Please Stop the Bombing

 Please Stop the Bombing

    The other day I took a telephone call from an unknown number. I am very ready to be hostile to unknown callers, resembling in that respect my father. I managed an "Hello" in my driest, coolest, voice with a faint interrogative upturn at the end. However, a pleasantly cultured voice told me that he was phoning on behalf of humanity; "Humanity & Inclusion" in fact, whose appeal on Facebook I had recently signed. 

    "Been going since the eighties, in a quiet way", he told me. 

    Well (I thought to myself), it is a rather un-arresting title; a 'catch-all'. As though they had founded the charity before they had thought of the cause they were going to espouse. 

    "Why were you opposed to the bombing of civilians?" he asked me. 
    "I regard the bombing of non-combatant civilians as a war-crime, prohibited by Protocol I (1977) of the Geneva Conventions", I explained,  "Though, if Hamas deliberately mixes their combatants among innocent civilians, they are as guilty as the Israelis. However, that does not make the bombing legal." 

    "And I want nothing to do with such brutality and criminality" I added. 

    Of course, it cost me a year's worth of donations to Humanity & Inclusion. But it was a worthwhile phone call, as it has clarified my mind on the matter. 

    I do protest. I would not want to be a citizen of a brutal, criminal and inhumane country.