Itamar

The murders in Itamar have been haunting me. It is a personal nightmare for me, the possibility that I could go to sleep in my supposedly safe home only to be attacked in the middle of the night. To know that there are people out there who would actually murder children, not just children, but sleeping infants. To have it reaffirmed that my children's innocence is no protection for them. I can't understand this, I cannot, how any human being could take a child and end them. These people have lost their humanity, and that is truly a tragedy, for they are not animals, no, animals do not kill in order to bring suffering. These individuals have given up their humanity to become monsters. There is absolutely no justification for this, none. In our modern age murder has become distant; our terrible weapons of war allow us to kill from a distance, to never connect with our victims, to preserve what little bits of our soul is left after knowing that we have murdered another, for whatever reason, with the blood on our hearts, but not on our hands. To kill in this way, so intimately, with one's own hand, that takes a soul that has been utterly scarred and sealed. I don't know what will happen to these people, but I don't think there is anything that anyone can do to redeem them in this lifetime. It is tearing me apart, those poor children, that loss. The pain of the surviving children. It's just so hard.

Then added to this is the silence of the media. I search for reports of Itamar, and what pops up? So far only Jewish news broadcasts and Glen Beck. Really? Written coverage is limited and tries desperately to downplay exactly what happened. In contrast, there are full reports on how Israel wants to expand settlements after “the murder of 5 people in nearby Itamar.” Oh, the word choices. For shame, those word choices, to distance the audience from what happened. Compare that with the reaction if it had been instead “the murder of 5 family members in nearby Itamar.” To really drive the point home, imagine if US news reported “the murder of two parents and three young children in their beds”. No, instead they are faceless, identity-less, no connection, just statistics, just some bodies, “5 people in nearby Itamar.”

I understand why they have chosen these words, to report the facts without stirring up bias, to leave intact the compassion for Palestinians. You think I don't have compassion for these people? What turmoil it must be, to live in a country that is not a country, to have opposing violent forces constantly speaking for you and in your name, to not know if your home will stay your home, your government your government, when or if there will be peace in your lifetime. What they live through is terrible, and I can only hope that this whole mess gets resolved soon. But to 'protect' them by downplaying this murder? That doesn't help anyone. What happened should never have happened, and any populace should be called on to root out such sickness from among them, that they do not become poisoned. For truly, how does this reflect back onto the Palestinian people, the majority of whom, I believe, just want peace? What these monsters did only hurts their cause, and for the rest of the world to hide it only gives impetus for more attacks, more of this. Do we wait for all of Palestine to be condemned through an atrocity too big to ignore, or do we work to find some measure of justice now?

I don't know. This whole thing is just so awful. That one of us could do this to another; the whole world should be weeping.