Letter: Killing and injuring innocent people in war violates morality
Recent estimates of Israeli casualties from the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas from Gaza and since are approximately 1,140 killed and about 8,735 injured. Recent estimates of Palestinian casualties in Gaza from Israeli counterattacks is 32,845 killed, 75,392 injured, and 8,000 missing. Some might argue from these statistics that Israel has killed and injured far more Palestinians since October 7 than Palestinians have killed and injured Israelis. Some might argue that Israel has already taken two eyes for one eye, and should be satisfied, even though not all of the hostages have been released yet.
But think about World War II. The Japanese killed thousands of Americans at in Oahu on 7 December 1941, and in the then American-held Philippines on December 8, 1941, but were there not hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians killed by subsequent American bombing of Japanese cities, both by incendiary nocturnal bombing and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Has anyone argued that America already took two eyes for one eye?
One cannot judge the virtue or vice of a war by the number of casualties on each side, as if the side that inflicts more casualties is the bad side, especially if the other side initiated the attacks. Yet we must consider the question of who should pay for an attack. Certainly there were thousands of Japanese civiians, including women and children, who were killed, who had nothing to do with the December 1941 attacks on the Hawaiian Islands and the Philippine Islands, and other lands in southeastern Asia and the Pacific Ocean. By the same token, there have been thousands of Palestinian civilians, including women and children, who were killed, who had nothing to do with the October 7 attacks on Israel.
Regardless of who is on which side, we need to agree that killing and injuring innocent people for crimes they did not do is a violation of morality.
Daniel Haulman, Montgomery
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Letter: Killing and injuring innocent people in war violates morality
