The Muqata has been giving almost a minute-by-minute account of what has been happening in the war. On last Thursday night there was this little tidbit:
All of the West Bank is alight tonight with fireworks from the Palestinian villages (along with scattered automatic gunfire), as our neighbors celebrate...the shelling of Haifa.
Palestinian celebrations reached new heights of barbarism on Monday as reported in The Jerusalem Post:
A body part belonging to the dead soldier was left at the scene [...] Earlier, hundreds of Palestinians had gathered at the scene of the explosion to view parts of the soldier's leg, and many of them reacted with celebratory chants, witnesses said.
Yael K., commenting on Palestinian and wider Arab celebrations at the deaths of Israel civilians both during this war and after prior acts of terrorism, asked if Israelis are crazy:
The majority of Israelis simply want to live in peace, to engage in trade with our neighbors or simply to live completely separately.
When news comes that civilians have been killed by an IDF attack against terrorists in Gaza, or now in Lebanon, people sigh, they shake their heads, their expressions are pained. They feel pain and sadness. There are calls for more care to be taken so that civilians are not harmed when attacks are made on the terrorists.
When our citizens are killed by suicide bombers there are celebrations on the streets of Gaza. [...] They celebrate the deaths of our children and yet we regret and feel sorrow over the deaths of theirs. You will see no celebrations of death, ours or theirs, here.
[...]
And yet, despite finding ourselves under constant attack by rockets, by suicide bombings that are successful and the many more that are stopped --such as the one in Jerusalem today-- despite the fact that the majority of even the liberals on their side wish to see us destroyed, despite all this many Israelis continue to work for peace, to build bridges, to call for moderation of response when no moderation is shown to us. The rest do not call for blood nor celebration when innocents are killed.
Given their responses versus ours, I must conclude that we are crazy. But I would rather be crazy than to allow myself to become blinded by hate, to give in to the grief, pain and fear that we suffer and become callous to the sufferings of 'the other.'
Yael later decided that Israelis aren't crazy after all but "neither are they". I must disagree. The Palestinian culture of death that celebrates suicide bombings and the murder of civilians is indeed insane in my eyes. I would also argue that the compassion that Israelis show and the lack of compassion among Israel's enemies is why Israel enjoys such strong support in the United States.
[NOTE: This is another piece I've crossposted to Blogs of Zion.]
1 comment:
I liked the article. On the news, all I have heard is how Israel is killing civilians and innocen women and children. They show Palestinians and Lebonese mourning and crying. Rarely is the Israeli view shown and the Palestinian/Lebonese reaction to Israelis being killed.
Post a Comment