Suppose we stopped honoring fallen warriors and memorialized their victims instead

Caution: This column contains descriptions of violence and bodily injury readers may find disturbing.

By Herbert Rothschild

Brenda Gould, longtime resident in Ashland, received an email on May 27 from one of her daughters, Rebecca Ruth Gould. Rebecca is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Poetics and Global Politics, School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. In the email to her mother, Rebecca forwarded a message from a man in Gaza with whom she has corresponded for several months.

Having received permission from Rebecca, who in turn received permission from her correspondent, I’m going to share his message with you. It was written just after the widely publicized Israeli air strike on a refugee camp in Rafah that killed 45 people. The only editing I have done is to correct a couple of misspellings and, in the penultimate paragraph, added the explanatory word “one” in parentheses. It should be noted, also, that he uses the initials IOF, standing for Israel Offensive Forces, rather than the official IDF, or Israel Defense Forces.

“The IOF attacked and are still attacking almost everywhere and everything in Rafah especially East and Center.

“I mentioned to you before that, in my days, I have participated in rescue operations during wars and crises in several parts of the world and I have seen destruction and deaths many times before but nothing like this, nothing like what the IOF are doing in Rafah these days.

“I understand the rules of engagement between two armies when at war but there are no rules at all in the one I am in now. The IOF are not fighting an army or even the militants whom they are supposed to fight, but instead they are just murdering innocent civilians. The weapons they are using were designed to be utilized in battlefields not in densely crowded cities.

“The ways of death I am witnessing now are beyond description, the burns I am dealing with are nothing like I have experienced or dealt with before, I am used to deal with burned flesh but I have never had to deal with burned bones, yes the intensity and severity of burns I am dealing with in Rafah are bone burns.

“It is with saddened heart that I convey to you the loss of two members of my team. Nora is 32 years old lady and Amed, 41 years old man (he preferred to be called Boy). Both have been martyred together while they were trying to rescue a family of six who were under the rubble of their destroyed home. The IOF tank fired at Nora and Ahmed while they were saving lives and the IOF knew they were only a rescue team and they couldn’t be any danger to them, still they murdered them.

“I retrieved their bodies and just finished their burial (Janazah). Rebecca, part of me is buried with them. They are among the best souls I have ever known. May they rest in peace, May Allah have mercy on their souls. (when speaking about them, I am using is and are and never was/were). I made a vow while at their graves that their heroism, sacrifice, and humanity shall never be forgotten . . . their story must be told.

“I apologize for the nature and tone of this email of mine, I never want to be a bearer of sad news and I hesitated to write this to you because I never want to upset and sadden you in any way, so please forgive me if I cause any sadness to you. I just feel obliged to let you know what I am dealing with these two days, Sorry again my friend.

“I will write again in more detail later as my team and l are running from (one) hit place to another trying to rescue as many souls as we can.

“Please convey our best wishes, love and prayers to your beloved family. Please stay safe, stay strong and stay well.”

I’m well aware that, had I republished an eyewitness account of Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, 2023, many details would be similarly appalling. I don’t feel that fairness requires me to do so, however, because such accounts were widely reported in our media at the time, including even more gruesome details, such as beheaded babies, that proved untrue. I’m not interested in weighing the relative savagery of Hamas and the Israelis. I’m concerned to end it.

And not just ending the savagery of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It’s time to acknowledge that all war is savage. It’s true that as long as there is war, the effort to contain its savagery by international rules of engagement is worthwhile. I applaud the Biden administration’s effort to get Israel to abide by them, although not its weak-kneed response when Israel continually violates them. But war is not a natural disaster that we can only mitigate. War is an artificial disaster that we can prevent and abjure.

It was ironic that the Israeli attack on the refugee camp in Gaza fell on the Monday we Americans annually designate as Memorial Day. That observance began as an occasion to honor Union soldiers who died in the war to end slavery and preserve the United States as a “land of the free.” In the 20th century it became the occasion to honor all members who served and died in our armed services. We credit them all with laying down their lives to keep us free no matter who their antagonists or what the political calculations that sent them to die. And we most surely do not memorialize those they killed, who far outnumber them.

I would welcome a worldwide holiday that memorializes the victims of war, the Noras and the Ameds, the Omer Tovs and the Carmela Dans. Then we could hold in our minds and hearts the women and children who never wielded a weapon and thus were awarded no posthumous medals, who didn’t sacrifice their lives but whose lives were sacrificed to the savage gods of power, greed and misconceived glory.

Herbert Rothschild’s columns appear on Friday in Ashland.news. Email Rothschild at herbertrothschild6839@gmail.com.