Letters

Benjamin Netanyahu and his supporters stated that their goal is to eliminate Hamas. They have a right to pursue this goal.

Their unstated goal, softened by being referred to as “collateral damage,” is the elimination, or at least drastic reduction, of the Palestinian people by any means available: death from the sky, starvation, destruction of medical facilities, disease spreading in the crowded encampments in southern Gaza, the region that the Palestinian population was “encouraged” to flee to for safety. Or was it to concentrate them into ever smaller spaces to make the killing more efficient?

The inevitable population remnant — a kind of survivor elite — will be dealt with after cessation of the public portion of this war under Israel’s occupation: Palestinians will continue to disappear into Israeli prisons; some will be tried in kangaroo courts, others in show trials, accused of crimes not committed.

I’m reminded here of the wisdom of Nir Avishai Cohen’s book, titled “Love Israel, Support Palestine.” Indeed.

The history of warfare shows that revenge is not proportional. One of many such revenge operations took place in late July 1943, when Winston Churchill’s aptly named “Operation Gomorrah” devastated the city of Hamburg, Germany. Churchill insisted “that this amount of destruction could not be accomplished in one night; it had to be continuously to achieve total annihilation.”

The combined power of the American Air Force (by day) and British Royal Air Force (by night) dropped 10,000 bombs during two days and nights of targeting the most densely populated neighborhoods. It reduced Hamburg’s population by 43,000 civilian deaths, 37,000 injured, and 900,000 rendered homeless. Churchill was pleased with the outcome.

The fig leaf of “collateral damage” was not even invoked.

Heide Löfken

Southampton