When is Enough Enough?

By Siggy Raible

One evening in mid-June, I was in my Greenwich Village apartment watching PBS’s evening news coverage of the Israel Hamas war. That evening the Palestinian death toll had reached 35,000 (and counting); that number does not take into account the thousands of missing persons presumably buried in the rubble from the nine-month bombing of what was once called the Gaza Strip. That number also does not include the injured or those who died due to disease. Almost all of Gaza’s citizens (2.2 million) have become internal refugees and its land destroyed—in some cases beyond recognition. There’s another deadly condition that the Palestinians must live with­—they cannot leave the Strip —they are prisoners in their own land.

Although the death toll in Israel is far less, the families of the deceased and injured suffer just as much as the families of dead and injured Palestinians. Hamas abducted and holds 100 Israeli hostages (men, women and children) using these human beings as bargaining chips devaluing and dehumanizing their lives. In addition, many civilians living in the West Bank, Syria and Lebanon have been killed or injured. Thousands of Israelis, Syrians and Lebanese have been rendered internal refugees. Many Palestinians living as refugees in Syria and Lebanon are once again subjected to the forces of war.

All parties live amidst or near the rubble of the incessant bombing of Gaza. All parties are breathing in the toxic air due to the bombing. I worked across the street from the Twin Towers and still live in my same apartment, located one and one-half miles north of Ground Zero. The toxic air that enveloped those areas was present immediately after the collapse as well as during the long recovery and rebuilding processes. I am currently suffering with a rare auto-immune disease. Is it related to the toxic air I was exposed to? Who knows?

I am lucky to live in the comfort of my apartment in a country not directly affected by war. But I know personally the destructive power of war. I was born in Brooklyn shortly after World War II ended. My father, of German descent, fought in the United States Army against his brothers and my mother’s brothers who served in the German Army. My father survived the war; my German uncles were not so lucky. That war created a rift in my family which was never reconciled. My brother served in the Marines in Vietnam, was severely wounded in action and returned home a quadriplegic. He went on to live a full life – he lived alone with some assistance; he drove himself to his full-time job as a benefits authorizer with the Social Security Administration. He retired and, unfortunately, died of multiple myeloma, a blood cancer. Even so, he was a talented young man who never realized his full potential as a gifted architectural student.

Just as my brother’s life was irreversibly changed by war, so have the lives of the 2.2 million Palestinians, as well as the thousands of Israeli, Syrian and Lebanese civilians who have lived with a war that shows no signs of ending. How many of the survivors will never reach their full potential? How many future Einsteins, Picassos or Steve Jobs were lost?

So, I must ask when is enough enough? I say now!

Whatever it takes, all parties need to come to their senses and begin the difficult task of reaching an agreement where all parties can find a way to live together in dignity. More deaths and destruction will only lead to more pain, death and destruction. That is not and should not be an option.

Enough is enough.