Death should never be trivialized. We must recognize that all human life is something that needs to be protected (in part from itself) and there isn’t anyone whose life is “worth more” than someone else. Having said that, I found the following article from the Canadian Press interesting. A Canadian-born IDF pilot died in northern Israel after the Apache helicopter he was flying crashed. Why should this be newsworthy when so many others are dying? Perhaps to show the “Canadian connection”, which is something our press tries to do to add an extra bit of sympathy towards the story. There is a part of this story that does not make me feel sympathy for this “successful and handsome boy.”
Here we have an individual who made a choice to return to service instead of return to Canada: “Tom Farkash, 23, had planned to fly to Canada to meet with childhood friends, but put off his vacation due to the conflict with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.” But why should the press be making anything more of this young man’s death than of those of these people in Gaza.
It is a truly dangerous game we play when we start weighing the lives of one against another. I have no doubt that Tom Farkash was a wonderful young man, and would have grown up to be an upstanding citizen, if he had the opportunity … as would the innocent civilians who are being murdered in Lebanon and Israel with impunity while the world sits on its hands doing nothing.
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