One more before I go to pay my Property tax bill. I participate in an Internet forum with other soccer refs around the world (hey we stand together, we have to, we need moral support after soccer moms pelt us with insults if their little Jimmy gets hurt and gets no call his way<g>). I am pasting here something from a person retired from being a foreign service officer in the State Department presenlty living in Europe. You will learn a lot to just hear and consider what he has to say. No bold and comments added this time, no time.
See ya after several hundred posts!
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Having spent some time working with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip
and the West Bank, and having seen how they have to live and how they
are treated, I have to condemn the above quoted comment as unworthy of
its author and of any American. Only a few extremists are behind the
outrageous attacks, and we have no idea yet who they are. Most arabs
and muslims are very much like Americans in their hopes and
aspirations,
and in their efforts to be good human beings. To lump them all
together
is racist. To depict them as accepting of atrocity or to say they're
somehow "different from us" shows a lack of understanding.
Maybe you saw and were offended by the images of Palestinian kids in
Gaza celebrating the disaster. Why do you suppose they hate America?
Could it be that they see America's support for Israel, which keeps
them
penned in the largest concentration camp in history because of their
religion and their history? I was horrified when I saw the conditions
in the Gaza Strip, while working there a few years ago: unreliable
supplies of potable water and electricity, and insufficient and poor
quality produce in the marketplace despite the volume of export-quality
food shipped from local farms. Imagine how people feel about us when,
after a rainstorm, their kids have to walk home from school through
streets flowing with sewage, because sanitary construction, never mind
sidewalks, has been neglected for the 50+ years of Israeli government
--
and imagine the concern when the large potholes and open drains in the
unpaved or half-paved streets are covered by the black water. And how
would you feel if your family farm or business was taken away, and your
family broken up and not allowed to reunite? How would you feel if
you,
an ordinary non-political person, were imprisoned or tortured because
of
your address and because you MIGHT know something about the actions of
your relatives or neighbors? How would you like not being allowed to
commute to work to support your family because somebody committed a
crime and the internal border checkpoints are closed? It's no wonder
the ordinary Palestinian doesn't like the Israelis and is willing to
admire those who resist Israel and its American benefactors.
Having served overseas as a State Department foreign service officer, I
can tell you that the rest of the world has a pretty fair idea what
America's values are, because we never stop telling them what we
believe
and urging them to be like us. How are those foreigners supposed to
react when we (or our protegés) act exactly contrary to our values? I
don't say the US earned what happened, but we need to ask why we're a
terrorist target. We shouldn't abandon Israel, but if the US is to
continue to support them, maybe the US needs to push Israel to be
worthy
of our support. Maybe if the Israelis didn't grossly mistreat half of
the people living within their borders, the world would be safer both
for Israel and its friends. Maybe if Israel's streets were full of
Palestinians AND Jews, and if Israel's prosperity were shared with
everyone who lives there and works for it, the bombers would be a whole
lot less popular. |
