Pointing fingers in conflicts raises passions, but misses a bigger issue. Immediately, I predict that this post heading sounds like I am about to address the Gaza issue that the Democratic Socialists support: Hamas over Israel. Wrong. So am I a partisan of Netanyahu's reducing Gaza to rubble and the death of women and children by starvation or bombing? No. Do I think we can bomb Iran to force it to change direction? What we lose sight of is a bigger issue. commission of war crimes. The recent conflict's political and military leadership do not care a whit about the fate of those who are the victims, regardless of the regime or politics they support. They then use their suffering and death as propaganda tools to gain support for the actions of their leaders. In recent times, we have seen this at play not only in Gaza/Israel but in Iran, as well. The focus of our condemnation should be directed at the leadership if we profess to care about the innocents, the women and children. The evil forces at play in those related conflicts are the leadership of those on "either side" who care more about their power and military success than their concern about humanity and commit war crimes. It does not stop with Israel/GazaIran. We in the US have a political leadership who wants the freedom from accountability to commit war crimes, too.
The plight of women and children in Gaza in Israel's campaign and the raped and murdered victims of Oct. 7 of Hamas is the fault of their leaders who do not care or and later who see playing on the rest of the world's care for victims of such violence used as a propaganda tool. At the same time, the Trump administration has learned, or should have learned, that making the everyday people of Iran the victims of a bombing campaign has been ineffective because the Iranian leadership, clerics, and IRG do not care about the suffering of non-combatants, women, children, and men, either. Iran, it has appeared, had anticipated that the US would attack, but slaughtering as many demonstrators against the regime as they could. The death toll of those mowed down in Iran is at least in the thousands, though.
I have not forgotten Oct. 7 and Hamas beginning the conflict in that horrific rape and massacre of young Israelis attending, of all things, a concert in support of peace. I have not forgotten that Hamas leadership in effect used their own women and children as human shields by refusing to give them access to their tunnels as refuge from Israel's attempt to bomb Gaza to rubble. We do not have access to the total suffering of the Iranian civilians, but there is a stand-in icon for that: the horrible killing of over 150 school girls (whether it was a mistake or not) in Iran.
The rest of us who are observers, if not partisans, of these conflicts still have the responsibility to raise our voices against such crimes against humanity, to try to bring those who commit them to justice in world court tribunals, and to provide aid and compassion for the victims. We also should take the personal responsibility to realize and to condemn leaders who use the suffering of their own people, suffering their policies caused, as a propaganda weapon. Instead of pointing fingers at who is the worst war criminal, we should not fall for such messages that abuse the reports of the suffering of their own people to convince others of their rectitude. Instead,. we need to support institutions that enforce the law and hold accountable those who commit crimes against humanity, regardless of the "side" involved.
The establishment of the UN (providing a forum for talking is better than military fighting) and the World Court of Justice were founded after World War II's air and bombing with modern weapons that wiped out millions of non-combatants. Rules were devised inthe Geneva Convention for combatants to take care of civilians., War crimes were defined. And now we have our own president who no longer wants our armed forces to abide by the Geneva Conventions and wants to do away with the world court tribunals. We are not members but want it ended, anyway. It sounds like Trump wants to commit war crimes without any accountability or shame. Trump is constantly threatening to bomb Iranian infrastructure to bring more pain and suffering to non-combatant civilians, even though he should understand that would not change the behavior of the IRG and clerical leadership. (They have not suffered enough, he opines) . That, for the sake of humanity, needs to be nipped in the bud, and that is what we at home can and should stop now.
https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2026/04/trump-advocating-war-crime-t-when-hague.html
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/31/donald-trump-geneva-conventions-the-problem-military-foreign-policy
Trump and Rubio proposing dismantling the world courts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjGcWLFmTnk
see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjGcWLFmTnk. Why the world court tribunals?
