"We must learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools."
~Martin Luther King, Jr.
I turned the news on this morning and learned that Ahmed Yassin was killed in an attack led by Israelis. I didn’t know who he was at first and was puzzled by the reporter’s description of Yassin as being a spiritual leader and a quadriplegic. Why would someone attack him, I wondered. As the morning went on, I learned who he was.
Yassin founded a Palestinian terrorist group called Hammas. He and that organization have been responsible for countless terrorist attacks on Israel over the last three years or so. Now I understood. Most recently, a Hammas action killed 10 Israelis. Israel follows a policy of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” and naturally they would try to take out terrorist leaders. They want to show they cannot be intimidated by terrorists.
Palestinians don’t see it that way. All they know is, their popular leader has been killed. Militants threatened both Israel and the United States, declaring they will send ‘death to every house’. The United States is indirectly involved because we are the one country in the world that will support Israel, no matter what.
I don’t have a problem with that. Israel became its own country (again) in 1948. The USA supported them. The surrounding Arab countries totally did not support Israel and over the years, there have been wars and suicide bombings and all sorts of terrorist actions. Israel has hung in there, stubbornly refusing to give up or give in. In fact, if anything, they’ve proved to have a far superior military than the Arab countries attacking them. After the second war with Israeli about 30 years or so ago, the countries have backed off. Now almost all of the actions are coming from Palestinian terrorist groups.
The one I’m most familiar with is the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) led by Yasser Arafat. What terrible people, I thought. I got so angry with them because of the awful things they did. Arafat was a criminal, I believed. He became the Palestinian President, leader over a group of people but not a country. He sort of redeemed himself in my eyes by agreeing to negotiate some sort of peace agreement when President Clinton was in office. Unfortunately, there was never a total resolution or agreement.
Why are the Palestinians so mad? Hundreds of thousands of them were displaced after Israel’s war for independence in 1948. Neighboring Arab countries weren’t enthusiastic about taking the refugees in. They blamed Israel because they lost their homes.
Arafat wasn’t such a meanie anymore after that and other Palestinian militants thought he’d gone soft. That must have been why Ahmed Yassin formed Hammas. Arafat worried he might be next on the hit list but Israel has since said no, he’s not.
Israel and the Palestinians are going round and round in a vicious circle. When one is attacked, they retaliate. Then the other retaliates and then the one retaliates again and then the other one retaliates. I think that’s what Martin Luther King meant by his statement. They are going to “perish like fools” in the Middle East … and in Ireland … and in Kosovo and where ever else two sides clash because of a difference in religion or culture.
I admit I support Israel. Having said that, I still think the violence there is just an exercise in futility. Israel will never convince the Palestinian militants that they have a right to their own country and land. The Palestinians will never convince Israel that they should have their own little country too. The Brits and the Orangemen will never convince the rest of Ireland that they should be allowed to keep the counties in Northern Ireland to themselves. The Irish Republican Army (IRA), the main terrorist organization in Ireland, and the rest of the country will never convince Northern Ireland they are a part of the whole and shouldn’t be kept separate. And in conflict in Kosovo, no one is going to convince the Croats, Serbs & other ethnic groups that none is superior to the other.
The USA isn’t free from bigotry either. We just aren’t having a war about it. We’ve had extreme militant/terrorist groups before (like the KKK). During the 1960s, black people didn't have all the same civil rights white people did. It boggles my mind when I look at black and white TV coverage of policemen turning dogs on protestors who just wanted to be treated equally with whites. I remember another clip of fire hoses turned on full force against peaceful demonstrators. Dr. King might have been thinking about the white-black conflicts when he made his statement but boy, it sure applies for everywhere in the world.
Maybe we can never be as close as some real brothers can be. Some brothers grow up and they are never close. Still, they are civil to each other. That’s what the Israelis, the Palestinians, the Protestant and Catholic Irish, the Serbs, Croats, Albanians, and all of us need to do.
There is a quote attributed to Albert Einstein. ‘The definition of insanity is doing something over and over and over again and expecting a different result.’ So yes, if the fighting back and forth continues unchecked, if the Palestinians bring ‘death to every door’ then we will perish like fools – insane fools.
Monday Madness:
1. What was your favorite TV show as a child?
My favorite was “Combat”. I had a big crush on Vic Morrow, who played Sgt. Saunders.
2. What show did you hate?
I don’t think there was any show that I hated. I didn’t watch much TV as a kid and I only watched the programs I wanted to see.
3. What show did your family gather around the TV to watch?
Believe it or not, The Ed Sullivan Show. My parents are deaf so you wouldn’t think they’d enjoy a variety show. My father could hear a little if the sound was turned way up.
4. What show is currently your favorite?
Survivor
5. What show do you hate now?
King of Queens