105: Trapped in Bottom of the 9th (3)

【Can’t Kill Our Way Out of Killings】
The more retaliatory killings are unleashed, the more innocent people get caught up in these attacks. And the once-innocent people become the next aggressors, thereby no longer innocent themselves.
 
As a direct consequence of the attacks by terrorist organization Hamas, many innocent Israeli lives have been lost forever. And in wars/conflicts across time, sexual violences against innocent women unfold everywhere.
 
Based on the recent investigations by the United Nations, at least several Israeli women were subjected to the heinous and heartless cruelty by Hamas. In many of these incidents, victims were first raped, and then killed. In fact, several bodies were found naked or undressed from the waist down, with their hands tied and shot to death.
 
And all the more, the Israeli military insists, “They killed us first, so us killing them back is self-defense.” Thereby repeating this faulty justification for retaliatory killings in the name of self-defense, continuing to kill even more innocent Palestinian people.
 
All the while, the UN investigations have also uncovered that numerous Palestinian women and girls were subjected to sexual violences by Israeli military, as well as murdered when fleeing while waving a white cloth.
 
What’s more, a shelter in Gaza operated by the medical humanitarian aid organization Doctors Without Borders was attacked by the Israeli military, killing the kind-hearted families of volunteer staff working there to help people in dire need, as well as injuring several more innocent people mostly women and children.
 
Additionally, at least 20 Palestinian children have already died from malnutrition and dehydration in Gaza, and the UN warns that hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people are on the verge of starvation.
 
In this way, the cruelty of war is appalling, and its foolishness knows no limit.
 
3 Israeli civilians taken hostage by Hamas successfully broke free from their captors in northern Gaza, where they were in turn shot to death by their own country’s military who are there to supposedly “protect” them.
 
The Israeli soldiers explain that they felt under threat and mistakenly fired on the hostages, although the hostages were shirtless to prove unarmed, and also waved a white flag as they called for help in their mother tongue Hebrew.
 
To be fair, these colossal failures aren’t unique to the recent war in Israel/Palestine. Rather, they’re a hallmark of every war/conflict across time, everywhere, as humans fall for the fear hysteria, embark upon inconceivable insanity as we allow our raw emotions to take over.
 
Truth be told, at the core of this perpetual pattern is our faulty justification for retaliatory killings in the name of self-defense.
 
Despite it’s emotional appeal, the problem with this self-defense logic is that it’s nearly impossible to precisely target any retaliatory attack at only “those who killed us first.” It’s because the innocent people who have nothing to do with the initial killing get caught up in these retaliatory attacks. 
 
Against this backdrop, suppose we award a “License to kill for justice” to everyone for every life of families and friends murdered away. If so, then as we can all imagine, the “License to kill for justice” will multiply itself exponentially.
 
And when the “License to kill for justice” grows exponentially, humanity will never be able to catch up no matter how many murders and slaughters we embark on. Soon, the killings will spin out of control. This is why we can’t kill our way out of killings.
 
As in the Bottom-of-the-9th-inning-with-2outs situation, when we’re on the brink of elimination with our backs against the wall, we're left with no choice but to grapple with this truth.

Read Next: Trapped in Bottom of the 9th (4)【No Sensible Option Left】
Read Previous: Trapped in Bottom of the 9th (2)【Raw Emotions】
 
Complete Series: Trapped in Bottom of the 9th (1)～(5)
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Read Theme: Violence/Peace