ACCORDING to a report (Aug 24), Israel has been forced to issue a formal apology to Japan over offensive comments posted on Facebook by its head of — all the people – online public diplomacy!

Daniel Seaman, the official in question, had written: “I am sick of the Japanese, ‘Human Rights’ and ‘Peace’ groups the world over holding their annual self-righteous commemorations for Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the consequence of Japanese aggression.

You reap what you sow…”

It may be added that this wasn’t an isolated occurence because these comments about Japan were a part of a string of strongly-worded postings by Seaman over recent months.

This is indeed very ironic, coming from a member of the Jewish community that has for long been lambasting anti-Semitims at the drop of a hat, and the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, while holding periodic commemorations. Going by Seaman’s logic, should it be said that these phenomena are the harvest of what the Jewish people had been sowing in the societies they inhabited?

Another irony is that many Americans themselves have been expressing profound regrets over their country’s atomic bombing of Japan, maintaining that this response was far too excessive a punishment for the Japanese war-mongering. That is what most people all over the globe also believe.

Personally, I believe no community or nation should ever be subjected to gassing or nuking, as was witnessed in World War II. All life ought to be respected. Benjamin Disraeli had put it beautifully when he said: “Life is too short to be little.” If we all start following the ‘Golden Rule’ taught by nearly every religion and treat others as we wish to be treated by them, this world will become heaven.

Mr Seaman’s attention is drawn to what that universally loved and popular versifier of love, Rumi, had written some eight centuries back:

If you seek to soar to heaven, Make friends with all men.

Friendship is Paradise; When you speak of enemies, Snakes and thorns fill your heart.

S. QADRI
Karachi