By DAVID IZRAELEVITZ
Los Alamos
When a child first learns to draw in a coloring book, she has no patience for lines and boundaries, and so the crayon is spread evenly across the page. I am afraid that Mr. Spencer has succumbed to this temptation in his letter of Sept. 6, comparing the recruitment of young men to join the ISIL and other terrorist organizations, to Mr. Miller’s enrollment in the Israel Defense Forces.
It is true that the world is a complicated place where moral boundaries are hard to define, difficult “Sophie’s Choice” decisions are forced on our leaders, and appeals to non-violence and reason remain unheard, but that does not mean that every bullet shot is immoral and unnecessary, or the death of every innocent, though equally tragic, an equal war crime.
Those of us who draw our salaries from an industry that ultimately develops the means for death either directly or indirectly, have to confront the question of whether our efforts are for a higher purpose or not. I am not naive to believe that the world is black and white, that there are always clear delineations between justice and injustice, good and evil. But neither do I believe that there are no such differences, that everything is relative and the world a dull gray, and that every terrorist in one person’s eyes is justifiably a freedom fighter in another’s.
I could spend pages laying out the differences between the motivations and ultimate aims of ISIL and the State of Israel. Not only do they lack equivalence, they are not even commensurate, and volumes won’t clarify a contrast apparent at first glance. Maybe in the world of ideas there are no lines, and there is no right or wrong. But, in the world we actually live in, there really are lines, usually fuzzy, often hard to understand, justify or even see. But there are, and there must be lines, for by these lines Justice is drawn.
Groping to find them though the murkiness of existence is part of living a moral life. They are there, whether placed by man or by God. They are the lines the artful child may grow some day to discern, to respect, and maybe even to defend.
