All right. This is a long one, but necessary. 🕊️
It covers normal human behaviour and cognitive bias that war trauma and propaganda quickly exacerbates.
It looks at histories of collective punishment and the complexity of breaking from cycles of violence.
And it looks at the failure of international systems to provide the moral weight necessary to protect civilian rights.
Oh, and I talk about the Book of Judges.
Y'know. As a "treat".
https://onlysky.media/mclark/moral-war-a-contradiction-of-terms/
@MLClark
Dude.
OK I've never actually read the whole bible, but that's gross. The part with the concubine.
(I understand back then everybody had their own local god and the gods were always getting offended and picking fights with each other.)
That story echoes the one where angels visit Sodom and Gomorrah and their host tries to offer his virgin daughters to the crowd that wants to violate them.
In Judges, a Levite is visiting a town where the locals want to assault him, and sends out his concubine instead. In the morning he finds her dead on his doorstep. The other tribes are so outraged they almost wipe out the town's tribe. It goes to war to steal women so its line can continue.
The Bible's histories are ROUGH!
@MLClark I'm reading through your article now.
I'm at a loss how to proceed in this situation.
The situation Israel finds itself in, I mean. It's so complex.
I don't know what I'd do if I was in charge of the country's safety and the region's prosperity and stability but completely getting rid of Hamas seems like a really good first step.
I think that's a perfectly sound conclusion, Janallmac. Just acknowledging that it's all very complex, & that most of us have no idea how to fix this, is a huge step up from grandstanding (as some do) about how they have the perfect solution.
None of us do.
And that's awful. Just awful.
So we'll grieve our imperfections together.
🫂 Thanks for taking the time with this piece. It means a lot to know it offers some clarity, however hard, about how challenging this is going will be.