Humans Are Never Just "Collateral Damage".

Trudy Rubin's July 29th editorial in the Spokesman-Review highlights what Americans and many others often fail to do - to see imperiled people as humanity. They are not "others". Not "news items". Not "collateral damage".

All of us sometimes try to escape responsibility by putting the blame elsewhere, on someone "different" from us. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the present Gazan/Israeli conflict.

It's been sixteen years since I visited Israel, but I can identify with Ms. Rubin's observation that Gazans [and Palestinians living in Israel] are rarely seen as individuals. Rather, they are seen as opponents. Never mind that Israelis build new housing developments in West Bank territory, or blockade Gaza, or bomb Gazan neighborhoods. Hamas, in turn, fires rockets indiscriminately at Israel, and vows to eliminate Israel's existence.

Too many of us support the right to "get even". We idealize freedom, and justly so. But there is a difference between "freedom from" and "freedom to". Both have their place in civilization, but only when our own rights do not exclude the rights of others.

Military force alone is producing no result but mayhem.