For 2,500 years, the ruins of the Palmyra temple stood as a reminder of those who have gone before us, of their civilisation and values. But no more. In an act unparalleled in the Middle East, the Baal Shamin temple — the second most important remnant at Palmyra — has been blown up by Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant). Its ancient columns have been reduced to rubble, its structures levelled in an act that is hard to fathom. The United Nations and Unesco are calling the destruction a war crime and a crime against humanity. Yes, it is both — and it is also a crime against history.
For all of the upheavals across the Middle East down through the centuries — of Romans, Persians, Babylonians, Crusaders, of the French, British, Ottomans, Germans — and a range of kingdoms that have come and gone too and are lost in the mists of time — these ruins have endured. And the armies that have marched across these ruins have stopped and wondered and admired — and left those columns to stand. Daesh, the curse of our time, an evil that is twisted and driven by a perversion of beliefs, has now reduced these ruins to rubble. Yes, we have become almost immune to these terrorists and their endless blood lust — their cruelty to maim, torture, behead and kill. But when it is all done, those who influenced and led that path of destruction will be held to justice.
