Some lives are worth more than others. No, I'm not saying that. The Bible says it. The Old Testament says so, which distinguishes between God's chosen ones and his enemies, whose annihilation God demands. Enemies like the Philistines, inhabitants of Gaza, whose temple the Israelite Samson reduced to rubble, killing three thousand. There are no videos but we can assume that women and children were among the dead.
Samson, by divine grace (and his long hair) the strongest man in the world, is the leader of the Israelites. The prostitute Delilah betrays him, cuts his hair, the Philistines capture him, gouge out his eyes and put him to work as a slave in Gaza.
As is usual in the sacred writings before Christ, the outcome is revenge, glorious revenge. “Then Samson cried out to the Lord and said, 'I pray to you, Lord... give me strength to recover my two eyes from the Philistines once and for all.' Then he looked with his hands for the two central columns, on which the temple rested, and placing both hands on them he shouted: 'Let the Philistines die with me!'
“Then he pushed with all his strength, and the temple fell on the leaders of the Philistines and on everyone who was there. “There were more that Samson killed when he died than he had killed in his entire life.”
In both the Book of Judges and the highest-grossing film of 1950, Samson and Delilah, the screenwriter invites us to applaud. Many Israelis (I know some of them personally) today applaud the biblical destruction of Gaza, where 16,000 Palestinians have died, two-thirds of them women and children, since Beniamin Netanyahu's armed forces began their campaign of revenge six weeks ago. .
Blind revenge, yes, as in the case of Samson. Moral blindness but also stupid blindness, because the Palestinians will never forget this calamity, because killing Palestinian children – more than have died in the Ukraine war in almost two years – was precisely what the Hamas terrorists dreamed of the Israelis did after their much more calculated massacre, which they carried out with their eyes wide open on Israeli soil on October 7. Eternal hatred against the infidel Jews is assured. Eternal war too: young Palestinians will line up to join Hamas and perpetuate the murderous cycle until the end of time, until God comes and reveals to us who the truly chosen ones were.
Some lives are worth more than others not only for the Bible, or for the sides directly involved in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but also for the millions of believers far from the combat zones, those who take sides in favor of one or the other, unambiguously. Ours are good, the others are bad. Ours are humans, the others are beasts. Fanaticism appears and compassion dies.
Look at the macabre details that have come to light in the last two weeks about the carnage that sparked the destruction of Gaza. Look at certain “pro-Palestinians” in the Western world, those who typically also have as their flag the cause of defending women against abuse. Yes, I am referring to the progressive left, the MeToo sector, which proclaims that Luis Rubiales is Satan, or who makes a fool of himself at the first rumor that some politician (from the right, of course) is a misogynist, but who turns a blind eye to the most savage rapes committed in a single day on record since the Red Army invaded Germany in 1945.
Let's see now if those who give more value to the lives of some women than to those of others will pay attention. So much evidence has accumulated that UN Secretary General António Guterres has just called for “a vigorous investigation” into “the numerous testimonies of sexual violence during Hamas' abhorrent acts of terror.” There is no need to envy the researchers. What you will see in the videos and photographs taken by the Hamas terrorists themselves and what you will hear from the survivors and the doctors is a sadism not seen even in the most perverse horror films.
Stop reading now if you prefer not to have to think about images of men urinating loudly on naked women with their legs spread that they have just raped, of dead young girls with scratches, bruises, blood and semen on their breasts and genitals, with Pelvis destroyed after multiple rapes. Reports mention scores of victims, but there may be more. Oh, and this from people whose religious beliefs demand “respect” for women and denounce Western degenerates who display their faces and legs in the streets, the same streets where some of them go out to ask for Rubiales's head and chant Hamas slogans.
Today, December 10, is the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, approved at the UN in 1948 with the abstention of eight countries, including – surprise – the Soviet Union and Saudi Arabia. The declaration talks about the rights of “all human beings” to life, to opinion, demonstrates against torture, against racism, against attacks on women, against exile and more. To quote Shakespeare, these rules have been “honored more in infraction than in observance.” By almost the entire world, without excluding the country that promoted them, the United States, and today obviously without excluding those who use barbarism as an instrument of persuasion on the Israeli side and the Palestinian side.
But you have to dream, you have to believe in these ideals because if not, well, let's turn off the light and go back to the jungle. Idealists on both sides who aspire to one day see the Middle East live in peace are doing themselves a disservice if they lack the empathy on which human rights truly become universal depends as a starting point. Until Israelis and Palestinians, and those who support them from afar, are able to recognize the equal value of the lives of both, there will be no possibility of even imagining a solution. What they will do meanwhile, in their desire to boast that they defend good and others evil, is contribute to the endless pain of everyone.
