War in Israel Challenges Us to Think Compassionately, Morally

One test of compassion is how to mourn the death of innocents, regardless of which side those innocents happen to be on. However one understands what their elders may have done, or what we assume about what most of “them” believe, the death of noncombatants is a tragedy, full stop. And even when such deaths are an inevitable part of war we deem necessary and just, they remain a tragedy to which we can never inure ourselves. But compassion for innocents who have died should not cloud our moral judgment and project equal innocence onto all people impacted by the war. This war began with the purposeful, wholesale slaughter of people simply because they were Jewish, or simply because they were in Israel, even if they were not Jewish.