The ‘battered nation’ syndrome
The entire magazine of the rifle emptied, not on the battlefield. The man’s death was not that of a soldier, but of a husband: murdered in his home, at the hands of his wife. At first glance, it seems like a straightforward case of murder, punishable by life in prison. Yet, behind this picture lies a very different reality. For thirty years, this man had abused his wife: he humiliated her verbally, beat her with sharp objects, and even threatened to kill her if she sought help. On the night of his death, he had attacked her, yet again, as he had for so many years. She had fled to the room of their son (who was a soldier at the time) and taken his weapon, intending to end her own life. However, when she heard her husband approaching, she turned the gun on him and fired until the last bullet was spent.
This is the case of Carmela Buhbut, a middle-aged Jewish woman and mother of three, who killed her husband in 1994, in the city of Kiryat Shmona, as a last desperate attempt to free herself from the seemingly endless cycle of abuse and violence she had endured for years.
Out of this tragic act of survival emerged a question that rocked Israel’s legal system: Was this “battered” woman deserving of life imprisonment? Should she be granted legal leniency? Should every woman in a similar situation of abuse be given such judicial clemency at all?
Cases like this led to the feminist criticisms of criminal law which resulted in the development of the defense of the “battered woman.” This term alludes to a legal claim which argues that prolonged trauma, such as the one present in victims of intimate partner violence, impairs the victim’s judgment, thus justifying mitigation of punishment. In some instances, it may even serve as a shield from any criminal liability. Some legal scholars also argue for applying a similar principle to soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
But what if this “battered woman” defense was used to judicially shield a nation accused of genocide? Last semester, during my undergraduate studies in Law, I attended a course about “Theories of Justice”. In one of the classes, a provocative claim was put forward by the professor: he stated that, if Israel were to be found guilty in response to the accusations of genocide, the State’s attorneys should argue that if there has ever been a case of a “battered” nation in human history, it is that of the Jewish people.
The rationale behind this claim is that the Jewish people have endured thousands of years of persecution, pogroms, and expulsions, all of which culminated in the Holocaust, the event that defined the very concept of “genocide” in international law. This historical trauma is deeply embedded in Israel’s collective narrative, national memory, and in one of its utmost defining ethos: “Never Again.”
According to this proposed defense, Israel does not respond to threats on the basis of reasonable calculations of proportionality, but from a perspective in which every attack on Jewish civilians triggers a collective memory of trauma. This is reflected, for instance, in the way Palestinian terrorist organizations are often compared to the Nazis; or in how Israeli public figures make sure to emphasize that Jews are still being murdered for being Jewish in the wake of antisemitic attacks. Similarly, the 7th of October, which quickly became etched in Israeli consciousness as the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, has resurrected in the Israeli public an ever-present feeling of existential threat.
Within this worldview, every threat is perceived as the possible beginning of another genocide, and every innocent Jewish victim as evidence that the Holocaust is, indeed, repeating itself. From this perspective, measures of self-defense that would otherwise be characterized as excessive are deemed legitimate, a reflection of the enduring credo “never again.” The theory, therefore, calls for judging Israel’s actions not according to international standards of proportionality, but in the light of the Jewish people’s distinctive historical experience.
Yet, this approach raises fundamental questions: can such a legal defense be applied at a national level? Is it moral? Is it practical? A closer look at different theories of justice exposes significant flaws in this justification.
What if you were Gazan?
John Rawls’s “veil of ignorance” is a thought experiment in which people design the rules of a hypothetical society without knowing their personal status, such as class, gender, abilities, or wealth. Since no one knows whether they will find themselves in a position of weakness or strength once the rules are set, they tend to choose principles of justice and basic equality for all. Applying this theory to the events of the past two years, Rawls’s theory compels us to ask: behind the veil of ignorance, when we do not know whether we would be residents of Israel or residents of Gaza, would we choose to grant Israel a legal defense for waging disproportionate wars based on historical trauma? The answer is clear: given the possibility of finding ourselves in the line of fire of a disproportionate response, we would choose to allow Israel the right to self-defense, but not a license to employ force beyond the accepted laws of war.
Is Israel the exception?
Another way to examine this claim is through the lens of utilitarianism. Utilitarianism holds that an action, law, or policy is justified and moral if its consequences produce the greatest benefit, happiness, or welfare for the largest number of people. The “battered nation” defense is not meant to apply only to Israel but, in principle, to all states. Yet, what kind of world would we live in if nations were allowed to invoke it? Almost every nation bears historical trauma that shapes its identity and political decisions. Nonetheless, if we focus on cases most comparable to the Israeli experience, we find that Armenia could justify overwhelming retaliation against its neighbors by invoking the memory of the Armenian Genocide; or Rwanda might excuse future regional violence as a consequence of the massacre of the Tutsi people. The indigenous peoples of the Americas could claim that centuries of colonization, massacres, and forced displacement entitle them to exceptional forms of self-defense; and the Kurds, dispersed and oppressed across four states, could claim historical trauma as license for disproportionate action. The cumulative results? A world in which nearly every conflict is granted license, moral restraints are diminished, and human suffering is amplified. From a utilitarian standpoint, the costs of legitimizing such a defense far outweigh any possible benefit to trauma-affected states.
From Shield to Sword
Returning to the feminist argument, the “battered woman” defense was created to protect vulnerable women trapped in cycles of abuse. It acknowledges that the victim’s trauma may impair their ability to respond according to conventional societal norms, but it aims to break the cycle of violence, not expand it outward. Can we really suppose that granting women such as Carmela Buhbut a mitigated sentence was intended to create new cycles of violence? When a state adopts this concept to justify disproportionate use of force in war, it inverts the feminist framework: it takes a concept designed to protect the vulnerable and repurposes it to empower the strong. Thus, when the “battered nation” argument borrows the language of feminist legal and moral thought, it undermines itself: it betrays the very tradition it seeks to invoke.
Collective Memory ≠ Trauma
This discussion can be concluded by noting that the analogy itself is a categorical mistake. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as it may manifest in a woman exposed to years of violence, is a disorder that applies to beings with a psyche. PTSD has clear clinical features that institutions cannot possess in the relevant sense: flashbacks, anxiety attacks, insomnia, apathy, despair, and so on. One can observe them in a soldier returning from combat, or a woman who has suffered long-term abuse. But taken literally, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not experience nightmares, the Knesset does not suffer anxiety attacks, and the Shin Bet does not endure flashbacks. It is obvious that an institutional entity such as a state does not possess a consciousness in the sense relevant to this analogy.
Therefore, the analogy does not explain the phenomenon of disproportionate force in response to security threats. Instead, it conflates collective memory (a society remembering and narrating past traumatic events) with individual trauma (a medical-psychological condition). In most cases, the population inhabiting a state has not directly experienced itself the traumatic events embedded in the collective narrative. The result is an unworkable dilemma: is it appropriate to grant legal protection to a nation because of a victimhood narrative?
The deeper issue, however, is not about analogy, but about purpose. The laws of war are not intended only to protect the lives of innocent people caught in the crossfire. As political theorist Michael Walzer argues: in war, we aim also to preserve our quality of life, our civilization, our moral principles, and our collective revulsion toward murder, even when it appears to serve some purpose. Indeed, the Jewish people are the “battered nation” of human history, and the memory of the Holocaust cannot be denied or its weight in our national identity diminished. Yet, precisely for this reason, we bear a double moral responsibility: not to fall into a victimhood narrative that frees us from criticism, and not to justify disproportionate actions in its name. Memory can serve as a source of moral empowerment, not of moral immunity. As Rabbi David Hartman put it:
“Our bodies have painfully tasted man’s indifference and inhumanity to his fellow man. We have witnessed in our own flesh the moral evil present in human society. But this should not tempt us to become morally arrogant. Our suffering should not lead us to self-righteous postures, but to an increased sensitivity about all human suffering.”