You Don't Have to Choose Sides of a War
The truth about the clean battle lines of unthinkable brutality
For the past few weeks we’ve all been watching the horrors that have unfolded in Israel and Gaza, and social media has been saturated with calls for people to declare unequivocally where they stand on the matter:
Are you with the beautiful human beings slaughtered by Hamas or are you with the radiant lives extinguished by the IDF?
Are you against Islamophobia or are you against anti-Semitism?
When we see senseless suffering like this, it’s natural to want to feel as though we have some sense of control and to have the illusion of simplicity.
But the truth, is that we can choose the side of innocent humanity whenever it is violated, we can choose to oppose discrimination and bigotry of every kind, and that will place us in the messy complexity of ambiguity that admits that the neatness of clear factions and sides simply won’t do.
When the carnage of war visits the planet, we can actually choose the side of humanity.