Disproportionate response. Escalation. Demands that are likely to go unmet because they’re the product of burning anger and the attendant blindness.

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres wrote a heartfelt response to Israeli demands to evacuate the north of Gaza. It’s doubtful Israel will listen.

ELCA Bishop Eaton’s response will probably not sit well with Israelis, either, but is at least an acknowledgement that we need to separate the actions of Hamas from the plight of many Palestinians whose lives have been upended and deprived of bare necessities, and who want no part of the terroristic behavior or mindset, who are caught in the middle between Hamas and a relentless Israel.

They just want to live in peace in a place they can call home, with running water and food and the means to earn a living and provide for their families and have some sense of sovereignty over their choices—like the dreams and desires of most everyone else on earth. It’s already a humanitarian nightmare, and it’s going to get worse.

And maybe they should keep God out of it. Put the holy books aside and just listen to each other.

Steve Scalise is no longer in consideration for Speaker of the House. The media is all pants-on-fire about this, but couldn’t it also indicate that the rational core(?) of Republicans are simply taking their time and holding out for someone capable who can fill the position?

Maybe it doesn’t indicate this at all, and there are probably a lot of back room discussions going on, but the media aren’t helping. They dramatize and intensify, they armchair quarterback, jump on the worst-case-scenario bandwagon, call the Republican Party rudderless and in disarray– and they certainly are to a great extent. But maybe in this instance they’re actually trying to get it right?

And Kevin—don’t get any ideas!

In response to Israel’s threat to invade Gaza, Hamas says, “Bring it on.”

Of course they do, because that is the testosterone-fueled thing to say, the proper hate-filled response. It doesn’t consider the thousands of Gazans who want nothing to do with Hamas and are caught in the middle—the ones who face the relentless bombardment and scarcity of essentials that will keep them alive.

Hamas, it appears, doesn’t really care about all those people. They just hate Israel and want them to “bring it on.”

I so love my morning coffee and a quiet start to my day. It seems the simplest of pleasures. Somehow, lately, a guilty pleasure.

It seems to be about numbers.

A thousand killed. Twelve hundred killed. As if that’s what keeps us tuned in.

Numbers. Death tolls.

It’s a thousand lives, twelve hundred lives. Human lives.

We all only get one shot. How dare someone intentionally cut that short?

The networks play it up, highlight the losses with the trace of a smile on their faces? It must be hard for someone thousands of miles away to really take the whole tragedy seriously.

It’s about clicks and viewership, not so much about the unimaginable fear and staggering loss.

Humans are animals, too.

The terror is the point. The terror, the horror, the butchery. The methods of Hamas and others are intended to leave a mark on the psyche.

They must realize their ruthlessness will instill fear but also will not end the barbarism. Their behavior engenders payback, long memories for revenge. This seeming intractability is what frustrates the rest of the world.

Religious quarrels are the worst. At a bare minimum, they give God a black eye.

What’s behind the demonstrating in this country, in support of both sides in the current Middle East conflagration?

Is it pro-Israel because people believe no one deserves to be ruthlessly attacked while just going about one’s business or simply being Jewish?

Is it pro-Palestinian because people can make the distinction between innocent civilians and members of a terrorist organization, and the civilians deserve better because they’ve been living in oppressed conditions that warrant vast improvement?

Or, is it pro-Palestinian because people hate Jews, because people are ignorant and continue to pile on an old rickety bandwagon that needs to collapse under its own weight?

The events in Israel sadden me. I got an email from an artist with a shop on Cardo Street, in Jerusalem’s Old City. The whole place is closed now, because of Saturday’s attack, but he is keeping vigil outside his store.

I was thinking about the striking contrasts yesterday, as I sat at a wedding reception, a celebration for a young couple for whom the events in Israel and Gaza are most likely of peripheral concern, at best. It’s that dynamic that always gives me pause—contemplating the thin line between peace and terror, between simply going about a mundane, relatively peaceful day that’s taken for granted, and being hunted and gunned down by people who, for mostly irrational reasons, hate you.

I’m not condoning Hamas’s behavior—they do skip the step of actually sitting down and talking out their grievances, after all. And they are possessed of a certain religious zeal and lunacy that only preaches poison.

You’d think by now, though, that both sides would know that retaliation—whether surgical or more widespread—is at best a short-term tactic. Tenuous, fragile, ghastly in cost, and somehow lazy, deepening the hate.

It makes the rest of us think that neither side really wants a solution, that the only avenue available is to fight until no one is left.

Two point three million people enduring a constant blockade, in a space about one-tenth the size of Rhode Island? One person’s terrorist is another’s oppressed victim. One can be kept down for only so long before you don’t care anymore about the consequences of retaliation.

On the other hand, Hamas wants to rid the Middle East of Jews, and Hamas apparently controls Gaza. What is Israel supposed to do? The dynamics and realities perpetuate the struggle on both sides.

Israel’s homeland comes with so many strings attached. I will never fully comprehend Israelis living the way they do—trying to live a modern life but living it under constant scrutiny, constantly hounded and haunted by animosities both ancient and contemporary.

They appear, to me anyway, to exist on the edge of imminent collapse and disaster, never really being able to rest or find contentment or simply get through a day without worrying about threat levels. They’re all part civilian, part soldier, to some extent always on guard. They’re surrounded on three sides by people and countries harboring various levels of animosity, some who wish them harm, who wish they weren’t there, some of whom are always plotting how to get rid of them.

There might be too many concessions to think of the place as the promised land. Being chosen has come at a terrible cost. It might be tempting to throw off that mantle. It might be tempting to question God’s wisdom, even God’s existence, but that’s been happening all along the way.

I had to reacquaint myself with the map of Israel this afternoon. I had forgotten exactly where the Gaza Strip is located.

Israel is about the size of New Jersey. In terms of land area, the Gaza Strip is a bit more than one-tenth the size of Rhode Island, home to 2.3 million people, bordering Israel on its north and east, the Mediterranean Sea on the West, and Egypt on the south. I don’t know much else about it, other than it is a hotbed for Hamas, who somehow has been able to launch an attack now being labeled Pearl Harbor-like in its effects.

Israel’s Iron Dome either failed wholesale, or was overwhelmed by the barrage of incoming rockets that was used as a distraction while ground forces penetrated what looks to be a less-than-formidable wall in places near Israeli border areas. Since it’s early in whatever this event will grow to be, it seems predictable that many questions will be asked, among them, How could Israel have been so blindsided? What happened to their highly touted intelligence apparatus? What larger geopolitical machinations have come to bear on this situation? Who’s supplying the hardware for Hamas?

On a related note, why the hell can’t people figure this out? How can both sides keep living this way? Sleeping with one eye open, walking on egg shells, annoying each other constantly, preparing for the worst, always wondering when the next life-threatening flare-up is going to be, never really feeling like they live in a place that offers any semblance of stability. Find a way to make peace and stop this bloody insanity!

But God is great, right? It’s all about what God wants, all about what the holy books dictate. Maybe it’s time to take a holiday from the holy books and dare to dream of a peace that lasts longer than the next cease fire. Everyone wants a place to call home. Work it out, concessions and all!

Unless the preference is for some last man standing.

Why does what Trump thinks matter? He really doesn’t know anything besides the art of manipulation. He’s a living and breathing con. He spends many a waking hour figuring out how to stay ahead of trouble.

How sad is the life whose only claims to fame are being good at pulling the wool over peoples’ eyes and being a bombastic dunce?