Unholy land

The pictures and stories of death and destruction are horrific. The Palestinian militant group Hamas must be condemned for its acts of barbarism in killing more than 1,400 civilians, including women and, most appallingly, children. And it deserves even more condemnation for hideously kidnapping more than 200 people of different nationalities, which again horrendously include women and children.

Israel has every right to retaliate against Hamas, and take action to recover its kidnapped constituents. But in its efforts thus far, more than 4,000 Palestinian civilians have been gruesomely killed, many of whom are women and children as well. One agency ghastly reports that at least 2,000 children in Gaza have already been killed in this current conflict. There are already these numbers of casualties even before Israel’s full invasion of Gaza. Israel deserves to be equally condemned for the vicious killings of these civilians. No amount of atrocity committed against Israeli citizens can justify a retaliatory action that intentionally or recklessly claims the lives of innocent Palestinian casualties.

Israel should know that for every innocent Palestinian it kills as “collateral” casualty, the death can potentially give rise to multiples of new Hamas members from the deceased’s relatives, friends, and community. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, because the death will additionally generate thousands of angry sympathizers in the whole Islamic world, if not the whole world. So even if Israel annihilates all the current Hamas members as it has vowed to do, but if in the process of doing so it recklessly kills tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians, it will end up with a bigger reincarnation of Hamas in the not so distant future. What kind of victory will Israel achieve if it wins the battle in this generation, but will bequeath a far larger enemy for its future generation?

With the alignment of Israel’s enemies with countries that either already possess or will eventually develop the capacity to manufacture weapons of mass destruction, it may only be a matter of time before its enemies can either get hold of or develop their own advance weapons that will penetrate Israel’s defense system. The possibility will keep increasing that one of the rockets that are sporadically fired into Israel will one day be armed with a nuclear warhead.

What kind of future does Israel have if it increases the chances of an Armageddon scenario for its succeeding generations? What kind of peace will Israel have, if the price it pays is an ever-growing social volcano in the Islamic world that can be triggered to explode when Israel is at its weakest? Israel is thinking of short-term peace and prosperity, while its enemies are thinking of long-term efforts to destroy Israel.

It’s easy to be an armchair analyst, especially for one who is merely vicariously affected by the very deep anguish experienced by all Israelis right now, it’s true. But the eradication of Israel’s existential problem will not come from solutions that spring forth from anguish. Israel must have learned by now that anguish-driven solutions give rise to repeated incidents of anguish—not immediately but eventually—as this latest massacre of Israelis has shown.

Already, even before it launches a full invasion of Gaza, the image of Israel is fast transforming from victim to oppressor, because of the many civilian deaths resulting from its retaliatory bombings. Israel is unwittingly playing the role that Hamas wants it to play in the Hamas playbook. Hamas will stand to win the propaganda war, as the death of Palestinian civilians continue to pile up. The savagery of Hamas stands to get eclipsed by the brutality of Israel as the number of Palestinian deaths overshadow Israeli casualties. Like a puppeteer, Hamas is succeeding in making Israel act as the more cruel of the two because of the latter’s ability to cause more death, destruction, and suffering.

As the far-stronger party, Israel has the wherewithal to wrangle control over the complexion, direction, and nature of the long-running war in what has become the unholy land. Israel can choose to disengage from the contest of who can out-mad each other—a sick competition of “if you can kill 100 of our children, we can kill 1,000 of your children.” It can opt to calibrate its retaliation with utmost concern in avoiding civilian casualties, despite the very difficult task this will entail. It should desist from imposing the cruel and inhuman total blockade of Gaza, wherein the territory is cut off from electricity, water, food, and fuel supplies. It should return Palestinian land that have been seized and occupied by Israeli settlers.

The Philippines can make a key contribution in the resolution of the conflict. It can create a Philippine embassy in Palestine and send Teodoro Locsin Jr. as ambassador. Palestinians will welcome him with open arms.

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