[HANASHIR:9827] From Jerusalem with solidarity

[shirona <shirona...>]

  From Jerusalem, With Solidarity 

  Naomi Ragen 

  Just yesterday, a day after three suicide bombers blew themselves up all 
  over Israel, killing five more innocent Israeli civilians, I sat writing 
  how I longed for America.  From my home in Jerusalem, it shone in the 
  distance, a beacon of  stability and safety, it's shores so secure and 
  inviting.  Can it be that only twenty-four hours later my birthplace, the 
  City of New York, the place that educated and nutured me with its thrilling 
  diversity and endless promise; the place my brothers and their families 
  still live, is now a graveyard of thousands of innocent people cut down by 
  the same murderers that have been bloodying the streets of my spiritual 
  birthplace,  Jerusalem? 

  "Vicious, cowardly terrorists," is how Mayor Guiliani described them, 
  "attacking innocent men, women and children going about their lives..".   
  "An attack on freedom and our way of life." 

  And Tony Blair, who rose to the occasion, talked about this being an attack 
  on the free world, on democracy.   

  How  we in Jerusalem who have been under attack by the same terrorists for 
  months have thirsted to hear these  words! 

  In East Jerusalem, the Palestinian celebrations, the joy of the man-- and 
  woman-- in the street at this savage act of barbarism, is now broadcast by 
  CNN and the BBC which has been wallowing in sympathy for Palestinian 
  suicide bombers for months, interviewing their parents; examining  their 
  delicate sensibilities, their noble motives..How, I wonder,  do these 
  networks feel now?  Are they embarrassed?  Are they enlightened?  I'd 
  really like to know. 

  Just the other day in reporting Sunday's multiple suicide bombings in 
  Israel, the BBC reported: "Eight died in Mideast violence." And this is 
  what they meant:  Three suicide bombers and their five Israeli victims who 
  were murdered in cold blood.  I imagine they won't be counting the suicide 
  pilots in the the body count of the American victims, or say that they died 
  in a continuing cycle of violence.  Not now when Britain itself feels that 
  the ground beneath its own feet is suddenly less solid then before.  Why do 
  we have to learn these lessons of history again and again: that tolerance 
  for anti-Semitism and the murder of Jews inevitably leads to  a hundredfold 
  number of casualties among innocent people of all races and religions all 
  over the world?  That evil and immorality and racism always chooses the 
  Jews as its first target, but never its last?  If the attack is tolerated,   
  it grows in strength and begins to devour the rest of the world.   
  Appeasement, Churchill said, is feeding a crocodile in the hope that he 
  will eat you last.  It doesn't work.  And now, just days after the debacle 
  in Durban which unleashed the most vicious racism of modern times, comes 
  the physical attack on the leader of the free world and its people. 

  I feel no satisfaction that the world which has been so blind, so 
  wrong-headed, in its abandonment of the Jews of Israel, feeding us to the 
  crocodiles, must now  experience the horrors we have been living with on a 
  daily basis for months, even years.  But it is my hope, as I wearily type 
  these words, that a new light will come out of the billowing evil smoke of   
  destruction and darkness that has claimed so many innocent lives, destroyed 
  so many, many innocent families.  A light of determination and clear-headed 
  moral thinking that will allow all the good people of the world to gird 
  their loins and join forces to  defeat the embodiment of evil - fanacticism 
  and disregard for human life dressed in religious clothing: Muslim 
  fundamentalism. 

  I am so sorry englightenment had to come at such a terrible price.  Let it 
  be the last we pay. 

  My prayers are with my fellow Americans. May God bless you and watch over 
  you all. 


  Naomi Ragen - visit my Web page and subscribe 
   to my Jerusalem Post columns by email at: 
         http://www.NaomiRagen.com 
        email: Naomi (at) NaomiRagen(dot)com