Something Wicked This Way Comes (or, The Clash of the Underdogs) Hizbullah, Israel and the USA

Within the span of the past week, several events of importance have occurred--well, actually they are almost evanescent in their occurrence, fleeting frames, blending in a movie strip:

The dynamic varies with the population, but heretofore always with Arab nations being the beneficiary in the deflection of rage for the plight of the people from the Arab leaders to the Jewish people. In fact, it has taken on a life of its own: The previously outspoken Saudi Arabia is quite concerned about radical Muslims, now fueled by Syria and Iran. It is so apparent that we see Saudi Arabia this past week actually expressing public concern about the radical Muslim actions. Can you guess why?

Israel is amassing troops on her northern border, as she must stop these missile and rocket attacks or she will surely perish. Hisbullah has rained missiles down, indiscriminatingly, clearly to cause as much civilian terror as possible. In fact, Hizbullah has been so indiscriminate that one of the missiles fired hit a Palestinian family and wiped them out. What is so garish about this is that Nasrallah, the head of the Hizbullah was quick and public to take responsibility and to offer condolences. (If anything happens to Condoleezza Rice in the Middle East, goodbye Peace Initiative, hello World War III.)

Now, this is really incredible, when you consider the matter: Nasrallah is perfectly capable of knowing that civilians are being killed, and has the ?courage and ?decency to apologize publicly. This is more than we can expect from our leaders when they make mistakes.

Nasrallah is consistent and pure in his intent. He has never wavered: With the same resoluteness and courage, he wants to hit Jewish families, with comparable lack of apology and quite the opposite of compassion—cold and indiscriminate hatred, for any Jewish family. This is a man who has put missile launchers in residential communities, so as to set Israel as being responsible for the consequences.

This is a man who rains down death wherever it may fall, as compared to the Israelis, who, in case you didn’t know, have flooded these areas with leaflets announcing the intention of coming after those missiles, have actually ran medical supplies and personnel into Palestinian and Lebanese areas.

Moreover, you haven’t seen Israelis wasting time and lives sending suicide bombers to Palestinian areas. You don’t see prominent Jewish members in Palestinian politics. That is inconceivable if not insane. Yet you have Arab Israeli citizens and members of Knesset, the Israeli parliament. Palestinians can walk the streets of Israel, without fear of being attacked, yet you know the reverse would never happen.

Nobody seems terribly concerned about this fact. I find this bizarrely fascinating. It’s almost as if the public, in their inexperience and naïveté being an isolated continent, coupled with a equally charming and grossly simplistic notion of The Underdog. As a nation, we have always championed the underdog. It’s as if we automatically assume that if a superior power is successful, it must of necessity be evidence of perfidy on the part of that power. Of course,

Did it ever occur to the American public that the Jewish people are their religious predecessors, and in that role have historically been the conscience of civilization? That perhaps, despite numerous attempts at genocide, their—my—survival is not an accident, that it is directly related to the dominant religious belief and the direct relationship between a moral code and ultimate survival?

Have you seen pictures of terrified Israelis huddled in shelters, with gas masks? Have you seen the Israelis’ wounded and murdered? Does that not count because, by dint of ethos and education, they are capable of surviving in a modern democracy in a modern world? Is that their crime and their sentence?

It’s as if people have a deep and compelling need to believe that Israelis are the aggressors. The facts simply speak otherwise; and I find that no one who writes about these issues has ever been to the Holy Land to observe for himself or herself, let alone confirm their sources.

I’ve worked in the California Department of Corrections for five years, and I can tell you that the vast majority of male inmates have had no significant father figure in their lives. I have a theory that the resentment against this tiny group and it’s moral strength is the silent father that many men never knew—thus the palpable and irrational hatred towards a moral force, historically, more diminutive and yet wiser, a vulnerable yet persistent conscience.

It’s as if people are almost afraid to believe that just plain folks on both sides are the victims—the underdogs.