The story is familiar to us all: Hamas launched a surprise attack on Oct. 7, 2023, resulting in the deaths of 1,195 Israelis, with 251 Israelis
being kidnapped and held hostage. In response, the government of Israel launched a full-scale war that continues to this day.
Everyone agrees that human life is sacred, but in practice, how much do we really believe that? Do we recognize that life’s not just the state
of being alive, but the ability to wake up each morning and decide your own future?
The commitment humanity makes to itself is to allow, at minimum, the ability to be a normal person and experience all the growth and change that comes along with it.
When it comes to Palestinian lives, this reverence is non-existent.
Its scale of destruction is unfathomable: 48,000+ Gazans—a population more than four times the size of Tifton—have lost their lives (the overwhelming majority being civilians, with roughly half of the casualties being women and children).
Nearly the entire population of 2.3 million people have been displaced forcefully, as well as 100,000 Israelis who lived near the area. That’s the equivalent of uprooting the entire population of Las Vegas, Austin, or San Antonio, and bombing what’s left until it’s uninhabitable.
At its core, the debate around this war hinges on a single word: justification. How does one justify suffering?
Most definitions agree that for something to be “justified,” it must meet several criteria: it must be for a good cause, in pursuit of a good
outcome, and be done through the least bad means possible.
What then, is the “good cause” that lets people intentionally destroy food to further starve a population mid-famine?
What is the good outcome achieved by the forced removal of
Arab Israeli citizens so that non-Arabs can take their property and live in their homes?
What is the “least bad” way to burn a child to death after they watched their entire family die?
If human life is as sacred as we claim, then don’t Palestinians deserve that just as much as Israelis? Doesn’t everyone deserve a chance at life?
America must not be complicit or compliant with actions that violate the self-assured right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It is not in our interest to give up that tradition in support of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, whose actions have harmed Israel so severely that it no longer represents the interests of the Israeli people.
Israel’s “interest” in Gaza isn’t about security—it’s about a corrupt leader who’s backed into a corner and is now willing to destroy his nation to save himself.
Netanyahu’s reasoning is this: The destruction of Israel is preferable to the existence of any Palestinian state, even if it’s in the form of a patchwork of towns disconnected and displaced that he has “oh so graciously” allowed to exist.
This conflict is destroying both Palestine and Israel, and the nations cannot coexist if one is not allowed to exist. That means this ceasefire must be permanent, with a full commitment to rebuilding Gaza and righting this historic wrong. That is what is “just.”
When the word “Palestine” flashes across the news, I am immediately reminded of one of the most sobering accounts I’ve read that stands out among the rest.
Palestinian artist Tamam al-Akhal was forced to leave her home in what is now Tel Aviv when she was only 12. Decades later, she returned to the city to visit her childhood home that she’d featured so heavily in her work, only to be denied even a look by the new
Israeli occupant who is also an artist.
Nothing more than a memory is allowed for those uprooted from the place their family is buried and the place they played as a child. Ceasefire or not, its clear that even that memory was too much, as death was the prescription for those sick for home.
People, like trees, cannot grow without their roots. The destruction of a tree’s roots that draw life from the soil is also the destruction of the oxygen they produce that gives us life.