I had been reading and thinking about non-violence for months before the 2023 Israel-Hamas war started, but its outbreak is making me more committed to the idea than any abstract philosophical argument.

I’m more inclined than ever before to believe that military force can never be justified, and I think that’s especially true in cases where civilians are deliberately targeted (or allowed to be caught in the attack). Hamas’s attack on Israeli civilians is unjustifiable, the IDF’s seeming disregard for Gazan civilians is unjustifiable, the U.S.’s bombing of German and Japanese cities during World War II was unjustifiable, and the list goes on.