The 1986 TV movie Sword of Gideon deals with Israel’s revenge for the massacre of Israeli athletes by the Palestinian militant group Black September at the 1972 Munich Olympics. It is a spy movie with action and thrills, but it is a masterpiece that prompts reflection on where violence ends and what true peace and forgiveness truly mean in the vicious cycle of revenge begetting revenge.
This movie influenced Steven Spielberg’s film Munich (2005), which deals with the same incident. Israel seems to be taking the Old Testament passage, “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth (⋯) literally. Since starting the war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip in 2023, Israel has been devastating the Gaza Strip. On the morning of June 13, it conducted an airstrike on Iran with the aim of eliminating Iran’s nuclear research facilities and scientists. There are also reports of many civilian casualties, and Iran is responding with missile attacks, heightening the risk of war spreading to the Middle East.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu called the airstrike operation against Iran “Rising Lion” and passionately argued the legitimacy of their military actions.
There are concerns when examining Israel’s series of actions from an ecological perspective. In the latter half of the 20th century, ecology emerged as an essential field of biology because humans are ultimately one of many groups of organisms that form an ecosystem, and the principles of nature that occur in the animal kingdom also apply to humans.
It is becoming increasingly clear that many of the social and geopolitical problems humanity faces, such as population growth and the resulting shortages of food and resources, lack of housing space, environmental pollution, and destruction of nature, can only be solved by viewing them from an ecological perspective.
In an ecosystem, the position that a creature occupies in the food chain is called the food position, and the position that the creature occupies in its habitat is called the space position. These two are combined to form the ecological position. If the ecological positions of two different creatures overlap, a fierce competition occurs over the limited food and living space. When the fight between two competing species becomes fierce, the principle of competition and exclusion comes into play, causing one species to completely wipe out the other. This is a harsh reality commonly seen in nature.
However, humans have reason that is not found in animals, and they have tolerance, forgiveness, and a heart of philanthropy. Mahatma Gandhi emphasized, “If you insist on an eye for an eye, the whole world will become blind.” “There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.”
The words of the second reading of the “Mass for the Unification of South and North Korea” on June 25, the 75th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War, carry more weight today. “Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, abuse, and slander be taken away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:31-32)
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