debka_notion | Very Uninformed Thoughts on War

I'm very bad at keeping up with the news- but even hiding under my usual rock, I know something about what's going on in Israel. I was talking with Mom about it on Friday while I was cooking for Shabbos, and I was just aware of how very conflicted I was about everything, and how very impossible the situation seems: there seems to be no right action. Mom thinks that Israel isn't being proportional to the scale of offenses done to it. I agree- but being proportional didn't seem to work, so maybe this is the only solution: along the lines of "If what you're doing doesn't work, try anything else". Israel seems to be trying "anything else" or several "anything else"es. So far no luck. I don't know. I'm lost.

What hit me was how much Mom was thinking about the global consequences, and how easily the words "World War 3" became part of the conversation. I don't know if that was a result of leftover Cold War thinking or what- but it's enough to make me shudder. A war of terror and/or nuclear attack- Mom's thought was 'and', nor 'or'. Between that and global warming, we had a very pessimistic moment. I've read enough stories based in post-nuclear-catyclism worlds: I can't imagine that being real life for me or anyone I know. It's enough to take a situation where I'm worrying for my friends and turn it into a situation where I'm also worrying for my world, a bit, even if I think we are hopefully at least smart enough not to blow up the whole world over this.

Or maybe it's something about it being far enough away to be abstract...