لحظة ادراك

 Everything Is Fair in Love and War

A phrase that caught my attention for its paradoxical, thought-provoking nature, accurately reflecting the state of our world. I searched extensively for its literal origin to restore it to its source, only to find an American poet John Lyly’s saying, “The rules of fair play do not apply in love and war.” Search engines have decided to attribute it to him—perhaps rightly so, given he belongs to the land that created these engines, the land that decides peace and war. A paradox no less surprising than the one we see before us.

On the 19th of January, after waiting for 471 long days, the guns, roaring planes, torrents of death, and flying shells came to a halt. In the final moments of love and war, with all their myths and tragedies, the curtain finally closed on the last 15 victims during injury time, citing a delayed exchange of prisoner release lists by a few hours for no clear reason—not even a bad excuse. Thus began a new chapter in the saga of love and war, with open media outlets broadcasting countless images of the horror of war, the depths of love, and the eternal battle between the two.

The story unfolds through the eyes of individuals living amid chaos:

One man kneels, his forehead touching the ground in prayer, thanking God for surviving with his family. Haunted by constant displacement, he has lost count of how many times he fled. Hungry and scared, he wanders through overcrowded streets and markets where people outnumber the vegetables, priced beyond reach after war profiteers drained the last ounce of resources.

Another searches for his home, unrecognizable among the ruins. Guided by remnants of familiar landmarks like a mosque’s minaret left intact by some deliberate hand, he finds his way back. A stark witness to how love and war shape consciousness with their tools.

A third digs through rubble for fragments of lost loved ones buried under tons of debris. Armed with unyielding resolve, he seeks to bury them with dignity—whether it takes 100 days or 200—closing the bloodiest chapter in this love-and-war saga.

Yet another man hands out sweets with pure intentions, celebrating survival. He doesn’t fully understand his joy but faces both congratulations and curses from passersby. While he grasps little of the congratulations, he painfully learns the reasons behind the curses—his joy seen as disrespectful to those who lost everything, branding him a participant in the game of love and war.

In love and war, these survivors know how it began, recall every detail, and live its moments by the hour, minute, and second. Yet, they know nothing of its outcomes, holding only wishes that, if they were horses, they would ride into a different time and place where emperors of love and war regain their sanity.

Meanwhile, the orchestrators of love and war meticulously plan its pauses and use images to convey power and dominance. From delayed prisoner exchanges to military parades showcasing hidden weapons, every gesture aims to project strength. Interviews with analysts fill screens, while choreographed handovers of prisoners play out with symbolic gifts and ceremonies. Each detail sends messages of dominance, internally and externally.

On the other side, the state plays its own symbolism game. It delays the truce in response to late list submissions, emphasizes the bloodiness of its narrative, and bans celebrations for freed prisoners who emerge battered and broken. The response escalates with each exchange round, plunging hundreds of thousands into new suffering under pretexts of incomplete deals—all for the sake of image-making in this brutal chessboard.

Amid these media spectacles, the theater shifts north to the West Bank, where military operations intensify. Daily incursions, long queues at checkpoints, and settler violence paint an increasingly grim picture. Each move seems calculated, transferring the southern Gaza conflict northward with distinct agendas.

For one side, it bolsters its narrative, spreads burdens, and weakens remaining authority structures. For the other, it cements the view that the West Bank is no longer negotiable within any two-state framework. It will remain fragmented islands under Israeli control, with no capital in Jerusalem or contiguous borders—merely a patchwork of sovereignty under ultimate veto power.

In the game of love and war, the U.S. president hosts an unprecedented public celebration, using hostages’ families as symbols of his strength. Proposals emerge to depopulate Gaza and rebuild it as a modernized, memory-erasing entity—an erasure of refugee history altogether.

This ongoing love-and-war tragedy leaves us with existential questions: How do we break free? Do the de facto rulers of Gaza and Netanyahu’s government realize they have both become relics of the past in the eyes of global decision-makers? Are they aware that their relevance lies only in perpetuating this conflict, not ending it?

Final Thoughts:

Hitler, too, loved Germany, leading it to ruin and division. The Japanese emperor loved his homeland yet saw it devastated, forcing him to surrender. Throughout history, leaders have plunged their nations into wars out of obsessive love and grandeur, ignoring the truth in the saying, “Some love kills.”

Human conflicts, whether personal or collective, must account for worst-case scenarios and calculate every step’s consequences. Otherwise, they must brace for the outcomes of “the game of love and war,” a game that is always fair—in all times and ways.

The End.