Killing the Ill

THE NEWS that more than five hundred people had been killed by a big explosion at a hospital in Gaza is beyond tragic. It sounds like a nightmare from a melodramatic science fiction or futuristic war novel or movie. The preliminary, "official" explanation seems to be that the hospital was hit by a stray, misfired rocket or missile from a small Palestinian terrorist organization, not Hamas, from within Gaza itself. Why it is being specified that it was probably not fired by Hamas seems strange, and makes the whole story somewhat questionable. Why would it not be Hamas? Why the "Islamic Jihad", whose very existence is somewhat in doubt? The power and accuracy of the rocket which completely flattened the hospital has more the earmarks of Israeli weaponry,more than that of a rogue terrorist group like Hamas, albeit one currently in charge of the Palestinian settlements If only the two state solution had been implenented at the founding of Israel; an Israeli homeland, and a Palestinian state, the land divided as equally and fairly as possible, though of course that remains a very difficult component of any possible future two state solution; the lack of a reasonalbe amount of good land for each new nation to receive. Perhaps, after all is said and done, the best solution in 1948 would have been to leave well enough alone, to leave a quasi-Palestinian state to remain intact, with substantial settlement by Jewish refugees. Most modern historians and journalists seem to agree that in those days, the populations got elaong relatively well, certainly much better than since, or now. President Biden made some remarks about the war. He made it perfectly clear that we the United States are behind Israel one hundred percent, that we "have Israel's back" as we like to say,and that we will help end their days of darkness, and so on, and so forth. Mr.Biden did not call for a cease fire in his remarks, nor did he insist nor even suggest that an immediate end to the war would be desirable. It may well be that Mr. Biden, deep down, wants Israel to win a big victory, to strengthen its existence ad position in the world. Mmore importantly, we the human species must find a way to end violence among ourselves, and, for that mattter, towards all other species. This would of course require a huge leap foreard evolutionarily, a huge leap of faith, so to speak, for the human race to suddenly and truly renounce and cease to engage in violence of any sort, individually, or collectively, between gangs and nations. Einstein once expressed the viewpoint that as long as there are people, there will be war. That is how deeply ingrained he believed violent behavior is within the human mind. He doubtless had a point, but probably was well aware that he was failing to mention other human traits, such as compassion and love, as possible anecdotes to a human future filled with violence and warfare. Einstein seems to have believed that no matter how strong those virtuous traits might be, they would never be sufficiently strong to totally eliminate greed and anger in the world. He insisted, also, that if future generations of human beings did not turn out to be more kind, loving, compassionate, and generous than his generation, that the devil might as well take them. I hope we still have time.