That phrase—a "flawed approach"—will almost certainly be an understatement about the Israeli military retaliation for Hamas's monstrous attack. Heading into this past weekend, 1 million civilian Palestinians in Gaza were warned to flee ahead of an Israeli ground incursion. But how can they flee? Where will they go? Borders are sealed. Gaza is small. Again, about half the population is children. People are moving, but their options are limited.
A Reuters report published Thursday told the story of a 31-year-old Palestinian man named Ala al-Kafarneh. He fled his home "with his pregnant wife, his father, brothers, cousins, and in-laws," first to a coastal refugee camp, then elsewhere, after Israeli airstrikes hit around the camp. "On Tuesday night, an airstrike hit the building where Kafarneh and his family were sheltering, killing all of them except him."
Kafarneh's position is unfathomable—a pregnant wife and unborn child, dead and recorded, nameless, in the list of family casualties. Would it surprise anyone if he turns to violence now?
That is not to say he would be justified in seeking a violent revenge. To say that is to take a step toward moral madness, toward a cycle of escalation and chaos, not justice, mercy, or any other good. But it is to say that violence, by its nature, tends to spread. Once loose, it overruns moral boundaries and bends our souls into grotesque shapes. We are each responsible for the violence we commit, each to blame for the wrong we do, each apt to respond to evil with evil. Blood is on the hands that shed it, but it tends to spill all over.
~ Bonnie Kristian, "Blaming Hamas Shouldn't Mean Ignoring the Palestinians' Plight Terrorism does not thrive on peace and normalcy. It thrives on war and chaos and overbroad revenge projects.," Reason.com, October 16, 2023
