Yet Another War

Published on Feb 28, 2026, filed under misc, advocacy. (Share this post, e.g. on Mastodon or on Bluesky.)

Israel is a colonial nation that, since its founding, has displaced millions of people, has injured hundreds of thousands of people, and has killed hundreds of thousands of people.

The United States of America, also of colonial origin, have displaced, injured, and killed millions of people each. The list of wars involving the United States is so long that Wikipedia has a list of lists for them.

Today, on February 28, 2026, Israel and the United States have started yet another war, by again attacking Iran.

Might Is Right

For Israel and the United States, this is “normal”: Might is right, they have the might, therefore they’re right.

For Israel and the United States, the narrative is also clear: It’s all because of “the others”—across the Middle East and North Africa (e.g., Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, Iran, Tunisia, Yemen); throughout the Americas (e.g., Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Venezuela); and across Asia (e.g., Vietnam, Afghanistan, Pakistan).

It’s always the others, and those others’ rights, needs, and views don’t need to be considered; their lives and livelihoods don’t have to be respected or protected.

Never do Israel or the United States err, never are Israel or the United States responsible, and so they may not be held accountable, either—which is why they disrespect and undermine international law.

All that matters are Israeli and American interests.

Scratch their skin and your neighborhood is being flattened.

Don’t roll over and you’re their enemy #1 who’s on the verge of developing weapons of mass destruction, tools used to play public opinion for a decade or three until it’s finally time to attack you.

Contempt and Brutality

But the predictable Israeli/American playbook must and will cease to work, because the contempt and brutality with which Israel and the United States are treating other people and nations are increasingly hard to ignore.

As with any event in life, every attack Israel and the United States are making provides us with an opportunity to decide who we are and who we are not:

Are we—non-Israelis and non-Americans—so gullible to believe that Israel and the United States represent anyone’s but their own interests? That they would care about the well-being of Europe, let alone the world?

Are we so uncritical constantly being told “it’s the others, we—Israel and the United States—need to get our way, and the only way to get it is by force”?

Are we so uncreative to agree with them that “there’s no way we can all live peacefully together”? Are we so weak that we must put up with racist, imperialist violence instead?

Is this who we are?

Or are we more open to the world, more intelligent, more principled, more upright, and more creative than that?

No matter who you decide to be in response to Israeli and American violence:

We need to become much more just and empathetic in deciding what violence we tolerate and what violence we fight and hold others accountable for, because our current handling of violence is broken.

In the end, there is no excuse for “yet another war.”

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I’ve worked as a technical lead and engineering manager for companies you use every day (like Google) and companies you’ve never heard of, I’m an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.

I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also in philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my experiences and perspectives. (I value you being critical, interpreting charitably, and giving feedback.)