We need very much to remember the many people who don’t back their country’s abuse of power. Because if we don’t acknowledge that glimmer of hope, we’re lost:
The family of slain Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir received condolences from an unlikely source Tuesday: Israelis who had asked to come and mourn with them.
The scene was predictably awkward, even painfully so. But as NPR’s Ari Shapiro reported for today’s Morning Edition, the visit also brought a moment of grace for many of those involved.
The Abu Khdeir family lives in East Jerusalem, miles from the violence around Gaza, where militants have been firing rockets and Israel has launched airstrikes this week. With those tensions as a backdrop, a group of Israelis visited the family Tuesday, despite some relatives’ concerns that such a visit might be used as a public relations stunt.
Here’s how Ari describes the scene:
“A huge group of Israelis has just pulled up in a tour bus, and people are arriving, some wearing yarmulkes, some wearing headscarves. They are young, and old, wearing sunglasses and flip-flops or somber button-up shirts and slacks.
“The murdered teenager’s uncle stiffly stands to greet his visitors. He tells me his culture of hospitality compels him to greet these guests warmly.
“‘I am an Arab,’ he says. ‘As long as they are in my house, I cannot turn them back. They are welcome in my house.’
“A cousin, Nihaya Abu Khdeir, stands to the side. She says she has mixed feelings.
“‘We have our culture and our respect. We can’t just tell them to go, even if we want them to.’
“So, the Israelis sit awkwardly in the plastic chairs.”They have come to apologize for the behavior of extremists, they say. But not all the relatives want the visitors there; one woman screams not to let others in.
Explaining why she came, teacher Nena Leibel tells Ari, “I personally think that any time one person does something good for another person, this world gets a little better.”
What the Zionists are doing in Gaza is pointless. It’s just bloodlust. Unless the Zionists kill every last member of Hamas, every last family member and every militant in the Middle East, then all the Jewish bombing, rocket fire and death is meaningless. But the Zionists kill simply for the sake of killing. It’s nice that a few Jewish peaceniks showed up to express their sympathy, but in the hour or so that they were there several children were killed by Israeli bombs in Gaza. Several more will be killed tonight. Several more will die tomorrow. And they will continue to die until Obama tells the Zionists to stop slaughtering innocent people.
“…slaughtering innocent people” is what we do. Not just in the Middle East either, but around the world and right here within the confines of the Amerikkkan borders—-checked out the poor brown women and children trying to immigrate here lately?