When Israel Ambassador to the Philippines Ilan Fluss came by recently to bring up the issue of the unspeakable abuses done to women hostages by the Hamas terror group, he said something that strongly resonated in my mind: “We are also fighting the war of information, but it is a big world. And it doesn’t like us.”

“It doesn’t like us.”

I am thinking of the races and cultures, and sexes that have gone through or are still undergoing such discrimination. People of color, as they call anyone non-white these days, continue to get the side-eye or the snide swipe. Worst cases are when people of power or authority unfairly treat them, as we often see bannered in media.

As for religion, think of the genocides, the refugee problems, the past and ongoing wars, and the endless hate that is still making people kill other people.

Just go out there somewhere, and you’ll probably feel some hate daggers headed your way for some unfathomable reason.

It’s ironic when I think about the situation between Israel and Hamas, and we are talking of Jews and Palestinians. Our hearts bleed for those who were killed in that attack last October, and we strongly condemn the inhuman, cruel actions taken by the rebels against civilians.

So, let’s put Christianity in the mix. I remember a comment I wrote during the Lenten season some years ago, where the taunts Jesus Christ endured seemed to ring in my ears. How could he have endured the physical and mental torture that culminated with calls for his death? For what?

“Crucify him! Crucify him!” I wrote then. “I am still stunned by the bloodthirsty calls in those times. Man was flesh and bone, lives taken or given to either beliefs or pressure.

“Jesus suffered intensely — he carried a heavy wooden cross under a constant whipping. He was shamed and taunted. Nails pierced his flesh. He hung from a cross until the heavens broke, and his spirit left his bloodied, mutilated body.

“Then again, we are not much different today in a so-called civilized society. We don’t gather in the streets much nowadays, though. We don’t shout, but whisper.

“Still, the unjust sentencing, whether done behind closed doors, or by constant gossip, or public defilement on social media, is usually deadly. It is character assassination that leaves a victim bleeding and torn apart in some ways.”

Aren’t these all true, still? Like Ambassador Fluss, who believes that “in the long run, the true and the good will prevail,” we must continue to have faith that peace can be achieved.

It may seem like a long, steep trek — what with the infiltration of biases in last-frontier-for-justice groups like the United Nations seeming to have forgotten about civilian women in war zones, taking its sweet time in addressing the rapes in Gaza — but the ambassador is hopeful.

“If there is no hope, there is no point to the war,” he said.

“We will do everything to bring them home,” he added, punctuating his points with the message that Israel is “for peace and for solutions” rather than war. But they must defend themselves.

The hope, as well, is “to see a change in leadership and sentiment in the Palestinian side to see Israel as a state.…(with) a right to exist.”

Come to think of it, everyone deserves the same right.