Until Arabs are granted equal rights as Israelis, both in Israel and Palestine, Israelis will not have peace. And neither will their neighbors.
I found these two images on electroniclebanon.net – they are both startling in their own right. Arabs, especially Palestinians, are often blamed for teaching their children to hate Jews. It’s true that some do. I have found that Jews are as guilty and effective at passing on hate messages to their children. I met a sweet Jewish couple in an Israeli bus station, settlers originally from Brooklyn, who refused to see the Palestinians who lived just hundreds of meters from their walled-in suburbs as legitimate heirs to their own land. As they spoke, I saw that they had dehumanized them – they were not people – they had simply become the enemy. I also saw this enmity in the eyes of a professor I had at the University of Jordan – he could no longer distinguish between Jews, Israelis and Zionists – they were faceless, soulless enemies.
Sadly, the victims have also victimized. It’s like the child who grows up in an abusive home who goes on to abuse. These are the militants. They see no hope when they look at the occupation, the economy, or the check points. There are no bunkers to hide in when bombs are dropped, and they watch their land and families torn apart.
Despite those harsh realities, hope can and does exist.
15 Responses to “Message On a Rocket”
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July 26th, 2006 at 11:56 pm
Thank you sooooo much for allowing me the opportunity to go to Isreal and experience part of this politics, and I thank God that you are not over there now because I would worry day and night!
July 21st, 2006 at 11:44 am
Interesting post, however I would say where one news source (ex. America) might be biased, the source you got this material from is probably just as biased.
Remember that all of this was prophesied in the Bible, the fact that Israel will be hated in the world.
The truth is that Hezbollah, and those countries that support them (Syria, Lebannon, Iran) were the aggressors in this conflict, not Israel. If you really study scripture, this war will actually encourage you in the fact that God stays true to His word, and that the Bible is absolute truth.
The truth also is that Israel has the right to exist, despite the fact that others do not think so. They also have the right to defend themselves against people who think they dont have the right to exist (Hitler, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (president of Iran), Hassan Nasrallah – leader of Hezbollah).
Good day.
July 19th, 2006 at 5:28 pm
The situation in the Middle East is very sad. As the people you speak of, Finnish children are raised to hate Russians, and vice versa. Our cycle of violence started before 500CE. It is only a matter of time when they will have another war. It takes incredible effort to relearn that Russians are just like me and Jesus died for them and expects the same self giving love between us as he showed on the cross.
July 19th, 2006 at 1:36 pm
Wow ……………………………………………. Thanks for sharing these pics. Sometimes we forget that …… war is not pretty. thanks for that reminder, girl. Love you.
July 19th, 2006 at 10:34 am
Had another thought: the Lebanese photo is a fake. Consider:
Visible wounds: None.
Visible blood: None. There is a discoloration on the shirt, but you’ll notice that the most reddish part is on a rumple of the fabric, and is clearly not touching the skin! The red is also surrounded by a double white circle that follows the folds of the shirt. There is a patch of dull purple surrounding the reddish part, but it’s not dark enough to be fresh blood and the wrong color to be dry blood (and why would there be a small patch of fresh blood in the middle of a wide dry area?)
Source of supposed injury or death: None. One more note about the shirt is that there are no holes in it, where a lethal object might have entered or exited. There is a chunk of asphalt next to or possibly on top of one foot, but the foot is clearly intact and no blood is visible. Even if there is a wound small enough to show no signs of its presence, it wouldn’t have been fatal. Lack of wounds to the body also discounts the possibility of shrapnel or burning. The Israelis don’t use chemical or biological agents, so that’s out too. You could make a farther-fetched claim like “shockwave damage,” but look at the position of the limbs: the arms and legs point right, but the head is facing left. Look at the tidily tied-back hair. This is not a body that has been acted upon by any violent force. Tell me: how can a shell the size of a child (cf. picture 1) kill without leaving a mark?
Evidence of trauma or the physiological effects that follow death: None. The eyes are closed peacefully, as if the child had been asked to close her eyes. This is not the sort of result you’d expect from sudden, violent death. There is no evidence of rigor mortis, swelling, discoloration, insect infestation or any of the other normal things that begin happenning to a body within a couple hours of death. (Read about what you’re not seeing at http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/ask_the_doctor/decompostionafterdeath.shtml). Fact is, if this kid just died, it was very recently — too recently for blood to have dried to a dull gray — and in that case, what idiot stopped to take careful pictures instead of helping the rescue efforts?
Evidence of a missile strike: None. There is one chunk of asphalt and one object that may be a bit of pipe. The rest is rocks and scrub, like you might find in fields all over the Mideast. I’ve seen more realistic war-zone simulations in empty lots back in the US. There is no other debris, no shrapnel, no evidence of a concussion or of burning. The piece of asphalt is suspiciously large — it would take a lot of force to toss that sucker around, yet there is no surrounding rubble. The stones are naturally occurring rather than pieces of asphalt or concrete. I find it difficult to believe that a blast powerful enough to rip large chunks of asphalt out of the ground occurred anywhere nearby.
Context: None. The caption says “Lebanese *children*,” but this is a single child. Furthermore, it’s a close shot. This brings us to the question: what is it that we’re being kept from seeing? We already know we aren’t seeing any evidence of anything exploding nearby, or anyone actually being harmed. The closeness of the shot may well be concealing undamaged structures, the makeup artist, or other evidence that this is staged. Furthermore, it’s clear that the closeness is NOT due to any focus on the child for emotive purposes. Half the picture is empty space, and the angle of the shot conceals her features. If I were taking a pity shot, I’d have shown as much of the human victim (and as much of her injuries!) as possible. The fact that the photographer did neither implies, again, that closer inspection would reveal this more clearly as a fake.
Evidence that this is a Lebanese child or that the photo was taken recently: None. Just sayin’.
The bottom line is that this is unequivocally fake. Don’t feel too bad about being duped, though; I didn’t even think about it the first couple times I looked, and unlike you I had no benefit from failing to analyze. Also, the Palestinians have been faking photos and video for years now, so it’s not like this is an amateur project.
Seriously, though. It takes a lot of gall to chide me about sources, blah blah US media blah. You have no idea what my sources are. And here you are, copying *staged photographs* from Electronic Intifada, whose name alone screams “biased.” Hey waiter — reality check, please.
July 19th, 2006 at 9:34 am
Had another thought: if you buy a stolen bicycle in an otherwise legitimate transaction, and the original owner finds it, what should you do?
If you answered KEEP IT: then the Israeli settlers should stay on their land. Perhaps the Israeli government could pay reparations, based on 1948 or 1967 land values as appropriate, to “displaced” Palestinian populations.
If you answered RETURN IT: then all the Palestinians should get out of Judah and Samaria, and return it to the Jews. After all, it was stolen from the Jews by the Romans, and so on by a series of conquering armies up to the British. Today’s Palestinians are, if you recall your history, really Egyptians and Jordanians rather than descendants of the Pilishtim, and thus the oldest standing claim to the land is that of the Israelites.
Also keep in mind that Jewish development of the tiny backwater protectorate of Palestine, early in the last century, actually caused mass immigration that doubled the non-Jewish Arab population of the region. In other words, calling the Palestinians “legitimate heirs to their own land” is invalid. They are Johnny-come-lately claimants to someone else’s land, but are simply more bloodthirsty in hanging onto their claim than past conquerors had been.
July 19th, 2006 at 6:25 am
RYC: I have no problem with you having been to the territories. It should be clear by now that I don’t depend solely on American media for my information. I admit I’ve never been deeper into the territories than east Jerusalem. Unfortunately, that’s because of the real risk of my being kidnapped and/or killed simply for being Jewish. (Contrast this to the generally unmolested status of Arabs in Israel.)
Also, when you talk about the media… consider that Israeli and Western media are at least independent. Arab media are state-controlled. And Western journalists must be escorted by PA police, and toe the PA-dictated PR line when in Palestinian Authority controlled areas. Those who fail to comply have been threatened, ejected, and in some cases attacked. In this light, be careful which media you accuse of bias.
You say you want justice… but that’s the entire problem, isn’t it? Everybody wants justice for a friend killed, a relative maimed, or… you know, a good night’s sleep broken by a sonic boom. Any of these, apparently, can be thought to justify murder. Instead of justice, we should pursue mercy. For example, if the Palestinians simply stopped targeting innocent civilians, and the IDF continued to not target innocent civilians, things would improve dramatically. If the Palestinians stopped using “dynamite belt” martyrdom and started using Ghandi-style martyrdom, then you might find roadblocks being removed (nothing for them to search for, after all) and walls coming down and commerce being allowed. If the terrorists stopped being terrorists and sending their own population up against tanks, then it would give the Israeli left a significant victory that would allow the pullout from the West Bank and the creation of an independent, unoccupied Palestinian state. Wouldn’t you prefer that over “justice”?
You say the Israeli government “seem[s] to believe that they have to stand on the necks of the Palestinians in order to survive.” But the Israeli government has attempted repeatedly to hand over control of the territories to the PA. The result, each time, has been an inability of the corrupt PA police force to prevent crime and terrorism. Or perhaps you’re referring to the roadblocks. The roadblocks, where the average wait is less than a minute, where Israelis soldiers give out water, and where most of the Israeli action is preventing Palestinian-on-Palestinian violence. Perhaps you refer to the IDF stopping and searching ambulances… but if so, you’re ignoring the fact that those ambulances have been used to smuggle terrorist gunmen and explosives. Perhaps you refer to Israeli control of Palestinian infrastructure… but the fact is that Arafat spent hundreds of millions of dollars on his wife’s fancy lifestyle in Paris while Israel drilled Palestinian wells. Even now, Hamas and the Palestinian police (aren’t they technically part of the same government?) are more interested in warring in the streets against each other than they are in building infrastructure for their people.
In short, any troubles the Palestinians have can be blamed on no one but their own corrupt masters.
Finally: “but only one side has the opportunity to make it stop.”
Seriously, how can you say that with a straight face? Every member of Hamas made a choice to join it. Every member of Islamic Jihad made a choice to join it. Every Palestinian parent who sends a child out, carrying mock rifles, to parade in front of Israeli tanks chose to do so. Israel treats its peaceniks fairly; Palestine apparently does something so horrible to its own that they remain invisible. The Palestinians could make it stop in a moment by NOT ATTACKING ISRAEL ANY MORE. If Arafat hadn’t reneged on the peace deals, if he hadn’t started off intafada after intafada, then there might well be peace in the region right now.
The current crisis is a perfect example of the whole situation: Gilad Shalit wasn’t occupying anything. He was in a defensive post on the Israeli side of the 1967 border, when Palestinians crossed the line and attacked his tank crew. Similarly, the fighting with Hezbollah was started by Hezbollah attacking Israelis on Israeli soil. If they hadn’t done so, there wouldn’t be a crisis right now.
The terrorists are the ones prolonging and expanding the fighting. They, and the people they oppress, are perhaps the only ones with the power to create peace.
July 19th, 2006 at 5:57 am
This post smells like false equivalence to me. The Israeli picture tells us nothing more than that Israeli children — who will one day serve in the IDF anyway — are being taught to support their troops. I think we can be reasonably certain that the messages they’re writing are, at the most vitriolic, aimed at the terrorists who are indiscriminately shelling Israeli civilians. And the children probably know, as we do, that the munitions are aimed at the terrorists.
In contrast, Palestinian children are not simply taught Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, but that it is glorious to die in the pursuit of nothing more noble than killing Jews. Your language (“are often blamed”) softens the truth: that under PA control, even grade-school textbooks were incitements to violent martyrdom. (for example, http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=subjects&Area=antisemitism&ID=SP90805 and others at http://www.memri.org/antisemitism.html)
You may be interested in this site as well: http://www.teachkidspeace.org/
This is not to say that some Israelis haven’t succumbed to blinding hate. Any settlers, especially, are rather likely to be hard-line and angry. However, there’s an important difference: in Israel, the hard-liners don’t rule, and leadership tends to exert a moderating influence. Consider Sharon, who moved from the right wing to a pullout from Gaza. With the disengagement plan he did far more than his opposite number, Arafat, ever did to advance the creation of a Palestinian state. And the Israeli high court has ruled in favor of the Palestinians in several cases where the government was being, if you will, overly Zionistic. Any teaching of hate is done by autonymous groups, whose extremes the government cracks down on. Would-be Israeli terrorists are *arrested.* In comparison, the PA is a corrupt, cronyism-afflicted regime that actively fosters hate and *pays* its terrorists for their material expenses, and encourages suicide bombing with monetary rewards for the families of the “martyrs.”
As I’ve said before and will continue to say, for a “Goliath” the IDF has exercised amazing restraint. It simply isn’t logical for you to compare a military that uses targeted strikes (trying to minimize the damage despite terrorists’ Geneva-violating use of human shields) with a paramilitary that fires indiscriminately into city centers (despite the lack of military targets). It’s like comparing apples and… poisonous razor-fruit.
July 19th, 2006 at 2:57 am
:(
July 19th, 2006 at 1:24 am
It is a sad world we live in, and justice does not “flow down” like it should. Jesus spoke to his disciples about turning the other cheek. He also said that if your brother sins against you, rebuke him. A joke going around tells of a Irishman who had just given in to the Lord for salvation. He learned about “turning the other cheek.” His priest was amazed the following week, when the man was arrested for assault. The priest asked him, “what happened?” The man replied “McCarthy hit me.” The priest asked him, “Didn’t I tell you to turn the other cheek?” The man said, “I did, and he hit my other cheek.” “And?” asked the priest. “So, I clobbered McCarthy.” Do we judge, if people get tired of turning the other cheek and over-react? I heard today, that Israel’s Defense Minister was offering a way out for all parties involved. Let us continue to pray for peace.
July 18th, 2006 at 10:18 pm
I have found myself in an odd place. I may put up a post about it. I entered Israel a month ago expecting to view Israel as the bully. Instead as I’ve worked side by side with those from Haifa University, my heart has gone out to them. I can’t approve of all tactics that Israel has used, but I am able to see their perspective. I think that any message of reconciliation for both Israelis and Lebanese, Arabs, Jews and Christians will need to be able to hear the pain of all involved, if it is to be an effectual message. I feel like this post achieves this more clearly than the last. At the same time, suffering is simultaneously specific and yet universal. Lebanese pain is simultaneously the same as Israeli pain and yet not. The scale of Lebanese suffering far exceeds that of anything Israel has experienced. Yet if one can not mourn with the families of those who died in the Sunday attack on Haifa or yesterday’s attack on Nahariya, one’s voice will be ineffectual in helping move Israelis toward peace.
July 18th, 2006 at 9:13 pm
Liberation theology only seeks to invert the social order, it fundamentally fails in its attempt to provide justice because it only looks out for the oppressed. I have said before elsewhere that justice in the heart is the only way to see true justice in the world, and that message is one that liberation theologians generally pan in favor of glorified revenge or a turning of the tables in the name of God.
Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty we can learn from LT, but the ends LT seek are no less sinful as the original problems. Justice is about harmony, and unless people are internally harmonious, we cannot and will not see anything better in the world.
I appreciate the more fair perspective you have provided in this post, Esther.
July 18th, 2006 at 7:49 pm
I find it absolutely horrible when one group of people oppresses another. That is sin.
Liberation theology centers around deliverance from this sin. Liberation theology is frequently slandered as not dealing with the Christian concept of liberation from sin. However, that is false.
Have you read any of the works of Naim Ateek?
July 18th, 2006 at 6:35 pm
So very true.