The truth that matters most

Quite recently I commented in a small group that I believed Israel had a right to fight Hamas in order to survive. Hamas launched a terrorist attack on Israeli civilians and has vowed not to quit until all the Jews in Israel are eliminated. I wasn’t trying to be controversial, but my comment drew intense disagreement from a man whose view was that Israel was the real aggressor.

We finally simply agreed to disagree and dropped the subject. The man had a different understanding of what the truth of the matter was than I did. This simple fact brings me to the subject of truth. I do not consider that man to be a liar. I don’t think he considers me to be a liar. Liars willfully misrepresent the truth. We both said what we believed to be true.

Obviously, we couldn’t both be right. Neither of us knows anywhere near the whole truth on the subject of the Israeli-Palestinian situation. Both of us had been there personally. Both of us thought we knew enough to favor one side over the other. Clearly, the truth cannot always be easily known with certainty.