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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Opinion: Middle East story was one-sided
Thursday 26 August @ 16:56:56 |
 by Cheryl Fields
“Don’t worry, Mom, soldiers accompanied us into Jerusalem and two armed medics travel with us at all times,” words meant to be reassuring from my daughter calling from halfway around the world to let me know she was nowhere near Wednesday’s (8/11) roadside bombing in case the news had reached us in Minnesota’s northwoods. Family and friends were reluctant to retrieve a newspaper on their trips into town. Did the particulars really matter? How many dead? Maimed? Or even why? I thought about the cell phones that didn’t ring that day.
I returned to the Cities to read in Pulse that “only 10,000 to 20,000 (Palestinians) are estimated to be members of terrorist groups”; I emphasize “ONLY”, Pulse’s word choice. Ten thousand to 20,000 terrorists can do a lot of damage. After all, how many did it take to bring down the WTC? 19? How many to explode a roadside bomb? Or a suicide bomb? Do the math. Out of a total population of 3.5 million Palestinians, that’s one terrorist per 175 people!
Unlike writer Lydia Howell (“Finding Hope in the Middle East”, 8-11), I fail to find hope in the illogic of Wisconsin grandmother Cathy Sultan who believes the Palestinians essentially have an image problem, being commonly portrayed as kafia-wrapped, gun-wielding terrorists – an image much of their own making -- which she hopes to remedy with her book intended to humanize Palestinians. Sultan claims that Israelis justify their actions by demonizing the Palestinians; ironically the gist of the Pulse article is then expended on humanizing Palestinians by demonizing Israel.
Described as “a Christian married to a Lebanese man”, Sultan was recently in town stumping her book and theory that the way to peace in the Middle East is to end U.S. military aid to Israel – i.e. unilaterally disarm the Israelis, the side being terrorized -- and to remove Jewish settlements, i.e. make Judenrien (rid of Jews) Gaza and the “West Bank” known as Samaria and Judea, the ancestral lands of the tribes of Benjamin and Judah, to which Jews have at least an equal claim. And what is required of the Palestinians to make and keep the peace? That they stop terrorizing Israelis? Nope. According to Sultan, it is us Americans who need to change our perception of Palestinians and see them as “midwife, filmmaker, businessman…” etc.; never mind the man behind the curtain or the face behind the kafia.
Sultan’s speaking cohort Cecilie Surasky says they also want to dispel “myths”, such as “Israelis and Palestinians” being “incapable of recognizing each other as full human beings,” a myth also largely of their own making. Golda Meir (of Blessed Memory) many years ago said – “When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons.” Israelis do feel the pain, their own and the Palestinians’.
On the other hand, Palestinians currently teach their children that Jews are subhuman, e.g. “monkeys”, and that it is a very good thing to kill them – check out for yourself on the web what Palestinian schoolbooks say. Christians used to teach pretty much the same thing. Remember the Crusades? The Christian Crusades? Or Martin Luther? There’s been great progress in Jewish-Christian relations in recent years, but many Christians still cling to the erroneous precept that Christianity arose to supercede Judaism, and that until Jews convert to their ways, they are, well, “damned”, i.e. less than. In the wake of last week’s roadside bombing, the Palestinians did issue an apology -- to the families of the Arabs they inadvertently killed. Just the Arabs.
Jews/Israelis are supposed to be killed; their lives don’t matter, only their deaths. The Arab battle cry is, after all, “Death to the Jews!” Christians, by the way, are next on Islam’s short list of infidels with targeted bombings now of churches, five in Iraq just the other week. While Sultan et al. try to humanize Palestinians/Arabs – and we should never lose sight of that humanness – where is their own humanity in not condemning the intentional killing of Jews and Israelis? Or the bombing of churches and synagogues? And where are the voices of the vast majority of Palestinians who are not terrorists but whose silence against terrorism means consent? Anne Frank put a face on the Holocaust. Put my daughter’s face on Israel.
It’s disappointing but not surprising that Lydia Howell who tries to find middle ground in the mine field of Middle East opinion, has jumped headlong into the left lane by promoting what should be clearly recognized as very one-sided, anti-Israel views.
Sultan’s theories are not the solution, they are part of the problem; but maybe if we keep the dialogue going, we can find the cure.
Meanwhile my daughter has returned safely from a journey that will last long after the trip itself has ended. Except for 10,000 to 20,000 terrorists, I knew she’d be safe. Israel’s security fence has averted many Palestinian terror attacks, with Israeli tourism up 58 percent over last summer. My daughter returns with water, salt and sand from the Dead Sea, a photo of Pastor Martin Niemoeller’s famed quote etched into a memorial stone at Yad Vashem, a million memories and a strong optimism, shared with her Israeli peers, that there will be peace in the Middle East.
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