“Maybe this world is another planet’s hell.”

I must have been about 14 when I read the above quote by Aldous Huxley. I’d purchased the science magazine OMNI, and there were always a couple of pages that had historical quotes that, depending on the issue, either destroyed or restored my faith in humanity. At the time – 1984 – the threat of nuclear war between the Americans and the USSR was palpable. Even the Doomsday Clock from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists crept up a few minutes to reach 3 minutes to midnight. The scientists noted in their editorial for that year, “We thus stand at a fateful juncture, at the threshold of a period of confrontation, a time when the blunt simplicities of force threaten to displace any other form of discourse…This is an appalling prospect.”

Guess what; in January of this year the folks at the Bulletin pushed the Doomsday clock to 90 seconds to midnight. In case you’re wondering, midnight is the apocalypse. As you might expect, a driving factor moving the clock forward in the past year was the war in Ukraine. At the time the Doomsday clock published its editorial, the death toll in that war was close to 7,000 after nearly one year of fighting. Just over two weeks into the Israel-Hamas war, the death toll is creeping to that figure (1,400 Israelis and over 5,000 Palestinians). Those numbers will only increase in the near future.

Much like the reflections of the Doomsday editors back in 1984, the current war between Israel and Hamas must have a better endgame other than “blunt simplicities of force.” As many commentators, analysts and activists have noted, there will come a point when Israel’s retribution wears thin with other nations, and there will be greater demands to move towards a solution that goes beyond flattening an entire population. The continued violence plays right into the hands of Hamas leaders: they do not value life, whether it’s the life of an Israeli or a Palestinian; their actions prove that. The heinous acts committed by Hamas on October 7 must never be allowed to happen again. And however painful these acts were – and their lasting consequences on families, friends, the nation of Israel, and Jews around the world, we – the most collective “We” as humans on this Earth – must find the strength to maintain our faith in humanity. As Yuval Noah Harari noted recently, “Hamas is waging war on our souls…Hamas is trying to destroy our trust in humanity, and thereby destroy our own humanity.”

It won’t win; it can’t win. But Hamas’s disregard for all human life is taking a horrendous toll on people in Gaza. Every day I wake up to see more grim statistics on the scale of human suffering. Over 600,000 people internally displaced, over 5,000 of people killed – 62% of them women and children, over 15,000 injured, buildings and homes demolished, families homeless and distraught, no access to food, electricity and water – the convoys are welcome but insufficient given the enormity of the destruction. Thirty-five UNRWA staff killed.

Peace is not an option, at least not now. An increase in the flow of humanitarian aid is imperative, as would be a cessation of the bombings that are affecting innocent civilians. There needs to be a viable, diplomatic road to peace, which does not include Hamas in any way, but rather another form of leadership from Palestinians which can come to the table with Israel – with the support from the US and neighbouring Arab nations.

We won’t get there if our humanity is chipped away by Hamas. While the diplomatic options might seem unreachable, it doesn’t mean that we – once again the big “We” of planet Earth – should remain silent observers to the unfolding violence. You can sign a petition to call for a cease fire (I signed a petition that currently has a quarter million signatures), you can donate to a reputable organization that is providing aid to Gazans (like UNRWA; I worked for them for 6 years, they are reputable, competent, and essential to saving lives in Gaza, period) or offer support for survivors of the attacks in Israel, or – and I know this is harder than it actually sounds – talk to others about it. Don’t remain silent on what happened. Even if you don’t know how to start a conversation, but you feel that you should – with a Jewish friend, or a Muslim friend, or with anyone – it’s ok to start a dialogue with “I don’t know what to say.” We can’t be afraid to speak about this because we fear tensions might flair – denial has always been a poor way to tackle any issue. Losing our humanity in the face of these events reduces our perceptions to absurd simplicities that trample our empathy and can galvanize anger, demonization, and hatred. An appalling prospect indeed, and not one I’m willing to give into. We are not another planet’s hell.

Israel and Gaza: Struggling to Make Sense of the Violence

I am struggling to make sense of the recent events in Israel and Gaza. The barbarism and atrocities committed by Hamas on innocent Israeli citizens clenches my heart with an overwhelming sense of sorrow for the victims and their families. As one friend wrote to my wife, her family and friends in Israel are moving from bomb shelter to funeral. Families and communities have been shattered, and the horror of the massacre will surely impose a grief that will never leave the hearts of those left mourning.

This never should have happened. Israel, with all its state-of-the-art surveillance technology, should have seen Hamas preparing for these attacks in plain sight. A few years ago, I was standing next to an armoured UN vehicle on the Gaza side of Erez crossing, waiting to get my passport so I could travel the long, open corridor into Israel, and as I looked up in the sky, there was a surveillance balloon, which could most likely figure out my eye colour. Israel failed its citizens. Its initial reaction to the violence on its territory is unsurprising, given its past responses: unabated, incessant pounding of targets across Gaza. In a place as small as Gaza, civilian casualties are a tragic certainty, no matter how precise the strikes. The further escalation of Israel’s retaliation, from apparently using white phosphorus weapons, to cutting food, water and electricity, and now the absurd demand for one million Gazans to flee south is justifiably raising concern among the UN, aid agencies, nations around the world, and many of us seeing the suffering unfold through the news and social media.

Gaza and Israel have been through countless conflicts, with civilians paying the price on both sides, and however bad things seem now, I fear they will only get worse in the short term. Hamas, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, are backed by states and actors that seek to destabilize the region; it’s not hard to see how an escalating conflict in the region can descend into a devastating humanitarian crisis for millions of people.

I’ve been reluctant to speak about the conflict to many people in part because I am deeply troubled by what I’ve seen, and I know that a meaningful answer to “So, what do you think about what’s happening there?” is hardly achievable within the confines of any conversation. I’m also wary of people’s positions on Israel and Palestinians, which can be quite rigid, to the point where the conflict is reduced to a duality comprising of one side that is victimized and the other that is demonized. When someone is firmly on one side, even a tremendous effort to convince them that the other side is worth seeing through a lens that isn’t formed by bias is a daunting, if not impossible task. In case you think I’m favouring one “side” over the other, I’m not: I’ve talked about my work with Palestinian teachers on human rights to Jewish friends and acquaintances who cut me short and walked away from me, unwilling to hear what I had to say. I’ve worked in Gaza several times over the years, and there were Palestinians I met who still, incredulously, denied the Holocaust. Encouragingly – if it is even possible to see anything positive from this experience – I think the positioning of taking “one side” or another has been suffused by an enormity of grief experienced by all. There’s a greater empathy towards the plights of both Israelis and Palestinians, so many of whom continue to suffer, whether through loss of loved ones, displacement in a bombed-out hellscape, or living in anguish wondering about the fate of loved ones who remain hostages.

I’ve been to Gaza at least six times from 2011 until 2017, working as a consultant for UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. I helped create an agency-wide policy on human rights in schools, and worked on a couple of toolkits for teachers on how to integrate human rights values such as inclusion, equality, respect, and diversity into classroom activities. I provided training for hundreds of teachers and education specialists, who then went to on train thousands of other teachers in Gaza, but also other areas where Palestinian refugees live, including the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Of all the places I’ve been to, Gaza was the most hopeless. Buildings are either rundown, abandoned, bombed, or unfinished because construction materials are unavailable. With unemployment at 45% and over 80% of the population living in poverty, there’s hardly a reason to dream of a more prosperous future. Many children have suffered through more than one war in their short lifetimes – this latest one likely being the harshest.

The call by Israel to evacuate over a million people, as well as cut off water, food and electricity is, as many have put it, nothing short of a violation of international humanitarian law. That’s of little consequence to Israel, which has violated international humanitarian law in the past. What makes it especially egregious is the scale of the displacement, and the impending catastrophic impact it could have on Gaza’s population. To cite but one statistic, fifty thousand women are currently pregnant in Gaza, with five thousand of them expecting to deliver their babies within one month. In unsanitary conditions, without access to proper medical care, many of those infants may die. Hamas needs to be weeded out and eliminated – but a strategy that puts civilians at risk on such a large scale appears more vengeful than tactical. There has already been a tremendous amount of suffering; asking a beaten and broken population to cram into one of the most densely populated spaces on the planet is inhumane. Asking them to move along streets that are bombed out is outright impossible.

The scope of the unfolding tragedy is so fierce, deadly and volatile that there needs to be a path towards safety for all Palestinians, displaced or living in their homes, in whatever state these homes are left in. This means establishing a humanitarian corridor to channel food and water; it means the reestablishment of electricity, to power at a minimum hospitals and other centres where displaced people are taking refuge, like UN schools. If the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) can eliminate Hamas in the north of Gaza, that’s an obvious and welcome objective; destroying the tunnels will be a positive step towards that. But Hamas have embedded themselves in the population, and even if the IDF successfully eliminates a significant number of Hamas militants, it would be foolish to think that post-war Gaza (well, post-this-current-war Gaza) will be free of Hamas; if anything, a conflict of this scale could incite some Palestinians to see no recourse other than violence as a means to end the occupation.

There must come a point when the cycle of violence ends, and a semblance of stability lays the foundation for peace. That begins to happen when people are no longer oppressed by terrorists – and to that point, I hope Hamas has sealed its fate by committing its latest and most heinous atrocities. That of course is insufficient in this complex and protracted conflict. A recognition of the inherent human rights and dignity of all persons needs to be a bedrock for peace. As the Dalaï Lama put it: “I accept everyone as a friend. In truth, we already know one another, profoundly, as human beings who share the same basic goals: We all seek happiness and do not want suffering.” I wish more people took that to heart.

A Letter to My Sons, Part 3: Uncommon Friends

Dear Alexandre, Dear Sam,

Sorry I couldn’t write sooner, fatigue got the better of me last night. We’ve just completed the second day of our three-day workshop evaluating human rights education activities undertaken by the participants. Today we spent most of the day listening to the main points of each activity. There were participants from Sri Lanka, George, Aruna and Lucille, who told us of a workshop that brought together people from four different religions – Catholic, Hindu, Buddhist, and Islam – in order for them to understand more about human rights and how they relate to their religions. We also heard from Bernat and Maria from India, who work with teachers to develop school clubs where they discuss human rights.

Next up was Khan from Afghanistan. He told us about a workshop he held on how to write reports to the United Nations; these reports describe the current situation of human rights in the country. Before we took a break for lunch, Saru and Medan from Nepal shared with us the story of their workshop, where they taught young men and women on something that’s called “domestic violence against women.” That one’s a bit harder to explain. Not every family is one where everybody is happy. There are times when husbands and boyfriends hurt their wives and girlfriends, sometimes with words, sometimes with their hands, and it’s a problem that happens in a lot of places but people find it hard to talk about. A lot of women who get hurt find it hard to talk about it. So Saru and Medan wanted to tell young people about this problem so they could help stop it.

After lunch, Banasree and Lal showed us the journey they took to a village to meet with community leaders and people who work for organizations called NGOs; they helped to educate them more on their rights. And finally, Samson and Hameed from Pakistan told us about their workshop where they trained people from organizations like NGOs on being better at what they do.

So you see, Alexandre and Sam, despite some bad things that are happening around the world, there are some people like my friends here who are doing good things; they are trying to help people. In many ways, that’s the greatest gift you can give to others, whether they be friends, family, or even strangers. People help each other out because it’s just right to do so. I really believe it’s ingrained in our hearts.

You’ll notice that I called these people my friends. It’s true that they are “participants” in this meeting, but the reality is that once you get to know someone, to understand who they are and what their motivations are for doing this kind of human rights work, you can’t help but share a connection with them. It’s a connection, a bond that lasts once the meeting is finished and once we’ve returned to our respective homes. It’s the type of friendship that can easily skip a few years then be rekindled by an email or a phone call. As I said to my friend and colleague Bing tonight, “They’re a good group,” to which she quickly nodded. You’d like them too. I’m pretty sure you’d get the biggest kick out of Lal. He makes everyone laugh instantly, sometimes by his laugh alone. Tonight he bought an umbrella – I have honestly never seen anyone as happy as Lal at the purchase of such a thing, he was beyond ecstatic. If someone can get that excited over buying an umbrella, think of how much fun he has teaching others about their rights.

I’m off to sleep now. Je t’aime, Alexandre, je t’aime Sam, bonsoir.

Daddy