Natural disasters are killing people, and ruining lives in Japan, and many other areas of the Far East, and that is horrific. But what I find more horrific, disturbing, and tormenting, is the brutal slaughtering of a sleeping family in Israel.
This weekend, on Shabbat, a group of Palestinian terrorists carried out unspeakable, inhumane murders ... and just like after the horrific deaths of our friends, family, and fellow countrymen on 9/11 when the Palestinian people, along with most of the Arab world, rioted with happiness; to this, they reacted with joy, public celebration, and handing out sweets throughout their cities.
I understand that certain cultures are raised with prejudice and I know I can't change that. But I ask you this, Imagine being twelve again. The insecurities and confusion that we have all known. You walk home from a friend's house, and finding yourself locked out, find someone to let you in, only to be confronted with the sight of your mother, beaten and stabbed to death lying in a pool of her own blood. Your father, in bed as if asleep, protectively wrapped around your newborn baby sister, both with their throats slashed like animals in a butchery. Imagine that horror. Now, you're running frantically to find your siblings, only to see your eleven year old brother, book open in his lap, slashed over, and over, and over, to the point of death. You turn around, only to realize that your three year old brother, with multiple stab wounds directly through the heart, is lying dead in a mass of his favorite toys, soaked in blood.
I have five siblings. I am Israeli. I have two parents. This could have been me. Those could have been my brothers and sisters. This could have been anyone you know, and love.
No matter what beliefs you have, what writings you follow - I can only hope, you would too, be appalled. I beg you, share this story, because no matter your political stance, your opinions on international law, this should evoke some type of emotion from every person.
We all have had parents. Many of us have siblings, or have best friends with siblings, or have babysat infants and toddlers. There are three surviving children from this family, ages 2, 6, and 12. Try, just for a moment, to feel their pain, horror, suffering, and hopelessness, after this scene has been forever seared into their memories. Imagine the shock, and fear they are living in now.
I understand that the overwhelming mass of people on the other side of the Pacific are going through a hell that I can't even dream of - but that seismic event, leading to an unimaginably destructive tsunami, was not brought intentionally on one person by another.
Please, just imagine coming home, to find any one member of someone you consider family, dead and lying in a flowing pool of blood. I personally, would not want to go outside to see people who have, my entire life, looked at me with baseless hatred in their eyes, dancing and singing in the streets BECAUSE of my loss.
I'm only human. I am only ONE human. But celebrating the brutal murder of a family. A baby, a toddler, a child just learning what it means to be independent.... cannot be seen as an effort for peace.
It doesn't matter how left wing, right wing, conservative, or liberal you are: this should bring tears to your eyes, and make you cry out for the suffering of these children, their family, and the future of an entire people, once hunted, like animals, to the point of near extinction, who are all mourning for the loss of innocent lives butchered at the hands of absolute evil.
