Do any of us believe that hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki deserved to die because of what the Japanese government did to Pearl Harbor?
This horrific chapter of US history was taught to us as a cautionary tale – not one of valor and heroism. Two years before the end of his life, Oppenheimer urged that “science is the business of learning not to make the same mistake again.”
And yet here we are condoning a similar path of destruction.
Let me be clear. What Hamas did to innocent Israeli civilians is beyond horrific and unjustifiable. Every Jewish person has the right to grieve the unfathomably traumatizing and undeserved loss of over fourteen hundred innocent lives. But the pain that so many Israelis are experiencing is in no way shape or form soothed by the loss of more innocent lives.
Not only does it fail to solve anything, but it is having the opposite effect. Put bluntly, relentlessly massacring thousands of innocent Palestinians is making Israelis and Jews around the world less safe.
Even if one does not consider the Israeli government’s actions to merit being called a genocide, one cannot deny that this ruthless approach is anything near civil. Far from an effective strategy (if one can even be so callous as to call it that), for each bomb dropped on Gaza, the world becomes that much more dangerous for the Jews.
The pain and agony of the Palestinian people should be enough to demand an end to this senseless slaughter. And the very safety of Jewish people depends on an end to this bloodbath.
Once again, the US government is on the wrong side of history – and too stubborn and delusional to think otherwise. We are aiding and abetting war criminals. The Israeli government is putting it’s own people in danger – and our government is providing billions of dollars for them to do so.
