June 22, 2002

'We were first, so you die!'

Through A Glass Darkly, by John Myers, Internet Photojournalist

Imagine for a moment the following fictitious event:

A suicide bomber rides the elevator up to the top floor of the Empire State Building, then detonates himself in a roomful of tourists waiting their turn on the observation deck at the top.

Moments later, national news offices in New York receive a fax claiming responsibility for the terrorist attack. The group claiming responsibility calls itself "The Original Manhattanites."

Their claim of justification for the bombing goes like this:

"As members of the original tribe of American Indians who were cheated out of Manhattan Island for a handful of glass beads, we reassert today our original rights to our property.

"We will continue our bombings of New York landmarks until every person who cannot claim direct heritage to our tribe leaves the Island of Manhattan and the entire island is deeded to us."

Can you imagine what the response would be from the Mayor of New York, the President of the United States and the FBI?

Would the President tell the FBI to stay out of this affair, claiming it is a matter for diplomats, not law enforcement?

Do you suppose the President would inform the Mayor of New York there will be no action against the bombers, as this would "only further escalate the cycle of violence against the city"?

Do you suppose the President would call on the State Department to organize a diplomatic mission to meet with the leaders of the Original Manhattanites to begin peace talks?

Would this diplomatic mission propose "land for peace"?

With apologies to all American Indians, and in particular the tribe which originally inhabited Manhattan Island, this scenario is not only unlikely, but is also totally ridiculous in the extreme.

Ridiculous for New York City, but all too familiar if you apply it to the Middle East, in particular to the tiny nation of Israel.

Hardly a day goes by without another Palestinian suicide bomber killing Israelis, and most of the world has no words of condemnation for the bombers, and much criticism for Israel for daring to act to try to head off the bombers before they can act.

The already politically dead Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, condemns the bombers with one sentence, then justifies their deeds with the next breath, making exactly the same claim as the fictitious Manhattanites, as in, "We were here first, so you die."

Yes, the Palestinians were living in the land that is now Israel prior to 1948 when the nation of Israel was granted a charter by the United Nations. And we won't even go back to Abraham and his two sons, Ishmael and Isaac, to debate which one is the rightful heir of the land where Abraham pastured his herds.

Even if the Palestinians have a just cause, does that justify them killing Jews, simply because they have hated them for so many centuries nobody has a clue about the original reasons?

I wish I knew the answer to bring an end to the centuries upon centuries of bloodshed in the Middle East, but I don't, and I suspect no one will ever bring peace there but the Prince of Peace. And I know one thing about Him. He's God and I'm not.

So I shall do the one thing I can do, pray. Pray for our leaders to have the wisdom to treat terrorists like the bloody murderers they are, whether they're Palestinians or Syrians or Iranians or Iraqis or Saudis or any other nationality. Murder is murder, and ever since Cain killed his brother Abel, it's always been wrong.