After All We Have Lost, Why Lose More?

Noah Gerhardt, September 27th, 2024

This conflict has already stolen so much, so many. Parents, siblings, friends, children – so many dead, so many scattered names. And for what? Why do we insist on paying this price? Why tolerate killing and being killed?

If there is such a thing as total victory, it will come at a total cost. What victory will there be if there is no one left to celebrate it?

Yes, this is war. Yes, this is this war. Yes, Hamas and Hezbollah want this suffering to happen. Yes, Israel must respond to prevent future attacks. But do we still want this war, after all we have lost? Why play their game while they’re winning? Has the destruction in Gaza and Lebanon made Israel safer, or has the threat remained and perhaps grown?

Truly ending this war, ending the fear and the terror, requires an alternative to fear and to terror. We offer an alternative to terror: hope.

It can be said that hope is something purely idealistic, and even nonsensical in wartime. It does make sense. Hope doesn’t put food on people’s plates, water in people’s vessels, or roofs over people’s heads. But to say that it is useless or childish is nothing but nonsense. Hope is a basic necessity for survival. Hope is just as vital as food, water, and shelter – all of which are in short supply in Gaza, assuming they haven’t yet been eradicated.

Hope keeps us dreaming. And in order to survive this nightmare, we need a dream to get us through it, through the day after that, and into the quiet tomorrow.