ISRAELI helicopters killed seven Palestinians - I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make light of this tragic event, nor am I taking sides on this issue, but this headline presents me with a mental image of a cartoon-like helicopter, cigar protruding from one side of its smiling mouth, tattooed muscle bound arms beating to death these poor Palestinians.

This is just another example of the dehumanising effect that war evokes, and one that is propagated by the media. The fact is that a human ordered this strike, a human flew the helicopter and a human pulled the trigger that killed other humans.

I have to reflect upon the concept of Emmanuel Levinas that there is a need for each human to recognise the ‘other’ as human and not merely as something else; ‘human qua human’ not just ‘human qua citizen’. For it is only in our recognition of the ‘other’ as a fellow human that we can find our own humanness.

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