, hospitals, and livelihoods are destabilised, erasing the conditions for normal participation in social systems.
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Extended relational fields: The conflict reverberates regionally and globally, affecting economies, refugee flows, political alignments, and international social coordination.
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Temporal relational fields: The breakdowns are likely long-term. Reconstruction, repair of trust, and generational continuity face severe constraints.
Ethics begins by recognising these destabilisations as real relational pressures, independent of claims about morality or legality.
2. Responsibility as exposure, not blame
Responsibility is answerability to relational consequences: who is structurally exposed to the effects of their participation?
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Governments and institutional actors: Their decisions, actions, and policies have clear, large-scale effects on relational fields. Exposure is high, and the capacity to act to repair or mitigate is central to ethical responsibility.
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Civilians and non-state participants: Exposure varies according to capacity to influence outcomes. While harm may affect them disproportionately, their responsibility is structurally defined by the relational effects they can meaningfully address.
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Global observers and actors: Media, foreign governments, NGOs, and diaspora communities participate in shaping relational potential through advocacy, policy, humanitarian aid, or political pressure. Their exposure is real but mediated by capacity.
Crucially, responsibility does not require moral fault. It arises from participation in relational systems and the capacity to influence outcomes.
3. Care as structural sensitivity
Care is systemic attentiveness to fragility and asymmetry:
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Local care: Immediate humanitarian support, facilitation of coordination for survival, and repair of relational structures wherever possible.
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Institutional care: International aid, negotiation frameworks, and protective mechanisms that attempt to preserve continuation under constraint.
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Global care: Awareness campaigns, advocacy, and structural interventions that register relational pressure and attempt to stabilise or expand possibilities for safe participation.
Care is not emotional attachment or moral virtue, but the practical capacity to detect constraint and act to preserve viability where repair is possible.
4. Limits of ethics
Ethics has structural limits in situations of entrenched, large-scale violence:
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Irreparable harm: Some relational breakdowns are permanent. Displacement, loss of life, and destruction of social networks cannot always be repaired.
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Constraint on intervention: Actors, even with intent, cannot fully mitigate the relational pressures they face. Structural realities — geography, political power, resources — define what can be done.
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Ethical restraint: Recognising these limits is itself ethical. Attempts to moralise beyond what is actionable risk secondary harms: escalation, misallocation of attention or resources, and performative political conflict.
Ethics must therefore focus on where navigation is possible rather than overextending into moral absolutes.
5. Global reactions: people vs governments
Reactions across the world — protests, diplomatic actions, media campaigns, and advocacy — can be interpreted through the same lens:
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People: Participants in global relational fields register pressure and act to influence outcomes. Their answerability depends on capacity to alter the system (awareness-raising, fundraising, advocacy).
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Governments: States are highly exposed, both in direct action and structural influence over relational fields. Policies, sanctions, or mediation shape possibilities for repair or harm at scale.
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Alignment of pressure: When multiple actors coordinate effectively, relational pressure can be redirected toward repair. When misaligned or moralised, it may exacerbate destabilisation.
This analysis highlights responsibility and action potential without invoking partisan judgement.
6. Structural takeaways
Applying the series’ framework to Gaza and global responses clarifies several difficult insights:
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Harm is real and systemic, not contingent on moral evaluation.
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Responsibility is about exposure and capacity, not blame or virtue.
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Care is structural, actionable where relational viability can be preserved.
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Ethics has limits — recognition of irreparable breakdown is part of ethical maturity.
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Global action and attention are interventions within relational fields, their ethical weight determined by potential to stabilise or repair, not by moralised allegiance.
7. Conclusion
Viewed relationally, the Gaza situation and worldwide responses are a stark illustration of ethics under extreme constraint:
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Harm is unavoidable in scale and severity.
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Responsibility is unevenly distributed and structural.
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Care is the operative ethical skill.
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Limits are inevitable and must be recognised.
Ethics is not about who is morally “right” or “wrong.” It is about understanding relational consequences, navigating constraint, and acting where repair is possible.
Even in situations of maximal breakdown, these structural insights clarify what can be done ethically, and where ethical engagement must end.
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