Mass murder in the sky: Stop this madness

f proof was required that the world has plunged into an era where judgment has fled to brutish beasts and world leaders have lost their senses, the two latest catastrophes provide the proof.
One was the mass murder in the sky of 298 passengers and crew of a commercial airliner flying over war-torn Ukraine. The other was a shocking United Nation’s report that up to 60,000 children have been killed, injured or displaced during the ongoing and the last two Israeli offensives in the Gaza Strip.

According to most independent journalists, the Malaysian Airlines flight MH 17, the latest Boeing 777 model was shot down by a powerful 70 kilogram surface-to-air radar-controlled missile allegedly fired by Ukrainian separatists. The airliner was flying at about 32,000 feet but the Russian built SAMs have a range of up to 70,000 feet and they fly at about 4320 kilometres an hour—four times the speed of the airliner and the speed of sound.

The Ukrainian government, with recorded evidence has directly accused the Ukrainian separatists of shooting down the passenger plane, though they may have mistaken it for a Ukrainian military plane–two of which they shot down earlier this week.

If the Ukrainian government charge is proved Russian President Vladimir Putin–already facing severe sanction from the West—may find himself in deep trouble.
Around the time of this carnage in the sky, the hard-line Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a ground offensive which the Israeli Defence forces described as an incursion. This came after 11 days of shattering airstrikes in which more than 270 civilians were killed, most of them children and women. Thousands of innocent Palestinians who had no place to run in this narrow strip were displaced in camps with even their drinking water being polluted after the Israeli jets blasted the sewage tanks.

While the Israeli airstrikes continued, the Hamas movement based in Palestine fired about 1100 rockets into Israel, though most of the rockets were blocked by the Israeli  iron dome.

Over the weekend Egypt’s new President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi called for a ceasefire after secret talks. Israel agreed but Hamas rejected the call and the conflict continued with Israel accusing Hamas of using civilians as a human shield. On Wednesday Israel and Hamas agreed to a plea by the United Nations for a six hour “humanitarian pause” but after that pause the Israeli ground forces moved in saying they wanted to destroy 12 long tunnels from which Hamas was moving fighters or supplies and firing rockets into Israel.

As in all conflicts, wars and violence it is the innocent people including children who suffer the most. If this wickedness driven by the current system of self-centredness, greed and deception does not end, the world may end. This is the time for all people of goodwill and sincerity to step forward and work to restore peace with justice.
World leaders need to be aware that if they are seeking power to dominate people, personal gain or glory, prestige and chief popularity they will end up like the Hitlers and Stalins, in the garbage dumps of history. The leaders need to realise that the only leadership that will be remembered is servant leadership of sincerely serving and sacrificing for the people.