I am in the midst of a transition (again).  The muse came briefly today, but blogger was down (again).  I have been teetering on the verge of switching to Greymatter, and (until later today, maybe) I am going that way.  Whether I abandon blogger forever, or come to my senses and return to the fold, I still need to keep them both up for a bit.  Besides, as you can see, the Greymatter version needs a lot of work.

From The Problem with Sharon, in the Guardian Unlimited:

Israel is using one of the finest military machines on earth to exterminate dirt-poor Palestinians who have little more than rocks to throw at the advancing tanks.  Israel would have us think that the only way to stop suicide bombers is to eliminate their enemies—exterminate them. 

I once viewed Israel as a just state, a people with a dignity born of horrors survived, who posessed such enviable strength of resolve and determination of will that I began to expect miracles in whatever they chose to do.  I expected justice from a people who had risen above unspeakable injustice, and I trusted that love and unselfish compassion underpinned their fearsome power.  Maybe it was a misperception, a fantasy—a myth.  But it was a comely myth, and in that land of Israel, which I apparently saw so unclearly from this far, dwelt justice, and around it arose conflict, as it always does wherever justice dwells.  And I trusted the powerful, just state—the state that showed astounding restraint when the scuds flew by not obliterating Baghdad, which it could easily have done—I trusted Israel to use its power, its strength, and its dominance to counter enmity with forgiveness, to nurture goodness and kindness while banishing brutality and hatred from its land.  In a world of competing, petty, self-centered states, I trusted the State of Israel to be not a state, but to be Israel. 

Now Israel has shed its raiments divine, and beneath, is indistinguishable from her enemies, both past and present.  This may be the greatest tragedy I have ever known.

I don't know what we expect the Palestinian people to do.  God help us, but no person can be expected to endure being brutalized for thirty five years without becoming brutal—or dead.  Perhaps Ghandi could do it.  And Mandela actually did it.  But the rarity of such greatness should increase, not decrease, our compassion for those who are driven by overwhelming rage and despair to do monstrous things.  They are not like Ghandi or Mandela, they are just like you or me, and in their place I don't know if I would not do the same.

She was eighteen, an A-student.  Aayat al-Akhras was not a terrorist, but a girl who had lost any remnant of hope when she blew herself up in a supermarket in West Jerusalem on Friday, March 29.  The young security guard who tried to stop her is either dead, or will be maimed for life.  None of these people deserve the death and destruction that has engulfed them, but it does serve the despicable purposes of some old men in suits.  Sharon has no intention of tolerating a Palestinian state, and the more he can provoke them into a hysteria of self-destruction, the better.  And Bush is in league with Mr. Sharon because Bush will be depending heavily on Israeli support when he goes after Saddam Hussein in Iraq.  Besides that, Sharon's brutality with the Palestinian Arabs might just provoke Saddam, giving Bush even more reason to attack him.

But the truth, indeed, is from the mouths of babes, and these killing, dying, hating young people—both Israeli and Palestinian—indict the men in suits irrefutably for failing to lead unselfishly, for failing to put right ahead of hate, and for promoting fear in order to achieve their own ends instead of inspiring courage in order to advance the good of all. 

It is just overwhelmingly depressing.

Happy 24th, Denys!  Three years ago, you were half my age.  Kisses.

Why am I not here? 

The effort is continuing right now. 

Regarding the Six Day War, in June of 1967, Golda Meir remarked, "We can forgive the Arabs for killing our sons.  We can’t forgive them, however, for forcing us to kill their sons.".  In that conflict, the Isrealis were outnumbered three to one, yet they prevailed.  Today the tables have been reversed, and today it is the Palestinians who must forgive the incomprehendable agonies inflicted on them by their Isreali occupiers.  This may be possible, though it may well be more than any of us remote from the killing can rightly expect from any people.  But even beyond this, beyond forgiving the injuries recieved, now each side must additionally forgive the other for forcing it to draw the blood of its enemy's sons. 

If I were there, even in that land of miracles, could I ever in my life forgive you for making me a killer?