Carrying Heavy Burdens

I’ve always been taught to give people the benefit of the doubt, to view situations from an array of angles and to strive with all my power to understand the opposing position and motivations. Sitting here at 3:30 in the morning, reading headlines, stories and accounts concerning the horrors that are taking place everyday in Israel makes this task uniquely difficult.

How am I to begin my attempt to understand the position and motivations of the Palestinian Authority when I am reading articles describing the cold-blooded murders ordered and carried out by the Palestinian Authority? How can I attempt to sympathize with people who do all in their power to maximize the pain brought upon others? What should I think when I hear a mother describe her daughter’s lucky friends who are merely in the hospital with nails in their head and heart caused by a bomb that was intentionally packed with nails to explode at the pizza store? How should I feel when she cries that her daughter was not as lucky?

Pressure must be put on Arafat and the Palestinian Authority to stop the violence. The power to stop it is in Arafat’s hands. He needs to arrest militants responsible for carrying out attacks, stop encouraging Palestinians to continue the fight until “the Palestinian flag flies over Jerusalem” and stop ordering attacks on the Israeli population. I encourage all students to support a democracy in peril and stand in solidarity with terror victims in Israel: Attend a rally that will take place on Monday, Feb. 25 at 4 p.m. at Marsh Plaza.

Israel is a country that has been built upon morals. Israelis and Jews around the world carry the heavy burden of the Israeli army that is being forced to kill in order to defend Israel from being killed. As a former Israeli prime minister once said, “I can forgive them for killing my children, but I cannot forgive them for forcing me to kill theirs.”