In Aleppo, we have failed ourselves

This Aleppo tragedy is in our faces. But it’s too late. Because of advanced technology we can’t bury our heads in the sand and ignore the slaughter that is happening so far away. For Rwanda and Darfur, we mostly shook our heads as we decried the terrible genocide; we shouldn’t have, of course, yet they did seem more remote.

In our current modern reality, that kind of indifference is no longer possible. Through social media, we are now exposed to the raw pain of the tragedy, with a sense of proximity and intimacy to the massacre that was previously unknown.

Videos of Syrian civilians sending out their final messages, their final farewells, are flooding the internet. Real people. Facing their certain imminent deaths.

There are videos of people pleading, “remember us,” and then the screen going dark. It’s creepy. Healthy-looking people, desperate, talking to me through the screen. And I can’t do a thing.

It’s overwhelming.

We let these people down. We failed them. And their unthinkable, their worst fears, are unfolding.

In Aleppo.

You know the one country that did come to Syria’s medical aid? That did bind some of the woundeds’ wounds with food, shelter and support? That wasn’t indifferent, despite the countries being declared enemies, despite Syria’s trying to destroy this country many times?

Israel.

Israel didn’t wake up this week on the internet sending out memos as if it cared when in reality there was little left to be done. As a border country to Syria, Israel quietly and courageously has been tending to the wounds of Syrian children for years. Be it Moti Kahana of the organization Amaliah, or Dr. Michael Harari (to name a few), they’ve been humanitarian lights in this utter humanitarian failure.

If only the United Nations hadn’t been obsessed with relentlessly demonizing Israel, perhaps innocent Syrian civilians could have been spared.

Rome was burning, or in this case, Syria was burning. But time and again, all the UN could see was Israel. Israel Israel Israel. Israel, which was busy developing more technology, reaching new frontiers in medical research, new inventions — still the UN was so consumed by hate that even a raging Syrian inferno wasn’t enough to eclipse it.

Israel, the ultimate perversion of a decoy. Now the Syrians have paid the price.

That Syrian man pleading by video that he be remembered? His face and voice will long haunt me. As will this colossal humanitarian disaster.

Copyright Intermountain Jewish News