Real people, not statistics

This morning, one of our friends here in Neve Daniel sent me this e-mail:

Hi – I am sitting here crying because one of the women murdered tonight was my son’s gannenet. Yehuda is six and is mentally retarded – his teachers are our world because they bring him such joy when the world is such an overwhelming and confusing place. Cochava was an angel, and we were with her an hour before she died – she was on her way home from the gan welcome back orientation when she was murdered.

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A reader sent in a comment to last week’s post. I had written about how wonderful it was to go for a run in this amazing country. His comment was:

Well look at the price paid by the Palestinians for all these accomplishments-they live in a prison and all efforts to create that 2 state solution seem to go nowhere. The Palestianians [sic] have lost and continue to lose their land, crops and homes to settlements. The Palestianians [sic] are abused , attacked and terorized by settlers with no protection from the Isreali [sic] police and the IDF.

Germany achieved many scientific and engineering marvels and look at the price paid by the peoples of the world during WWI and WWII by the German war machine and aggession [sic].

I don’t know who wrote the comment, but I appreciate the opportunity to set the record straight.

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We can wait

I acknowledge ahead of time that many of my neighbors will disagree with me. But the fact is, public opinion among “settlers” is not and has never been represented by one or two shrill voices. So while many are gearing up to fight the settlement freeze temporary lull in initiating certain residential construction, I think the energy could be put to better use.

I don’t feel this way because I think that a slight delay in building Jewish homes is either just or will bring about peace. No, it is clear to everyone (except maybe the White House) that the lack of peace in the Middle East has nothing to do with settlements and everything to do with Arab intransigence. And that’s the point.

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Take a "shot" at us, please

What do you do when someone who wants you dead gets sick? What would most reasonable people do?

Let me rephrase. Let’s say that the United States faced a serious terrorist threat on its Southern border. Let’s also say that the Mexican government was not taking any action to stop the terrorists from launching missiles at Austin, Texas.

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I swim in a pool five minutes from my house several times a week. I enjoy swimming and include it as part of my workouts that will hopefully lead me to an Iron Man competition. Yet now, Amnesty International says that I really have no right to swim because my Palestinian neighbors can’t drink. As part of the Evil Occupation Force, I am automatically assumed to be a violator of Palestinian human rights – especially when I swim.

So the question is: Should I feel guilty that I use more water than an average Palestinian? While Amnesty International just published a report claiming that I should, they left out a few inconvenient facts from their manifesto:

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