Friday 3 November
It is not easy, and not that I can change the world, but, honestly, I've tried to stand back as a nonjudgmental observer. Not "on the fence" by any means, because I have a longstanding bias for any underdog. But I'm fast coming down on a side. Hamas has announced that their murderous incursions into Israel will continue, there will be more October 7th events again and again without ceasing until Israel no longer exists.
Every Volk want to live in peace, including the Jews, who from ancient Time have seldom and never been allowed to do so. They want a land of their own again, the land they see as their ancient heritage; and after and in pathetic half-response to the Holocaust, winners of WW2 created Israel as a nation for the Jews.
Instead of giving other peoples' land, morally, Israel should have been carved out of a section of Germany totally depopulated by whatever means necessary, for that purpose; but that did not happen, probably was not considered, and in any event the developing politics of the Time would not have enabled it.
At any event, the Jews have as much right to a land and nation of their own, as Muslim people have to their Islamic republics, and as we Western nations have to our so called "Christian" nations (we are a far stretch from whatever a Christian nation might be, but historically that is how we have thought of America and much of Europe and North and South America.
But war, ongoing. There is no place on the planet for a group whose dedicated purpose is to eliminate another people's existence. Given the historical background, Hamas viciously initiated the current war with Israel, with no concern for the entirely predictable next step or what would come upon the people of Gaza and other Palestinians. In response Israel has declared war with Hamas, whom the people of Gaza chose as their government almost as fully as the German Volk chose the NSDAP to govern their Third Reich. Oddly sloughing off any responsibility as a government, Hamas have declared that the wellbeing of the Palestinians of Gaza is not Hamas' responsibility, but Israel's and the world's. With no intent of peaceful resolution, Hamas has USED the people of Gaza to cloak Hamas' evil objective. And now there is all out war, apparently Total War, a concept in which ordinary people suffer and die. More ordinary people than the armies that used to gather and fight it out.
The days are long past when armies gather in remote meadows to battle until one army defeats the other army into surrender or destroys them. The trench warfare of WWI may have been the last such remnant of that sort of "civilized" warfare. In WW2 warfare changed, all bets were off, Total War came to be, including by people's choice. Germany bombs London. Allies bomb German cities, notably in our firebombing of Hamburg and Dresden, shifting to population centers that are the work force for the war effort. In Europe, Hamburg, Dresden, others. And then Tokyo, finally Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The chronicles of human suffering are horrifying to read, the cost in civilian deaths was incalculable, incomprehensible.
The object of war is to destroy the enemy. Because cruelty is morally reprehensible, there are international rules for warfare, largely to protect the innocent; but the object of war is to destroy the enemy's ability to carry on. Israel is bombing Hamas targets, including Hamas positions purposefully concealed behind and under population centers. The world cries out, but this is war.
When this is over, including destruction of Hamas officials living in Qatar and elsewhere, and conceivably extending to nations who support Hamas evil with weapons and encouragement, and even unthinkably expanding to the rest of the world, which is indeed what Iran, Hamas, and their allies want, and is frankly the object of October 7, whatever civilized world is left will have a mess to clean up. As the UN stands impotent and objecting, all decisions will come through violence, because that is how humans work.
Deciding what, where, when, whether and if to rebuild will take years. Actual rebuilding will take decades. Rebuilding may not be necessary, if there are no former adversaries left alive.
Authorities who decide should take great caution, because hatred is endemic with humans and will never cease. In the end, maybe there will be an enforced peaceful settlement, more likely not. But no nation, surely not Israel, can be complacent with a neighbor whose avowed purpose is its total destruction. In this case, Israel's security is the only factor; people on both sides will suffer and die, entire peoples may be wiped out, as the Assyrians and the Babylonians wiped out ancient Israel and ancient Judea as nations, and as the Persians wiped out Babylonia. At some point there will be peace, perhaps only while the smoke settles, perhaps permanent, likely only for a Time and half a Time.
Unless the Son of Man truly comes. Which, Thomas Hardy says, He has given up on us.
People around the world, including innocent and clueless college students, who are protesting Israel's war and the war's human costs may be right, but they seem to be ignorant about our animal human nature, which cannot be changed.
At impasse for ability and willingness to compromise, war is how we decide. Earth may abide yet one more Time again. Not pious thoughts and prayers, let us work to make it happen.
++++++++++
Today is my son's birthday. I send him love and wish him long years.
RSF&PTL
T88&c