When the trial of Nazi arch-criminal Adolf Eichmann started, his attorney, the German lawyer Robert Servatius, tried to question the authority of the Israeli court to try him, arguing that the trial involved Jews, and judgment would inherently be biased.
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The judges gave their answer (and as we know, ruled as they did), but in the face of that audacious argument, and given the new fighting in Europe, we should remember that there events in which horror are an inseparable part of realizing what took place. War cannot be analyzed as a sterile phenomenon – it always entails death, suffering, and harm to the next generations. Emotional detachment from the difficult images does not make the person looking more objective. The opposite – it causes them to shut their eyes to a central, important aspect of the event.
The media is doing the right thing by constantly broadcasting small, personal stories about people in the heart of the storm. Last week, a young woman said in a radio interview that she waited for hours at a border crossing until she ran out of gas, and when they got back from the gas station had to get back in line. When they finally reached the border, she said, her partner was not allowed to cross, and she took her two small daughters into the unknown by herself, only to find that shops were empty and they had nothing to eat.
A British newspaper told the story about a Ukrainian soldier who saw Russian soldiers shoot his entire family. The terrible destruction of apartment buildings and city centers, the masses of elderly crowding into subway stations, the fate of hundreds of orphans – there are so many stories of people who until two weeks ago had homes and beds and routines, and whose world is now broken and whose future is unclear.
It's very important to understand the war, Putin's motivations, and its deep and long-term ramifications on the entire world. It's important to choose what steps to take with care, while safeguarding national interests and strategic alliances. The local debate about Israel's role and the limits to support, and even the question of how many refugees Israel can and should take in, and which ones – are all very well and good.
But amid all these strategic considerations and cold-blooded analyses, it's important to remember that we are talking about local and personal tragedies that don't become any smaller even when they involve millions of people. We cannot allow the large numbers to make us forget the little people. Russia's war in Ukraine represents not only the collapse of the view of peace in Europe, or threatening signals to the free world. The war is not merely a preview of the comeback of national battles or western respect for ethos and heroes; it is first and foremost a story of death and destruction for millions of Ukrainians. Stalin is usually credited with the saying that "a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic." And the masses do indeed blunt the senses.
When we look at the reality and it horrifies or enrages us, it isn't some unprocessed voice of a more mature perception of the way things really are. Israel should consider its actions in accordance with its values and ethics, its needs and interests, but when we look at the war, we should do so with pity and try to ease the human suffering, so we don't turn people into statistics.
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