Dear Editor,
A recent Letter writer bemoaned the lack of pictures of war casualties from the conflict in Israel and Gaza. He posited that one side’s casualties (Palestine’s) were shown by “the media,” while the other side (Israeli) has been ignored. From this observation, he deduced a “woke” agenda.
War is horrendous, and I would challenge anybody, even the letter writer, to identify the nationality of the victims in a hundred random battleground pictured (without captions). The point, of course, is that ALL the victims are human beings, and in a conflict like the one in Israel and Gaza, the great majority of the victims are civilians. Further, when war is waged long range with missiles and bombs, the people launching the attack don’t really know where their destruction will fall.
The terrorist ground Hamas launched a sneak raid on civilians in Israel; this was definitely a heinous Pearl Harbor-like attack, and should be condemned by every human on earth. Certainly the Israeli people have the right to protect themselves, and to track down the perpetrators of this cowardly act and bring them to justice. Further, Hamas took hostages, and their safe return should be a primary objective.
That said, the methods used by Israel to achieve this objective are not above questioning. Hamas, we can agree, did an evil act and may be evil incarnate, but everyone in Gaza is NOT a member of Hamas. As the letter writer points out, most are women, children, infants, and the elderly; Gaza is a densely populated area. To be sure, ferreting out the Hamas perpetrators is a daunting undertaking. It would be dangerous and precarious. But does this mean the alternative, relentless unspecific missile attacks, is the best way to go, considering the cost in civilian casualties?
With victory for Israel in this instance defined as the total destruction and elimination of Hamas, the method to this end cannot be the total destruction of Gaza and the death of all 2+million people there. Or is the real goal the elimination of all Palestinians everywhere?
The Jews in Israel, of all people, should not embrace such genocide as a goal. Those calling for more restraint are not diminishing the horror of the attack Israel endured, nor telling Israel it cannot defend and protect its people. Instead, we seek a common humanity that poses the age-old question: Is the only way to defeat an enemy to BECOME as bad as that enemy? And if your answer is YES, then by what measure can you claim to be “better” than your enemy?
Jeff Harrison
Buffalo, Texas
