Life is precious. So why do we humans value it so cheaply?

Us members of Homo sapiens like to consider that we're the peak of the evolutionary mountain. We're proud of our big brains, our unique ability to use language and abstract thought, our technological accomplishments, and, yes, our supposed evolved morality.

Humanity has indeed made a lot of progress on the moral front. Slavery is condemned. So is racism. Women have equal rights in many, if not most countries. In democracies, everyone has an equal vote. Religious heresy doesn't lead to being burned at the stake.

And yet, life still is not valued as much as it should be. There are many examples of this, but what has captured my mind recently, and not in a positive way, is the horrific war between Israel and Hamas. 

I readily agree with anyone who argues that war is always hellish, and this conflict is just more of the same. Still, there's something about the Israel-Hamas war that is especially disturbing to me. One reason is that the combatants are divided neatly by religion: Jews versus Muslims.

Supposedly religiosity makes us better people. I don't believe that. It's just a common assumption. Tonight I watched an episode of Bill Maher's HBO show. He interviewed Dr. Phil, who, as Maher said, is so well known as a television psychologist (I think that's what he is) he only has one name.

Dr. Phil argued that faith and family are key to a well-functioning society. Maher, being a confirmed childless bachelor and an atheist, disagreed with that assumption. So do I. Israel and Hamas are overflowing with faith and family. Yet they're engaged in a nasty war with each other.

Neither side is covering itself with moral glory. Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 of last year in a brutal terrorist fashion, killing 1,200 people. In response, Israel has invaded Gaza, the home base of Hamas, killing about 30,000 people there, about 70% of whom are estimated to be women and children.

I wrote about this yesterday in a post on my Salem Political Snark blog: "Israel is killing lots of innocent people in Gaza. Biden is letting this happen." Here's how it started.

I'm fed up. I'm angry. I'm outraged.

More than 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7, when Hamas attacked Israel. The real number is almost certainly higher, since thousands are buried under rubble.

Note that I said "people."

That's who they are, people just like you and me. Yes, they're mostly Palestinians. Yes, many are Hamas fighters. But 70% of the dead people in Gaza are estimated to be women and children.

How could this be? Because Israel has been bombing Gaza relentlessly with little concern for deaths of innocent people.

It's Old Testament warfare. Hamas killed 1,200 people in Israel. So Israel feels justified in killing thirty times as many people in Gaza, because, you know. the life of an Israeli is so much more valuable than the life of a Palestinian. At least, that's how Israel has been behaving.

On cable news, if I have to hear one more spokesperson for the Israeli military or government blab on about how, yes, a two thousand pound bomb was dropped in Gaza that killed dozens of innocent people along with a few Hamas fighters, and that's okay because Hamas started the war and hides among civilians, my brain is going to explode with more pent up rage at Israel than it already is filled with.

That's exactly what I heard today on CNN. The CNN anchor kept asking the Israeli why they didn't work harder at minimizing civilian deaths, since so many women and children have been killed in Gaza. He never answered. Because Israel's extreme right-wing government feels entitled.

Entitled to destroy almost all of the buildings and homes in Gaza. Entitled to treat all Palestinians as if they are Hamas fighters, which obviously they're not. Entitled to control Gaza after the war in defiance of international law. Entitled to reject a two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict, since Israel wants to permanently occupy the territory it has claimed since the 1967 war, also in defiance of international law.

People are starving in Gaza. People are being operated on with no anesthesia. People lack a safe place to shelter, given that Israel keeps on bombing locations that Gaza residents were told to relocate to.

There's plenty of food, medical supplies, water, generators, water purification equipment, and other things needed by people in Gaza just a few miles away in Egypt and elsewhere But Israel won't let most of those supplies in, claiming that they might be used by Hamas.

Well, so what? This is an imperfect world. To save lives of innocent people in Gaza, much more humanitarian aid needs to be entering the country. If a small amount goes to Hamas, so be it. That's the price of compassion toward the afflicted: sometimes unworthy people benefit from it.

What's baffling is that people in Israel and Gaza mourn the death of a loved one equally. I don't mean the customs they follow, but the pain in their heart when life is taken too soon, too cruelly, too unnecessarily. 

Life is precious to them. Individually, at least. If a Palestinian and an Israeli were both in London, and one had a heart attack and collapsed on the sidewalk, I have no doubt that either would eagerly jump to help the other.

Yet on a collective level, many Palestinians and Israelis are uncaring about what befalls people on the other side of the war. I've seen reports that Palestinians were dancing with joy after the October 7 attack by Hamas, and that Israelis have been partying at the Gaza border, celebrating how little humanitarian aid is making its way into Gaza while people suffer there.

Sure, it could be argued that other species do much the same thing.

I've watched nature shows on television where a male lion is tenderhearted toward its own offspring. However, if the cubs are the offspring of a different father, because the lioness strayed and had sex with a male from a different group of lions, the male lion will kill them.

I just don't find this very reassuring. It's one thing to act from instinct, as other species do. But we humans supposedly have the capacity to rise above our baser impulses and pursue a higher course of action.

War brings out the worst in us. It certainly is justified at times. Yet only as a last resort, and then it should be conducted with the greatest possible respect for civilian lives. Hamas started this war. Israel, though, is showing that respect for the lives of innocent people is lacking on both sides.

Hopefully one day war will become a distant memory, and humanity will truly value life. All lives. 

Comments

[Appreciative Reader]

Agreed, this thing has now escalated to a level where it qualifies being described as sheer evil. Good of you, Brian, to call this out in such clear unambiguous terms.

My problem isn't Israel. Israel is Netyanahu, in this case, and this isn't the first time a corrupt murderous psychopath has taken over the helms to the detriment of all, he and a clutch of other POS. My problem is the astonishing level of support he's getting from the global community, including the US. (Just like it doesn't surprise me that Trump is what he is, he isn't the first colossally-stupid-collosally-ignorant-and-yet-possessed-of-an-abundance-of-low-cunning amoral psychopath to have wanted to wrest power, what astonishes me is the hordes of "cucks" [to use the favorite put-down employed by right-wing half-wits trying to sound clever, a term which so much better applies to them rather than to their targets] that are ever willing to drop down their pants and bend over, hailing their orange god in ringing tones even as he keeps screwing them over.)

Biden hasn't just "let it happen", he's actively encouraged and enabled this enormity. Shame on him. The man's a spineless coward. Not a physical coward, his outstanding military service stands testimony to his physical bravery --- unlike Trump, who's yellow through and through, right down to the core --- but in moral terms the man's proved himself to be a coward and a cretin. He's himself complicit in this horror, and in as much as he's using taxpayer money to do this, he's making every US citizen complicit in this horror. Shame on him!

I never thought I'd say this, but if Trump defeats him as a result of his losing support over this, then he'll have nobody to blame but himself. It's a sorry world, where the choice is between this craven coward of a moral cretin on the one hand, and the unspeakable monstrosity that is Trump on the other.

[um]

In older days New Guinea, now Indonesia, an Dutch colony. If I remember well we were told in school that there were regularly wars between tribes about yacht territories and water etc. These wars were conducted in a kind of ritual fashion which means as soon as the first warrior was wounded the hostilities were stopped ...WHY ... because NO tribe could effort, for their survival in the rain forest, afford the luxury of losing even ONE warrior in combat!

Over time culture has subdued nature completely and cultural survival has become more important than natural survival ... we humans have come to accept to kill and be killed for this or that NARRATIVE. and the meaning and values given to whatever is part of such an narrative, be it animate or inanimate.

And ... what difference is there in Gaza with the decision of the American government to trow 2 nuclear weapons upon two densely populated Japanese cities and the use of "agent orange" in Vietnam??? That was only possible WITHIN an narrative that they told themselves ...UP TILL TODAY.

The same goes for the war in Ukraine .. it is all a matter of narrative and the value attributed to a single human live differs from narrative to narrative.

That said .. when I saw a couple of days on TV an footage in black and white, probably made with a night view camera by and Israeli aircraft, showing hundreds and hundreds of Palestians running like like ants ...I turned of the TV as it explains the horror as good as that famous picture of that jong naked girl running an a road in Vietnam.

It reminds me also of the reaction of the American youth ..stop the war ..enough is enough

THAT reaction will probably not come from the Israeli population as the narrative that is so dear to all of them does not allow them to have mercy ..that [religious] narrative is an curse on them and on all those that interact with them

Personally I do believe we live in the twilight [ if that is a good english word] of the abrahamic religions ... one day they will be remembered as we now remember the religion og the Greek. In a globalize world, regional narratives, religious or otherwise, can not survive. ... and maybe .. should not

[sant64]

These are astonishing times we live in.

While I largely agree with your essay I don't actually agree that Israel is fighting Hamas. It's as impossible for Israel to fight Hamas as it is for Ukraine to defeat the Russian army. What Israel is doing is exacting vengeance on women and children out of pure racist spite, with a long-term goal of seizing all of Gazan territory.

Israel is perhaps the most spiteful nation that ever existed. It's the only nation that bullied other nations into making it a crime to criticize it, or not do business with it. Israel even uses its political power to put authors and journalists in prison. Even outside of Israel, historians know that they must fill every page of their historical works with the reminder to the reader that every single person on the Axis side was thoroughly evil.

Speaking of WWII, Israel is still avidly searching for 90-year-old German prison guards and file clerks. That tells you a lot. While other countries moved on from WWII many decades ago, Israel continues its ever-spiteful ways.

Now we have the blatant acts of genocide by Israel in Gaza, compounded with the placid endorsement of the US government and most of the neocon crowd. I can't say which of these I find more abhorrent. The killing of innocents, or the people who cheer this enormity on.

And then there's the feeble "warnings" by our president. I've lost count of how many times I've read in the news that Biden and Blinken officially "warn" Israel to be humane. But this is just a game of wink-wink. This administration knows it has zero control over Israel's war crimes; the "warnings" are political flak because the Dems well know that young voters are not buying the stupid propaganda about "poor Israel." These young people know injustice when they see it.

Again, these are astonishing times we live in. A nation carrying out genocide, and college students who protest this outrage are dunned and doxed as antisemites. College presidents who condone free speech about a land one day being free are summarily fired.

Astonishing times. Orwellian times really.

[um]

@ Sant 64

without CHRISTIANS nothing of what happened, is happening and will happen would be possible.

The affairs of the ME play an crucial role in their narrative of the return of Christ., the end times etc

[um]

@ Sant 64

REMEMBER how you were schooled, in kindergarten, elementary school, church etc etc in the early days of your life aboyr ...GODS PEOPLE and the importance of that people for Christians.

No Hindu has that affinity

Christianity is the "state religion" of the modern world. ,,,, wirh all its power.

[Appreciative Reader]

"what difference is there in Gaza with the decision of the American government to trow 2 nuclear weapons upon two densely populated Japanese cities and the use of "agent orange" in Vietnam???"

Agreed, um. With Vietnam as well, sure; but even more so with the atom bombs. Had it not been for a blatant case of victor's justice, had it been the case that it were a just world and justice actually obtained, then without a doubt the authors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would've merited a Nuremberg all their own, and without a doubt they deserved to hang from gibbets. The horror perpetrated in Japan --- perpetrated on CIVILIANS --- is the other stand-out outrage of WW2 (particularly if you count the fallout and not just the outright deaths).

----------

"It reminds me also of the reaction of the American youth ..stop the war ..enough is enough (...) THAT reaction will probably not come from the Israeli population as the narrative that is so dear to all of them does not allow them to have mercy"

That isn't quite true. Israel has always had courageous and outspoken critics of the Jewish religion, and of Zionism, and particularly of the treatment meted out to Palestinians. Gideon Levy for instance, whom I've referenced here in the past. And nor is he the only such, there's many others like him.

True, protests within Israel itself are muted at the moment, and what protests there are are met with hostility; but the world over, and within the US as well, many Israelis and Jews are speaking out and protesting, and taking a strident "Not in our name" stance. That's one of the many things I admire about Jews, their intellectual stature and strength and integrity. While it's true there still are anachronistic throwbacks within their numbers that continue, like complete imbeciles, to worship Yahweh and the rest of that nonsense; and while it is true that there are many among them (Yahweh-worhiping lunatics, and some atheists as well) that are Zionists, and some/many that are psychopathic in their disdain for their Palestinian compatriots: but still, a great many of Jews do call out this injustice consistently and stridently. And many are doing this now as well.

Credit where it is due. This sort of thing is conspicuously lacking among Palestinians and their supporters.

Of the two, without a doubt it is the Jews that I'd welcome as neighbors, not the Allah-worhiping cut-throats.

But, that said, as far as what is happening right now: what I said in my earlier comment.

----------

"Personally I do believe we live in the twilight [ if that is a good english word] of the abrahamic religions ... one day they will be remembered as we now remember the religion og the Greek. In a globalize world, regional narratives, religious or otherwise, can not survive. ... and maybe .. should not"

It is understandable maybe for these fantastical beliefs to have taken root and thrived in pre-scientific ages. But it is an outrage that these absurd irrational anachronisms should persist in this day and age. That goes for Jesus-cultists, for all the three monotheistic cults in fact, as well as for every theistic anachronism that still persists today. Hinduism included. Theistic Hinduism is no better than the Abrahamic faiths in terms of their irrationality. (Agreed, though, Vedantic wisdom is a completely class of animal than all of these oafish beliefs. Even though even that is unevidenced, and therefore in the final analysis little more than flights of exquisite fantasy; but still.)

[um]

@ AR

>> It is understandable maybe for these fantastical beliefs to have taken root and thrived in pre-scientific ages. But it is an outrage that these absurd irrational anachronisms should persist in this day and age<<

With some coffee and the idea of everything and everybody is an unique variation of the same, lookin around horizontal and vertical many "strange" visions are to be seen that are not that easy explained and conceptualized about in language.

Let me give it a try ..what ever a crow does it is of the crow, the same holds for the lion and the human.

If you have seen ONE, you have known them all.

Culture, is like an abstract human being. Its state of mind is the outcome of its " in born biology", its past, its memory etc. etc.

I do not look upon America, american culture, american history as such but as an individual.

What is going on in the world is an incident in the life of ONE individual by the name of HUMAN, what he does cannot be understood without looking into his upbringing, his past etc.

We can talk hours and hours about cuisines but in the end it comes down to food, staying alive.
Whatever humans do too can be talked about endlessly but it comes down to survival of the fitest in a given surrounding.

What have humans been doing ever since we remember their start?
The same thing over and over, with ever new tools in ever changing surroundings.

Sages etc have always looked under the hood of the human mental engine to figure out how it was constructed so that they could benefit from that knowledge.

As you are not able to eliminate your past so cannot any group of humans.
The president of any group is HUMAN and humans act as humans as crows acts as crows

Youngsters in the rain forest are trained to survive as an individual and as member of a group and so are all living in the civilized word. We are conditioned to recognize friends and foes, how to remain the strongest in a surrounding were others have to stay alive also.

In order to stay alive most people will sell their own mother to the devil. Psychological literature it tells about the many experiments done in that direction.

It all started thousands of years ago. You and I live at max 100 years but humanity is born and has not seen death ..to be sure see humanity as just ONE single living creature.

If you want to understand what humans do, be it science or whatever look under the hood, get into his house, look there for the keys

We in this country, whatever religion we have or have not, we all carry the stamp of cultural Calvinism....dutch atheists too are Calvinists whether the like to hear it or not

Many words for something that is at easy to comprehend and experience as looking at shore how the sun rises.

Just try to figure out what the meaning is of identification oneself with something one is not ....people that are raised by multicultural parents, learning two languages, overcomming the pressure tho chose between identifying with this parent or the other, have a great advantage of understanding what it meens ..FREEDOM

[Appreciative Reader]

Hey, um.

Haha, sorry, but I actually didn't understand any of that! That is, I understood the words, obviously, and in general enjoyed and agreed with the sentiments you expressed, if taken stand-alone. But I didn't quite get the allusion, I didn't quite get what that means in terms of the portion of my comment you'd quoted.

Not to beat this to death, but if you'd like to explain more directly, then I'm happy to listen. (Or if you'd rather let it go, then that's cool too.)

[um]

@AR

hahaha .... on writing I had already that vague notion that what I wrote was not going to be understood. Probably it is as with a loaf of bread that has to stay a little longer in the oven to be properly cooked.

It should not be a problem to anybody as others have in general more than enough of their own ideas to live comfortably by.

Focusing on the sameness of things is like drinking water.
If there is enough to drink around nobody is interested that much in neutral taste of water and enjoys and prefers to explore the many different taste additions that are availabel. But .. when thirsty ... water becomes divine live saving nectar.

Hahaha .. this doesn't help either I guess

You see AR I have, generally speaking no problem in understanding people, their world view and from where they come and where the go. irrespective of the camp they are in ...On learning to make Ice cream, nobody was interested in what was going on in my mind, in terms of feelings and thoughts ...what matters was that I had an functional understanding of the ingredients and the process.

What I wrote was about ..functional aspects of living a human life not about my sympathies and aversions

So be it .. until next time.

[Ron E.]

Indeed Brian. All wars are horrific and the Israeli/Gaza one is exceptionally horrific. The Israelis seem hell-bent on destroying Hamas at the expense of murdering civilians, women and children. Religion does play a huge part in all this as does territory.

Your example of the lions is apt. Survival, said to be the most basic instinct of all creatures involves food, territory and sex. The lion’s drive, as with us, is to get his genes into the next generation. The same with us humans, though we seem to go a step further in that we also desire to pass our ideas/beliefs into the next generation whether that is some religious creed or a political one.

The Israel/Gaza and Russia/Ukraine wars both basically are driven by ideological beliefs. And pertinent to such beliefs is an individual or groups need for power – or control. Does anyone seriously believe that the likes of Putin, Netanyahu or even Trump are interested in the plight of ordinary people other than what any seemingly altruistic behaviour toward he populace can be used to enhance their power.

Just think, if all the money, scheming and resources to fight wars and develop weapons was to be used to benefit all those who are suffering from natural disasters and poor standards of living, that would be wonderful. But, I’m sorry to say that human nature is violent, is driven by basic instincts and inflated with the psychological need to have their beliefs dominant. Even the most peaceful of people can become aggressive when their food, territory (house or car?) partner or/and beliefs are threatened or challenged.

I don’t know the answer, perhaps there isn’t one; Either way it seems that we will continue – as we have always done – to muddle through, some being winners and some losers in the game of survival.