A reflection on the ceasefire in Gaza
By Madelyn Braho · Staff Writer
Israel has violated the Oct. 11 ceasefire agreement, something which seems counterintuitive to the concept of a ceasefire. According to statements by the IDF, the most recent attack was in retaliation to two Israeli soldiers being killed in Rafah by the terrorist organization Hamas.
In response, up to 45 Palestinian civilians were killed in the returning strike. Hamas has said they were unaware of any actions taken in Rafah, and that they have not had any contact with members in Rafah since March.
The trouble with this situation is that it’s very hard to know whose information to trust. For so many people, news about Gaza has come from independent reporters and even Palestinians themselves trying to use social media to raise money to escape. Hamas and Israel are not reliable sources of information either, as it benefits sides of a military conflict to hide how much they really know or what they are doing.
For the rest of us outside of the Gaza Strip, it’s much like trying to stare through fog to see what is happening. There is major Palestinian civilian death occurring, that is for sure. The Israeli military has bombed hospitals and prevented aid from coming into the Gaza Strip.
The treatment of environmental activist Greta Thunberg, who was taken prisoner, along with other members of the Freedom Flotilla earlier this month should indicate that something is not right, at least once the situation has reached starvation levels.
We created laws governing the kinds of violence governments are allowed to enact. This statement alone shows us what kind of world we live in. The fact that these laws have been violated repeatedly by many countries is a testament to human willingness to break rules we agreed to if it benefits us.
Declaring war is not usually a moral act. World War II may have been the exception, except that the United States did not join the conflict because of the Holocaust, but because someone attacked us.
Trying to call something a holy war, saying that you will win because you have the moral high ground or declaring that God is on your side is a prideful and incredibly foolish position to take.
We do not know the mind of God, and God is also presumably too farsighted to take sides in human conflicts. If he does, it could be argued that he takes the side of the people currently in danger, such as the civilians and the starving. The statehoods of Israel and Palestine are complicated and have caused what are now decades-long problems that we as individuals cannot see all sides of. Neither can we fully grasp the violence that has been happening in Gaza for the past two years, or even the past 80.
However, what we can do, or should at least try to do, is be careful of assigning moral definition to the actions of governments and armies, two categories that are not known for taking the most moral path. The conflict in Gaza is not a holy war; it is simply war.
