My good friend [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > I agree with the points that the letter-writer made, except for the point > about Israel. So getting 1/3 of your population going up in smoke with the > whole world (few exceptions) not giving a damn is not supposed to motivate > the Jews to *do* something? Excuse me, why does all this talk of "root > causes" never extend to the Jews? After the Holocaust they were the most > victimized people on Earth, can you really blame them for turning to > terrorism? Not to excuse Israel for its human rights abuses, but if we're > going to talk "root causes" of things, I think having 6,000,000 people going > up in smoke (when they weren't shot and dumped in mass graves) with the whole > rest of the world basically saying 'so what' is a damned good explanation for > terrorism.
No one blames the victims. That is not, in my opinion, an apt description of the reality. The understanding of root causes as you state them above certainly extends to the Jews. The Holocaust remains the single most depraved act of the 20th century, of many, many centuries, and all of Christendom and all of Western civilization must consider what role it played implicitly and explicitly in Holocaust. 6,000,000 people did not go missing - it took a hell of a lot of human coordination across religious and national lines to commit the atrocities of the Shoah. The silence of the world - immediate neighbors as well as neighbors far away - makes us all complicit in Holocaust. Holocaust, the Shoah, is not the equivalent of terrorism, it is an evil all of its own. I think we agree there. And the response of the Jewish people was not terrorism - it was to establish a sovereign nation, and that nation established for many reasons. Terrorism by the Israeli state - and you term it that, and I agree with you - is not a response to Holocaust, it is a response to intifada, and intifada arose in response to the massacres of Palestinians in refugees camps in the early 80s, and who exactly slaughtered the Palestinians is not clear. Certainly Christian Lebanese militia were involved, and Israeli silence or complicity, or explicit involvement, but some involvement under Ariel Sharon - current prime minister, also occurred. Israeli terrorism must stop. It obviously is very ineffective, as all terrorism is, let alone immoral. The intifada must stop. It is obviously ineffective, as all violence is, let alone immoral. The path to stopping these things will not found in increased violence. Barak and Arafat came so close to agreement last January. Clinton was unable to get the two sides to bridge the gap. When Bush assumed office, he said that Israeli-Palestinian peace was not a priority of his administration as a part of his go it alone new foreign policy. If Bush could have continued what Clinton had been so close to getting, Bush might have been able to bring the two sides together. Or not. But it sure would have had better positive possibilities if he had. And now Barak is out, Sharon is in and we seem, for many reasons, so far away from peace; It can only be safely concluded that terrorism by the Israelis has brought no peace but rather increased retaliation; terrorism by the palestinians has brought no peace but increased retaliation. In that, there is a lesson. (the Rev) Vince
