People lose as ‘other team’ battles it out

THE EDITOR, Madam:

The ancient Greek author Aeschylus once said: “In war, truth is the first casualty”; he wrote tragedies, and could easily have an assignment in Gaza today. The war declared there by Israel rages on, and when a Christian-run hospital was destroyed, a question arose as to whose bomb or rocket was it?

US President Joe Biden made a whirlwind, trip to Jerusalem to lend support to Israel, along with promises of more billions in aid and munitions, of course. He may have inspired some with this hands-on approach, but others remained unimpressed by watching him speak to Prime Minister Netanyahu while reading from a cheat sheet and surmising that the hospital was flattened by “the other team”, a bizarre choice of words.

Those killed inside the hospital, and more probably still buried under its rubble – poor souls – had no idea which ‘team’ they played against. Another historical quote popped up. In 1821, President John Quincy Adams spoke on Independence Day about his country’s policy of non-interference in other nations’ affairs: “America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.”

Wow! Things have certainly changed in the past 200 years. The US was first to acknowledge Israel’s statehood in 1948, and has been its financial backer since, while blocking countless United Nations resolutions brought against Israel for various alleged transgressions against the Palestinians. Adams must be rolling in his grave thinking about Israel-Gaza war expanding into a far bigger conflict, with military debacles and tremendous loss of life in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq fresh in a lot of people’s minds.

The potential of directly involving more nations is very possible with increasing tensions in Israel’s occupied West Bank, and on its borders with Syria and Lebanon – while arch-enemy Iran hovers in the shadows, considered by many as ‘the other team’.

BERNIE SMITH

Parksville, BC

Canada