Just when you think things couldn’t get any worse in this planet, another major shooting war has broken out between Israel and Palestine during the weekend, after Hamas and the Islamic Jihad fired thousands of rockets from Gaza, followed by armed militants breaking down the barriers surrounding the strip to enter Israel, shooting almost anything they see on sight and taking hostages.
The staggering and unprecedented offensive by Hamas, and the catastrophic intelligence failure by Israel, will have long-lasting repercussions and consequences, as Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyaho has declared that his country is at war and that Palestinians would pay a heavy price.
The death toll on both sides has soared to over 1,500. At least 900 on the Israeli side, mostly civilians. More than 250 of the dead had been attending a music festival near the border with Gaza when gunmen attacked.
The response from Israel has been swift and deadly, and mostly from the sky. Airstrikes have killed more than 687 people, including at least 140 children, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. Along with several large buildings in the city center, even mosques in Gaza have been targeted.
The exact reasons for this madness that has resulted in another shooting war are not clear, but both the Israeli and Palestinian governments are ultimately responsible for what is happening, as they have been unable to find a peaceful and diplomatic solution to their long running conflict that has already taken so many lives and caused hardship for millions.
There has already been a 16-year blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt that has almost destroyed the area’s internal economy and caused hardship for the people living there. In the past months, violence has been growing as armed settlers have attacked Palestinian villages, militants have attacked soldiers and settlers, and there have been repeated Israeli Defense Forces raids on Palestinian cities. Extreme religious nationalists who are part of Israel’s rightwing coalition government have been calling for the annexation of Palestinian territory. With so much gathering friction, there was no way that the Palestinians weren’t going to strike back in some way, shape, or form.
It’s just that nobody expected it to be this violent and deadly, targeting so many unarmed civilians. The attack definitely got the point of Hamas across, but it is hard to see how there can be a positive outcome for the Palestinians they are ruling after the weekend’s massacre and how Israel is expected to respond, which is usually with even more violence and destruction.
If you come to think of it, despite the history and the hardship and the bullying by Israel that the Palestinians had to endure, there is simply no justification for the war crimes, death, and destruction that Hamas unleashed upon thousands of unarmed citizens of Israel during their attack.
No self-respecting human would support such a heinous act and it is right for most world leaders to condemn it.
On the other hand, even though world leaders have been supporting Israel’s right to defend itself, it shouldn’t be unconditional as the heavy handed Israeli retribution that has so far leveled houses, apartment buildings, and mosques, indiscriminately killing hundreds of people, combatants and non-combatants alike, as it rains down ordinance from the sky to somehow eliminate militant fighters, equipment, and its leadership.
This cycle of violence and madness needs to stop, but the way things are going, it is only going to get worse, especially for the Palestinians who are blockaded in Gaza. Hamas may have killed almost a thousand Israelis in a weekend, but their brutal shortsightedness means that they have just given their sworn enemy, who also has a reputation for being heavy handed, an excuse to bomb everyone in their fenced in territory to oblivion, with the bonus of sending in hundreds of thousands of ground troops, as it has been provoked into declaring open war.
It is so difficult to fathom what kind of madness some world leaders possess. Israel has been pushing Palestine to the edge for decades, and now they are surprised that Hamas leaders have finally gone off that edge. Another war has broken out because of these mad people who don’t seem to mind putting in mortal danger the lives of hundreds of thousands of the people supposedly under their stewardship.
The same goes for Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which has started a war it cannot win but still refuses to end, even if hundreds of thousands of Russians and Ukrainians have already died in the battles and terror attacks that followed its unprovoked invasion.
How do so many humans give so much power to so many madmen in this world? Are we simply that stupid and gullible? Is there a way we can somehow end these cycles of madness and violence so future generations do not have to experience the depravity of the human condition that is being normalized by these unnecessary wars these days?
The madness in Ukraine, Israel and Gaza should give us pause and reflect on the quality of the leaders we put in charge of our countries. All it takes is one madman, or bumbling idiot, to make that one extraordinarily catastrophic decision that could gamble away our lives and our future. We’ve already seen it happen twice over the past two years, with Putin and Hamas. Let’s do all we can so it doesn’t happen to us next time around.*
