Published:  October 26, 2024

Under development.

SOLUTION TO AND STATEMENT ON THE ISRAELI/HAMAS CONFLICT & WAR

"Man is capable of as much atrocity as he has imagination." -- William Parcher character from film A Beautiful Mind.

I have been following, with tears in my eyes, the slaughter that Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, specifically, has been perpetrating upon men, women, AND MOST DECIDEDLY CHILDREN across several nations in the Middle-East for over a year now, the last few months, in particular.

I found myself crying about 30 minutes ago, perhaps related to the latest in the string of news reports that I keep hearing about the gruesome, unspeakable fate of men, women, and many, many children because of Netanyahu's military campaign in Gaza, and now Beirut. Though I lost my own beloved Mother not 30 days ago, I knew that my tears at that moment were because of the carnage that the Israeli military under Netanyahu's orders, and with the apparent tacit approval of the Israel people, is generating. This latest report to which I refer concerned a 2-year old infant burned or otherwise seriously injured across her entire body, and the reactions of her father, who was actually just about to depart their home with the family to escape Israel when the bombardment of their house occurred, and the reconstructive surgeon who was working on the baby. As her father spied her having turned completely black from the blast, he also heard the roof of his house fall in.

THIS IS EVIL. As a skilled and insightful writer and philosopher, I don't favor use of the word "evil" and rarely use it, for I feel that it carries more an emotional meaning and implication than one that is precise and linguistic. But in this case this word is appropriate, given the level of the devestation against many human bodies, and the extirpation (i.e. complete destruction) of so very many children and others--simply blown to bits in one gruesome massacre after another by missiles and other materiel. Of course, the many unlucky children were not blown to bits, but somehow survived--many, many with grievous, unspeakable injuries, often accompanied by the deaths of their parents and families.

How do we explain to a 2yo, a 4yo, a 7yo, an 11yo, that, not only has your body suffered permanent, large-scale mutilation, that will make living difficult for the entire rest of your years, and perhaps also subject you to disabling pain that you may also never eliminate--but, oh, by the way, you'll never see your mother or father again, or your sisters or brothers, or anyone else in your family, anyone who you've come to know and love as your family in the few short years that you've lived so far--BECAUSE THE NATION OF ISRAEL, HOME OF JUDAISM, THE RELIGION OF "LOVE AND PEACE" ACCORDING TO ITS ADHERENTS, HAS WIPED THEM ALL OUT.

And the supreme irony, of course, is that in committing such crimes Israel has become no different than Hamas, as explained, above.

HOW A PEOPLE LIKE THE ISRAELIS, WHOM THEMSELVES HAVE BEEN SUBJECT HISTORICALLY TO SUCH EXPLICIT AND EXCRUCIATING HORROR, CAN NOW INFLICT ON A MASS POPULATION, MOST OF WHOM ARE WOMEN AND CHILDREN, WHAT CAN ONLY ALSO BE CALLED EXPLICIT, EXCRUCIATING, AND ULTIMATELY UNSPEAKABLE HORROR, SPEAKS TO THE CATEGORICAL TRUTH OF BOTH OF MY THESES:

1. HUMANITY MUST EMBARK UPON THE WHOLESALE ADOPTION OF LOVE AS ITS PREVAILING ETHIC.

2. HUMANITY, RATHER THAN DIVERT ITS LIMITED RESOURCES TO DAMAGING AND SUPERFLUOUS ENDEAVORS SUCH AS THE CREATION OF A FAKE BRAIN ("A.I.") MUST MOVE FULL-STEAM AHEAD TO PERFECTION OF THE HUMAN MIND AND ITS PHYSICAL REPOSITORY THE HUMAN BRAIN--WITH THE HOPE AND REASONABLE EXPECTATION THAT A MORE PERFECT BRAIN WILL MORE READILY PLAY HOST TO A FAR MORE PERFECT MORALITY.

3. ISRAEL CAN NOW BE ARGUED TO HAVE BECOME THE NEW FACE OF EVIL IN THE MODERN WORLD.

THE DEATH TOLL IN GAZA HAS EXCEEDED 40,000 AS OF AUGUST 2024. THE MAJORITY OF WHOM ARE WOMEN AND CHILDREN, WHOM OBVIOUSLY BEAR NO RELATION TO HAMAS VIOLENCE.

THE CONTINUING ISRAELI MILITARY CAMPAIGN IS LIKELY ACCOMPLISHING THE FOLLOWING:

DISCREDITING ITSELF AND ITS "RELIGION OF LOVE AND PEACE," JUDAISM.

Israel, historic global home of Judaism, a religion of "love and peace," according to many, including my orthodox Jewish next-door neighbor, should not have responded militarily to the Hamas attack, at least not with this level of aggression.

There are a lot of suffering, and dead, children (and adults), now, who were and are completely innocent of any crime against Israel, and presumably didn't support Hamas' action. Israel's attacks, with more to come, have destroyed their lives.

Love and peace--where?

If a purported commitment to love and peace doesn't show itself at times like this, it's a useless and hollow claim.

It's action is, ironically, likely not deterring but creating the next several waves of anti-Israel terror, whose hatred of Israel and consequent terror activities against Israel will likely continue for many years to come. These Gazans who will seek a never-ending revenge will likely start with, but not be lmited to, those innocent gaza children whom are now orphans because Israel killed their parents.

What Israel is now doing, in fact, is making it a fait accompli that their nation will literally never reach a state of peace with its Arab neighbors, nor with itself. Prior to this, the present body of explicitly anti-Israel activists and militants, such as HAMAS, would have eventually died out, perhaps creating the conditions whereby Israel might be close to a normal national and international existence. But that possibility is probably as dead as the over 25,000 persons wiped out by the Israeli military.

[UPDATE, JUNE 06, 2025: THE FIGURE IS NOW ESTIMATED TO BE AT LEAST 54,677. British health authorities indicate that these figures are grossly under-reported.]

I can think of no better example for children for how grossly dysfunctional the world is, and for how human beings should NOT behave--than war.

Ironically, Israel and Hamas are now functionally equivalent. They're doing exactly the same thing with exactly the same general perspective:  as far as Hamas sees it, it committed unspeakable violence in the name of justice. And as far as Israel sees it, it is doing precisely the same thing: committing unspeakable violence in the name of justice.

So where's the difference between the two parties? Arguably, in fact, Israel is committing the greater crime, if not against the multitudes of persons whom it's killing in Gaza, most of whom we presume to be innocent, then against itself and its own belief system of Judaism, presuming the people and government of Israel take Judaism seriously as "a religion of love and peace."

Given the asserted morality and moral tenor of its religion, one would simply think Israel to "know better," rather than imagine, or perhaps more likely the problem is lack of imagination, that a comprehensive military campaign is the answer and the only answer to the recent reprehensible crimes of Hamas.

What happened to that wonderful mantra of Judaism "REPAIR THE WORLD"?

("Tikkun olam")

I don't think that Israeli munitions, materiel, and muerte* are repairing much of anything; rather, the opposite.

*Spanish for DEATH.

Wikipedia.org states:

Tikkun olam...lit.'repairing of the world'...is a concept in Judaism, which refers to various forms of action intended to repair and improve the world.

In classical rabbinic literature, the phrase referred to legal enactments intended to preserve the social order. In the Aleinu prayer, it refers to the eradication of idolatry. In Lurianic Kabbalah, the "repair" is mystical: to return the sparks of Divine light to their source by means of ritual performance.

In the modern era, particularly among the post-Haskalah movements, tikkun olam has come to refer to the pursuit of social justice[1] or "the establishment of Godly qualities throughout the world"[2] based on the idea that "Jews bear responsibility not only for their own moral, spiritual, and material welfare, but also for the welfare of society at large".[3]

Regarding American support for the full breadth and depth of the Israeli military action, I note that recently, broadcast on the radio as I listened was a U.S. Congressman, I don't recall if he was of the House or Senate, who referred erroneously to "Mahas." Surely anyone can make a mistake, but given the general impression held around the world of the political and social ignorance of the American people, this flub does not speak well of the ability of the United States to appraise, assess, and deconstruct this conflict, in service of adjudicating whether, and what measure of support, to accord Israel.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Has Israel never heard of this gentleman?

The Israeli military response is the action of a government too captured by and fraught with the "phenomenon of stupidity" (COPYRIGHT 2024 VFD) to respond and redress with intelligence and morality, evidently ignorant of the perspectives and approach of one Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who similarly undertook a fight against an irrational and brutal force by marshaling the power of Love, building a movement that vanquished that enemy--without killing 25,000 persons, most innocent, in the process.

"Look to the cookie, Elaine, look to the cookie," said the Jerry Seinfeld character in a famous episode of the American situation-comedy Seinfeld, holding the black-and-white cookie as the token, exemplar, or symbol of a superior approach to the resolution of conflict between historically divided parties. The Jewish "cookie," here, surely is the Love-centric strategy of non-violence of Dr. King, and Mahatma Gandhi, from whom he borrowed the notion, and in regard to the implementation of which morally elevated and militarily superior strategists would surely assist, building a relatively peaceful anti-Hamas movement based on that which is good in Humanity, assisted peripherally by military violence as genuinely needed, that would, in the end, terminate aggression and violence by all parties. One would think and hope that such a culture would seek, even creatively fashion if necessary, as Dr. King and the civil rights movement did, a response strategy based on love and peace.

As I've written previously:  we simply cannot permit war, as even the smallest war will make one child cry (click, and follow the lyrics). The crusade for justice (i.e. revenge) is usually a profoundly selfish act, for it destroys much in terms of innocent people, including children, and things. A good rule of thumb for efficiency in living is: don't do anything that you know or suspect you're going to have to reverse. And we all know that the damage from war, once it ends, is going to have to be reversed, i.e. the ravaged society will have to be rebuilt, insofar as it can be. Lost lives, of course, the most important loss, are gone forever.

Don't do it in the first place. Find another way. Behave intelligently, not emotionally, especially applicable to a nation intimately tied to, if not founded upon, "a religion of love and peace."

I provisionally consent at present to heavily or otherwise aggressively arming a nation, as this strategy adopted by nations antagonistic to each other prevents either state from inordinate military action, a proven approach called Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). But the trick, that is, the desirable conclusion and consequent action, morally, is, obtain or otherwise develop all the fearsome required strengths--then don't use them.