Hell

War is hell, and it’s particularly hellish in the asymmetrical warfare now raging in the Middle East.

The death of children from Israeli bombardment elicits outrage, but so should the use of children and other civilians as human shields in schools and densely populated areas where Hamas has installed its rocket launchers for its attacks on Israel.

If fewer Israelis are being killed, it is not only because the Palestinian weapons system has a faulty aim, but also because Israelis do what civilized people do, which is to put their non-combatants out of harm’s way.

Hamas, on the other hand, uses civilians not just as human shields for its militants and weaponry, but also as weapons themselves. As in Iraq and Afghanistan, Palestinian women, adolescents and non-combatant men are deployed as suicide bombers, which makes it nearly impossible to distinguish between civilians and non-combatants.

That inability, unfortunately for Israel, does not fully justify the deaths of children and other civilians as collateral damage in an ugly war, especially in the eyes of those who do not recognize the existence of the Jewish state.

Their condemnation of the Israeli bombardment would have more resonance if they also condemned Hamas’ rocket attacks on Israel, which started over a year ago. Hamas’ refusal to stop the attacks led to the Israeli aerial bombardment, and now the ground assault to disable the Palestinians’ rocket capability.

A United Nations-brokered truce in the Gaza Strip will require a commitment to stop both Hamas’ rocket attacks and Israel’s bombardment.

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How do you resolve a territorial conflict that traces its roots to Biblical times?

Jews had been persecuted for centuries throughout Europe before the oppression culminated in the Holocaust. Millions of Jews were tortured, shot, starved to death and gassed by Christian fascists, and it took some time before the Vatican raised its voice in protest.

Growing up in this predominantly Catholic country and studying in a Catholic school, the only thing I knew about Judaism was that Christ was regarded as the King of the Jews but they later condemned Him to death.

I knew so little about Judaism that for a long time I thought Jews were the adherents of Jehovah’s Witness.

In the Middle East, there must be millions who have grown up with an even more vague understanding of Judaism and with only one perception of Israelis: illegal occupants of land belonging to Palestinians.

Israel was born of the Russian pogroms and all the other state-sponsored persecution of Jews around the world.

In an exodus romanticized in books and Hollywood movies, the Jews returned to the land that God promised to their forefathers when they were driven out of Egypt. The state of Israel was created with the help of Allied forces, in the dark shadow of the Holocaust. But in the Middle East there are those whose attitude toward that horrific tragedy is: Europe inflicted the Holocaust, and the Palestinians lose their land? Today Israel attracts additional enemy fire for the support it enjoys from the United States.

How do you solve a problem like this one? Final peace doesn’t look likely in our lifetime.

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The international community, preoccupied with economic woes, is suffering from intervention fatigue. The Israelis and Palestinians can kill each other all they want, as long as we are not affected.

In this global village, however, almost any conflict that erupts anywhere in the world affects the rest of the planet.

A dispute over gas supply from Russia to the former Soviet republics can trigger an increase in world crude prices, which means higher pump prices in the Philippines.

The escalation of conflict between Israel and Hamas has pushed up crude prices as well, though not as high as the oil exporters probably hope, mainly because the world has grown used to the periodic explosions of deadly violence in that volatile region.

More than a fuel price surge, a bigger concern is the direct security threat posed to migrant workers in conflict areas.

Particularly vulnerable are countries such as the Philippines, whose citizens are all over the world, from Iceland to Nigeria to Iraq and Afghanistan and, yes, Israel and Gaza.

But the typical overseas Filipino worker is resilient and courageous in the face of conflict, fortified by an abiding belief that the greater the adversity, the bigger the opportunity. Some Filipinos also have an abiding belief that everyone — Hamas and Hezbollah militant alike, Iraqi dissident, Somali pirate and even al-Qaeda terrorist — loves a Filipino and will not hurt an OFW.

Thousands of Filipinos have defied the deployment ban in Iraq, and the number keeps rising.

Despite the dangers posed to sailors by Somali pirates, Filipino seamen aren’t going home, and there has been no drop in the number of applicants seeking jobs on commercial vessels.

It’s a safe guess that at the first sign of improving security in the Gaza Strip, OFWs will be among the first to seek jobs in the Palestinian reconstruction effort.

Filipinos will take the risk, even if they know that violence could erupt anew any time.

Israel will do everything for its survival, especially when the international community is powerless or lacks interest in stopping attacks by Hamas and other hostile groups.

Hamas enjoys broad support among Palestinians and will continue pursuing its long-term goal, which is the elimination of the state of Israel.

Even if Hamas is replaced by a moderate group in free Palestinian elections, its militants are unlikely to stop the pursuit of their goal.

Old soldiers don’t fade away; they start another war.