Fuad al-Tuba, the 61-year-old farmer who owned a farm here, said: "They even destroyed 22 of my bee-hives and killed four sheep." He pointed sadly to a field, its brown sandy earth churned up by tracks of bulldozers, where the stumps of trees and broken branches with wilting leaves lay in heaps. Near by a yellow car was standing on its nose in the middle of a heap of concrete blocks that had once been a small house.
His son Baher al-Tuba described how for five days Israeli soldiers confined him and his relatives to one room in his house where they survived by drinking water from a fish pond. "Snipers took up positions in the windows and shot at anybody who came near," he said. "They killed one of my neighbours called Fathi Abu Gumbuz who was 56 years old and just went out to get water."
Sometimes the Israeli army gives a warning before a house is destroyed. The sound that Palestinians most dread is an unknown voice on their cell phone saying they have half an hour to leave their home before it is hit by bombs or missiles. There is no appeal.
Israel, the UN, and Shrub, look, this is not kosher. This is state terrorism, and state sponsored terrorism. Bulldozing farms? Trapping people in their homes? Shooting people at random? Beyond punishing a people for the actions of a faction of those people, this is simply uncivilized. This is just plain old ugly revenge, and policy driven by fear and dominion -- this not policy based on any ethically or religiously acceptable principle. National security? Your national security depends on the destruction of lemon farms? If so, go home, and figure out a better way to be safe, and less paranoid.
Like: stop hurting the very people you need to be helping in order to keep the real Bad Guys from coming for you.
Because I can tell you that giving me a half hour to get out of my house before you bomb it..., well, that would a lasting impression. One I would seek ways to act upon.
Israel, I like you. I'm glad my country supports your existence and that your people no longer have to live in permanent exile. I have friends who live inside of you. But, honey, when you behave badly, I have to tell you so. Palestine elected Hammas because they were hoping for services, economic growth, a measure of humanity, and Hammas held that out to them. That's all. Rather like each of us, the Palestinians are simply seeking the ratification of their humanity.
The terrorists: you can find them. None of us are really trying hard enough to do that.
Shrub, all I can say to you is that I'm not surprised. Your sense of Christian charity and compassion has already demonstrated its limitations time and again.
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