Where does it all end in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Regardless of one's position on who is in the right or wrong here, surely the most troubling issue of all is the continued killing of civilians and, particularly, of innocent children.

Death of any kind is tragic, and there’s little doubt that in the ‘fog of war’ there are always bound to be losses among non-combatants. That most antiseptic of terms –‘collateral damage’- has so often been used as a blanket term by fighting forces to soften the news of yet another innocent’s death, or of another hospital, school or home having been destroyed. Israel alleges that Hamas has, as a matter of practice for some time, used non-combatants as human shields and hidden weaponry in non-military locations. Palestinians, meanwhile, charge that Israel uses that charge as a convenient excuse to target civilians. Across the border, Israeli’s hope and pray that their Iron Dome defense system continues to halt the barrage of incoming rockets from killing more people. As the world looks on in horror, we are left exhausted and grief-stricken by continued escalation in spite of so many mounting casualties.

Some who lived through the great conflicts of last century assumed that –surely- after such an extraordinary scale of death and destruction, war might become an alien, almost ‘passé’ notion to future generations. But when the images of children, covered in blood and their lives extinguished, are not enough for combatants to put down their weapons and engage in civilized, constructive discourse as a means to find peace, what hope can we have for humanity?

We dishonor the memory of all those who have lost their lives in war to date.

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