In a recent post I managed to include both The Joker from the current Batman film, and Samir Kuntar, a Palestinian terrorist recently released by the Israelis after 30 years in prison, in exchange for the corpses of two kidnapped Israeli soldiers. On my Keloland site I got this note from intrepid and loyal reader, BB:
Ken, once again your ignorance is appalling. I just don't think that you have any clue concerning history or reality with what is happening in Israel. I am inclined to think that this is by choice. If you actually knew what was going on it would force you to reconsider your paradigms. I have continually chided you to seek education on the topic. I still do...please get educated!
Well, that was typical BB. Lots of insults without any hint of what facts, exactly, I am ignorant about. And then, without warning, BB actually sent me some facts to chew on.
Here is a good place to start: http://www.btselem.org/
English/ This is the Israeli Information Center. Be sure to check out the pdf file about the "separation wall" in the West Bank. This is what W was talking about when he referenced not being able to make a nation out of "swiss cheese."
Btselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights, is a NGO that documents human rights violations by the Israelis against Palestinians. I was in fact aware that such violations occur. I notice the image on the homepage, which apparently documents an Israeli soldier shooting rubber bullets at a handcuffed Palestinian detainee. That is surely a case of abuse. And just as surely, one won't find a similar case on the other side. We should praise Hamas and Hezbollah, and the Palestinian authority, I gather, because they never shot rubber bullets at anyone.
But I suppose that, given the first post, BB thinks that the information provided by Btselem is germane to my comments on Kuntar, since that was my only point in that post. Let's review what Kuntar is, and what it means that he has been received in Lebanon by Hezbollah as a national hero.
He murdered an Israeli policeman.
He murdered Danny Haran in front of his four year old daughter, Einat.
He beat the little girl's brains out with a rifle butt.
Her mother, Smadar Haran, hid in a crawl space with her two year old daughter, and accidentally suffocated the child while trying to keep her quiet.
Now I wonder, what are the facts of which I am ignorant, and which if I were only educated about them, would make me see that he is only an innocent victim of an oppressive Israel? What would lead to see him as a freedom fighter, a man to be celebrated by his people? Here, my imagination fails me.
I don't doubt that the Israelis have done a lot of bad things in their struggle for national survival. I don't doubt that an intelligent and decent person could be sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. But that wasn't what I was writing about in my recent post. I wrote about Kuntar. And I discover from BB's information that the Israelis aren't picking up enough garbage in the occupied territories, and that water is scarce. That is supposed to justify Kuntar's murders and his heroic status? BB and I think differently.
Kuntar's murders were pure evil. No political considerations are relevant. His elevation to rock star status in Lebanon on the basis of these deeds alone tells us that his evil was not some mere idiosyncrasy. That was my point. It will stand, I think, against any education that BB can provide.
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