Conflicts fuelled by fear, greed and hatred

THE EDITOR, Madam:

Literally millions of words have been strung together concerning the war in Gaza. A common thread is declaring the conflict was started by Hamas attacking Israelis on October 7, 2023; leaving unmentioned that war of one type or another has been a way of life in the Holy Land for millennia. Old Testament scriptures detail wars of Israelites against Philistines, Amorites, Moabites, Midianites and many others, as well as internal conflicts with the tribe of Benjamin against fellow Israelites, for example. Wars prevailed with crusades throughout the medieval period, and continued periodically to the last century when Jewish terror groups eventually forced the formation of the State of Israel in 1947. Ever since, there has been constant conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, with so much sheer hatred on all sides that any concept of peace is but a dream or fantasy to most of us. Politics, real estate greed, glaring inequalities, religion and many other factors blend to make reasonable folks recoil in horror at television news stories, like the one about a Gazan paediatrician who lost nine of her 10 children when an Israeli bomb hit her house in a ‘safe’ district. Her husband, also a doctor, is critically injured, as is their one remaining child.

Similarly, opinions are expressed about the incursion into Ukraine by Russia on February 24, 2022, but ignore the inconvenient truth that Europeans were fighting each other since the Stone Ages. The first East Slavic state of Kievan Rus’ was formed in the 9th century in what is today’s Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, until its demise by the Mongol invasion 800 years ago. Conflicts followed with the Byzantine Empire and states in today’s Western Europe, notably the Napoleonic and Crimean Wars as various countries eyed expansion. Following two World Wars in the last century, Sir Winston Churchill referenced an Iron Curtain drawn across Europe in 1946, separating East from West. Then Germany became unified in 1991 and was welcomed into NATO; pledges were made to Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev by US Secretary of State James Baker that the military alliance would never expand – “not an inch eastwards”, was the famous quote.

Yet that promise was broken by Bill Clinton and every president who came after him; today Ukraine demands NATO armaments right on Russia’s border, causing so much tension in Moscow. The situation is not dissimilar to 1962 when the Soviets placed nuclear missiles in Cuba, after the US had stationed theirs in Italy and Turkey, causing extreme tension in Washington at that time. So when expressing opinions on Gaza and Ukraine, we should all remember ancient and modern history fuelled by fear, greed and hatred

BERNIE SMITH

Parksville, BC

Canada