OPINION: “The greatest injustice, beyond the crime itself, is denial of the crime”
Science must not be misused to create and permeate conflict
Twenty years ago, I wrote in Jewish News the following conclusion on then hot topic ‘designer babies’: “If science is [a] tool of divinely revealed knowledge in our age, then we should use it to promote health, happiness and fortune and handle it with utmost care not to abuse it for selfish reasons.”
Two decades on, all we pray for is that. After the pandemic, the world plunged into conflict and alongside it grew a hateful cult of denial that terror is to be judged on its own lack of merit; that terrorism is to be understood, accommodated and even protested for.
The danger of cancel culture which sprouted during Covid turned into a grotesque form of gaslighting, turned typically against Jews by opponents of Jews, Israel and Zionism.
The Torah teaches from the inception of mankind that the greatest injustice, beyond the crime itself, is denial of the crime. On 7 October 2023, the area surrounding Gaza was ravaged by 6,000 murderous invaders. They pushed deep into south Israel, shooting at will, raping, impaling, burning human beings going about their daily business and family life.
Then came the injustice of worldwide indifference. I struggle to recall a mass protest led in support of Israel, if not led by the Jewish community itself. I recall all too bluntly the ignoring by women’s rights activists and charities the dreadful plight and abuse in life and death of women even as they cradled their children from their raping and pillaging attackers.
That world has neither recanted their view nor repented the silence shown by so many. Last Sunday, I led a prayer for and with the soldiers of a peacekeeping operation in Cyprus. We commemorated the third anniversary of the massacre of October 7, which occurred on Simchat Torah, supposed to be the happiest day in the Torah calendar. We also gave thanks for the Fly Dubai flight saved from certain destruction were it not got the grit and courage of its passengers. They certainly showed the extraordinary ability to put fear second when it comes to doing the right thing to save lives.
The Shoah’s “Never Forget” has now two more words appended: “Never Fail”. As a society, we must never fail the security of the society in which we live, the justice that must be served within it, and our thereby, ultimately, merit enduring peace for its inhabitants.