Living among the headlines

By Helen Schary Motro

Published October 10, 2000 7:57PM (EDT)

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It was with great distress that I looked at the photograph that accompanied this article -- a father, a young son caught in the crossfire of bullets -- anticipating as I read they would have survived this ordeal.

How can soldiers shoot at an unarmed child? How many tragedies such as this have befallen time and time again families of both the Palestinians and Israelis as they journey through this murderous "peace process" knowing that one day they will have to learn to get along with each other?

It is heartbreaking to know that another innocent has died in this Middle East madness; it makes one wonder how many more must die before peace finally descends in this cauldron of hate.

-- Ramona B. Shah

My sense on reading this article was that in part the author was trying to salve her conscience. Yet, by remaining in Israel, she has chosen to support that state despite the implications. As such, she bears responsibility for the injustices perpetrated there. Verbal hand-wringing is just an evasion.

As an atheist I find religious nationalism extremely repugnant. Moreover, history teaches that people do not acquiesce in being dispossessed of their land. More people will die, with a higher proportion of them being Palestinians. The blood spilled cannot be cleaned away through the use of ink or apologies.

-- Steve Nichols

I am saddened and disturbed that the child was shot and killed senselessly and needlessly when Arabs armed with rocks and live bullets began hurling and shooting because Sharon walked on the Temple Mount, the holy site for Jews and Moslems.

I have seen no pictures of wounded or threatened Israeli Jews in the crossfire. When a Jewish victim is shown it is mislabeled, as was the case with Tuvia Grossman, the teenage son of a Chicago opthamologist, whom Arabs beat and bloodied after they pulled him from a Jerusalem taxi. In the Boston Globe and New York Times photo Tuvia was inaccurately labeled -- an Arab beaten by an Israeli soldier.

Instead of criticizing the violence unleashed by the armed Palestinian policeman entrusted to keep peace it blames the Israelis for defending themselves. It's an old story -- blame the Jews, this time the Israeli Jews.

-- Leah Shifrin Averick

Good that the U.N. is acting. It is time they took all their U.N. resolutions and declared a state outright. It is well past the time for historical consistency.

-- Bevin Gilmore


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