Daisy, I'm glad I have to make no decisions about how Israel should fight this war.
"I think the optics of de-humanizing ANYONE are bad." Agreed and not just the optics but bad for the dehumanizer too.
Yet that spiritual truth still gives no guidance about the appropriate response.
Let me give a less-charged example.
Your 16-year-old son is a thief and an addict. What do you do? Even out of the most loving space, very hard corrective action may emerge (or not.)
Again, I don't have to deal with Hamas or that 16-year-old.
Hamas are savages yet the essence of their humanity can never be lost. Again, that spiritual truth offers no guide for behavior.
History does teach that the Nazis had to be destroyed militarily, before denazification was possible. Did Churchill have to deny the humanity of the Germans to say "we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches,..."? I don't think so.
Daisy, I'm glad I have to make no decisions about how Israel should fight this war.
"I think the optics of de-humanizing ANYONE are bad." Agreed and not just the optics but bad for the dehumanizer too.
Yet that spiritual truth still gives no guidance about the appropriate response.
Let me give a less-charged example.
Your 16-year-old son is a thief and an addict. What do you do? Even out of the most loving space, very hard corrective action may emerge (or not.)
Again, I don't have to deal with Hamas or that 16-year-old.
Hamas are savages yet the essence of their humanity can never be lost. Again, that spiritual truth offers no guide for behavior.
History does teach that the Nazis had to be destroyed militarily, before denazification was possible. Did Churchill have to deny the humanity of the Germans to say "we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches,..."? I don't think so.