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Fw: From Jerusalem with solidarity
- From: shirona <shirona...>
- Subject: Fw: From Jerusalem with solidarity
- Date: Fri 14 Sep 2001 15.26 (GMT)
Please forgive the non-musical content of this posting...
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
- Fw: From Jerusalem with solidarity,
shirona