I WRITE because of the deep grief and sorrow I feel in witnessing through television the cruel deaths and woundings of so many thousands on both sides of the Russia-Ukraine and Hamas-Israel wars.

While the Russia-Ukraine war still has us shocked, sorry and worried, up comes this Hamas-Israel terrifying, murderous war.

The United Nations reports an estimated 500,000 killed or wounded in the Ukraine war, with brutal effects on innocent citizens and children. History will not forget that there was (and still is) a peaceful resolution. That is, remove the United States and European Union threat to bring Ukraine into an already-expanded NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) and negotiate Russia’s ethnic-driven claims along Ukraine’s eastern border.

Who is really gaining in these wars? Political supremacy? The military-industrial arms complex which the Pope once described as ‘merchants of death’?

Yes, we know Russia started it. We also know Hamas started it. But both have historical complications.

Former US president Barack Obama once asked: how far in history should we go to find justice or revenge? There are military and political complications, but the geopolitical struggle for international domination is not worth this horrible war.

It’s a similar thing with the disastrous war Hamas started. Almost 5,000 deaths so far, with some 50,000 reported wounded, and one million rushed to evacuate in 24 hours. Why can’t the US, in particular, pressure Israel to accept the repeated UN resolution for a two-state (Palestinian-Israel) settlement rather than increasing Israel’s war machinery?

With territorial, religious and political grievances so passionately embedded in Palestinians’ minds, when Israel wins without a two-state resolution, the ‘war’ will continue in more ways than one-in very dangerous ways against Israel-suicidal terrorism, for example. Hamas and even Hezbollah are not all of the Palestinians. Too many innocent people and children are killed.

In both wars, there are rational ways to stop the war with mutual agreement. The US should lead the way. It can and should.

Professor emeritus Ramesh Deosaran