I read a report in the Guardian recently. It was about the use of AI by the Israeli army. One of the officers was quoted saying this –
You don’t want to waste expensive bombs on unimportant people – it’s very expensive for the country and there’s a shortage [of those bombs]
I know war is horrendous and inhuman, but these words really shocked me. What a way to talk about anyone. “Unimportant people”. I know, he probably meant people who weren’t terrorists or fighters, but included in those “unimportant people” are children, women, ordinary folk just trying to live a life.
There are no “unimportant people” in my opinion. I spent a whole working life as a doctor, spending time with, getting to know and understand one person at a time. I never met one yet who was “unimportant”.
But this quote shocked me for two reasons. First was the use of the adjective “unimportant”, but second was the economic reason given for wanting to avoid “waste”. He didn’t want to explode expensive bombs killing people who weren’t on the target list. “Expensive”. An “economic” argument. Isn’t there a “moral” argument which should trump any “economic” one?
I despair.
There hasn’t been a time in human history when there hasn’t been war, and in every epoch, war brings its own evil, its own cruelty. Will we ever reach a stage of civilisation where we recognise all human beings as “important” and “valuable”?
It’s so sad.
I think of the Dalai Lama who says his religion is “kindness”. I wish all religions, one day, would insist on kindness at the heart and forefront of all the actions of their believers.
Just “imagine”, as John Lennon sang, so beautifully.
”Unimportant people” – it’s even worse than that. Two days after the Hamas atrocities on 7 October, the Israeli Defence Minister, announcing a “total siege” of Gaza, described the people of Gaza as “human animals”. The sad truth is that, long before the current Gaza war began, some within Israeli society, including very powerful political and military leaders, and of course the settler movement, have always regarded Palestinians as lesser human beings, and have treated and continue to treat them accordingly, in the West Bank as well as Gaza. And of course the other side of the coin is that Hamas regard Israelis, being Jews, as lesser human beings, as did Hitler and the Nazis and many others, going back centuries. And we’re not an awful lot better in the UK, with such widespread xenophobic attitudes towards refugees and asylum seekers. Like you, I despair at times.