Allaho Akbar

Share/Save/Bookmark

Iranian Reader
by Iranian Reader
12-Jan-2009
 

I went to the demonstration against the Ghaza massacre in San Francisco last Saturday. My nine-year old son became so troubled by the images of the slaughtered children at some point that my husband took him home. An old high school friend and I continued with the march down Market and Mission streets. A group leading the march was carrying a bullhorn, yelling out slogans that other marchers echoed: “Free, free Palestine,” “No justice, no peace,” etc. Periodically, the bullhorn cried out “Takbir” and the group broke into “Allaho akbar. Allaho akbar…”

I did not repeat allaho akbar after the promptings of the bullhorn but let me tell you how I felt. I felt that allaho akbar was the closest expression of the combination of the mourning and rage that I was feeling.

Earlier that day my friend, let’s call her Mina, came to our house to go to the demonstration with us. We were both instinctively dressed in black. As we walked to the BART we talked about how we shrink from talking to the everyday people in our lives about how we feel about what Israel is doing. The day before, I had run into the Palestinian father of one of my son’s friends, picking up our kids from school. This man, let’s call him Raouf, and I can talk. We understand each other. As we were talking about Ghaza a couple of other mothers walked by, offering him some mild, liberal inanities about what is going on. Then they rolled their eyes and said, “It’s time for regime change”—and they walked on. I did my best not to glare at them; I know that it’s stupid to take my anger out on them. Now, Raouf is one of the kindest and most dignified people you are likely to meet and he speaks to people with friendly but restrained honesty. He does his best not to appear threatening; the fact that he’s Christian helps. But the fact is, after the liberal ladies left, Raouf and I were relieved. The painful truth, we both know, is that these people don’t really feel what is going on. There is nothing you can do when someone doesn’t feel something.

On our walk to the demonstration Mina and I exchanged accounts of our recent encounters with this lack of feeling—and then we shut up about it. There’s really not much to say. But we were both boiling inside with very strong emotions. When those strings of allaho akbars were released on the street we stole glances at each other but said nothing. Neither of us would be caught dead shouting allaho akbar on the streets of San Francisco. We are both deeply unreligious and very cognizant of how all those impressionable young people of our generation who shouted allaho akbar on the streets in Tehran so many years ago regretted their folly big time. Perhaps I myself would have let out some allaho akbars had I been in Iran at the time, so far be it from me to blame others. But there was a different feel to those allaho akbars in Tehran and the ones I was hearing yesterday. It’s not easy for me to say this, but this time I almost responded to the calls for takbir. I had to suppress an urge that almost bubbled to the surface. Somewhere very deep in my consciousness I registered the capacity of this phrase, Allaho Akbar, for expressing the combination of sorrow, pain, and rage that everyone around me was feeling.

After the demonstration I came home and checked for news. I regularly go to InformationCleaningHouse.info for news links and commentary. On the homepage there was a picture of a mother hovering over the bloodied body of a ten-or-so-year old boy stretched on a metal slab in a morgue. The boy had died with eyes open and arms outstretched. I completely lost it over this image. I cried with heaves that perhaps only mothers are capable of. I have a son that age but that’s not the only reason. The fact is that every single Palestinian child looks so much like any other kid I have ever seen. These children feel as much part of my life as my own, my best friend’s, or the random kid whose back I give a pat to when he or she rams into me on the playground. I have no words to describe how I felt looking at the picture of mother and son in the morgue. All I can say is that again from deep inside my consciousness came: “Astaghforellah.” That’s what I kept repeating: “Astaghforellah, astaghforellah…”

Then there were the young men at the demonstration, wrapped in kafiyehs and oozing very angry male energy. They acted the way young men do when they want to look as menacing and bad-ass as possible. I’m used to this act. When I taught in an inner-city college most of my young black kids put on this act. I got a kick out of it and I didn’t blame them either. The preppiest and tweediest of them explained to me that even with them ladies nervously clutch their purses in elevators. Looking at those young Palestinian men, boys really, my heart bled. The pictures of toddlers wrapped in bloodied shrouds did my son in and I trembled for those young men whose anger screamed grief as much as it did revenge. I tremble for the young men who have no choice but to fight. I tremble that what they expect of themselves—and what society expects of them—is to fight, to defend, to set right. For every woman, child, or old person who dies only God knows how many young men are slaughtered.

I also got reminded of the Israeli father of a former classmate of my son’s. This guy oozed conflictedness. He had left his job with the Israeli army and eventually Israel itself because he couldn’t handle being part of what his country was doing. His photography exhibit of pictures of the wall were vandalized in Tel Aviv and he had become a pariah in his own family. When he had left the army his mother had said, “So you’re not going to defend us anymore?” One schmuck of a Jewish mother. We have a similar kind in Iran who put white headbands on their little boys and offer them for martyrdom. I recoil in horror from this kind of motherhood.

Raouf’s younger brother, a deeply hurt and angry young Palestinian—a Christian sympathizer of Hamas, I might add (I also know many Christian Lebanese who are sympathizers of Hezbollah)—was packed off by his family to San Francisco during the second Intifada to keep him, basically, alive. I identify with the Palestinian mother who ships her son out of the country. To me, quite honestly, it is a Solomonic situation. To me, the real mother is the one who cannot bear to see her child hacked in two. Call me whatever you want but I’m never going to expect my son to defend me or my country or my anything. I just want my son to live and be whole—without a missing arm or a blinded eye, as Raouf put it. But… and there is a big “but” here. We can think whatever we want as parents but there’s nothing we can do about how our sons feel. There’s nothing you can do when someone doesn’t feel something and there’s nothing you can do when someone does. These young Palestinian men are feeling things very strongly.

I felt very bad the night after the demonstration, couldn’t fall asleep. I rummaged through the medicine cabinet for any painkiller or tranquilizer that I could find. Drinking a couple of beers had not helped, I needed an opiate. I spent a delirious night with images running in my head of the boy in the morgue, my son, the young men in kafiyehs, and my 25-year old stepson. My stepson has been wearing a kafieyh in solidarity with Ghaza. I see him in Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall; he has that kind of capacity for compassion and courage. But I am selfishly glad that he is more involved with the Zapatistas than the International Solidarity Movement. I saw those young Palestinians as so many young men like Raouf’s brother, like my Zapatista-sympathizer stepson, and indeed like my own son in a few years. I felt myself in the embrace of those outstretched arms of the boy in the morgue. I wept and I wept. I am weeping still. My mind swings between echoes of astaghforellah and allaho akbar. I am incapable of saying anything else.

Remember the guy who said religion is the opiate of the people? He was right on more than one thing, you know! There is pain for which we take whatever opiate there is, in the medicine cabinet or on the street. I’m at that point. Forgive my rambling.

Share/Save/Bookmark

Recently by Iranian ReaderCommentsDate
What have you done?
5
Aug 25, 2009
Black Blood
-
Aug 18, 2009
Iran, A Reflection: Shot in the heart
5
Jul 15, 2009
more from Iranian Reader
 
default

The various feelings of the

by Rosebud (not verified) on

The various feelings of the commentators represent perfectly why there has not been any resolution in the middle east. We are a passionate people, but we sometimes fail to bring compassion to the debate table. By the same token compassion, warmth, and hospitality are what resonate in our culture and our customs throughout the middle east, and what those outside hardly recognize and are shocked by when they are exposed to it.
I beleive strongly that the same commentator that was dropping F-bombs (and not much else) all over the place would be moved to lend a helping hand to a needful neighbour, without looking at his/her religious distinction, when called upon. Why can't we bring THAT spirit and THAT side of our passion forward, rather than constatnly reflecting on who was done more wrong?
I have my own opinions on that, but does it really matter?


default

آبشار خشم

پرتو (not verified)


من هم با تو گریستم و متاسفم که نتوانستم به سبب ناراحتی جسمی در آن تظاهرات شرکت کنم. نامه تو آبشار خشم مردم بسیاری در سراسر جهان است. تصمیم گرفتم تا پایان این جنایت کفیه فلسطینی سر کنم.


Nasser

Thank you

by Nasser on

It takes courage to write the way you did, especially when you leave yourself open to hateful comments of angry hearts.  Don’t let them get to you.  I always assumed that Iranians would have a natural affinity for Palestinians.  After all, for most of our history, we have been under occupation too.  It surprises me when I see Iranians supporting Israel.  Siding with a "zoor goo" is just not part of our culture.  I guess life can damage us if we let it, and make us side with the powerful just to protect "ourselves". But I am still hopeful.  Flowers can bloom anywhere, and even a cactus can bloom in the right environment.  Anger and violence are the easiest, least sophisticate, and least effective methods of resolving anything.  I have given up on Israel; a country driven by a primitive religion that condones violence as the only way out, marred by a history that backs this claim, and lacking the wisdom to break from this cycle.  Palestinians however still have a chance the find the way out.  May that happen in our life time, and may the US allow that to happen. 


default

well said Religilous

by Anonymous42 (not verified) on

well said Religilous
damet garm


default

Not a defeated people

by Saideh (not verified) on

The title of this article is brilliant ... a different version of what passed my mind when I was watching the news a couple of weeks ago ... but you know what - and these feelings are totally new to me ... first ever in 50 years of witnessing the atrocities of Israel and becoming outraged, depressed & helpless & taking it on the people who "don't really feel (or know) what's going on", this time I feel like saying: 'Bring it on', I know that you will NEVER win this war, I know that you're digging your own grave, I know that the people who allow these crimes to happen under their name will NEVER be happy & secure ... and you know what else - and perhaps I'm going insane - In the surreal images of the massacre and surreal silence of the "civilized" world, I see monumental suffering but I also see hope & energy in the eyes of the Palestinian mothers who mourn over the shattered body of their children or the Palestinian doctors or the ambulance drivers that I saw in CNN tonight ... let me put it this way: These people don't look like *defeated people* to me ... and we shouldn't feel like either.

The suffering that this situation has inflicted in our lives is enormous ... beyond measure ... and sadly we may not see the end in our lifetime but I'm not convinced that the world will remain 'silenced' & 'intimitated' & 'terrorized' forever ... 'I have a dream' ... true, that one day millions of people will come out in support of the Palestinians, condemn the occupation (the real thing behind the massacre) and wipe out zionists' propagandas ... and for now I applaud and admire whoever tries to take a stand ... I admire the author of the articles in the NYT & Guardian, I admire the celebs who spoke in London demonstration and I admire you for writing this article.


default

like a bunch of cows at the pasture gate

by religilous (not verified) on

wow not enough to turn Iran to such an economic shit hole by supporting the arabs but now we gonna yell allaho akbar while living in free societies else where...well done you f***K heads... what next is we will run around with bomb belts ...the Arabo transformation of persians is complete and the religious transformation of country and its citizens to a bunch of blind cows has worked beautifully for the Quraan clan.
well done to all you fanatic christian , jews and muslims and whatever religious people you are , you have turned the world to the poop hole its about to become.
allaho akbar ... dumb f***kers


default

Once a sheep always a sheep!?

by 2+2 = 3.9999999999... (not verified) on

That's how one can characterize the supporters of the Islamic Republic regime, Hezbollahies as well as the leftists (aka Mosadeqies), the Allaho Akbar chanters!

I would rather scream from the top of my lungs, God Bless Israel for killing the terrorists. If only the Shah's Army had done such a thing 30 years ago! :-)


samsam1111

Warning ; Do not use God all mighty,s name in vain

by samsam1111 on

The all knowing & all mighty is the God of all , it is not a Paletinian God or a Jew but God of all covering all races watching over & observant to all kinds of suffering be it Irani , Jew , Arab, Tibetan , American , Chechen, Kurdish , Sudani, German  and all . So please pray if you wish for the innocent victims of this war but DO NOT minimize & politicize (like mullahs do) the essence of the all mercifull . A note on the The so called former Ommati,s turned atheists phenomena . A lot of old class of Mullah regime in the west are jumping on the Athiest wagon not outta deep held principles but a knee jerk reaction to their past bankrupt ommati ideology , so now for the sake of being trendy , they all claime to be athiests . Just because their Mullahs fail them is no reason for me to diswon my God ...So stop your God bashing .


default

Am I the only one..............

by Faribors Maleknasri M.D. (not verified) on

apparently you are. sorry but Please just go on reading you will see: اخراج سفير رژيم صهيونيستي از ونزوئلا، بسته شدن سفارت اين رژيم در باکو پايتخت آذربايجان و فراخواندن سفير اردن از اسراييل and these are not the only ones. The fact is that the occupeiers have begann. they killed a palestinian in the time of ceasefire. No western media mentions this. the palestinians shut then back.And the occupeiers begann to dig their grave. they are stil activ by action. Greeting


default

Graphic, disgusting, barbaric, inhuman killings....

by aaj sr (not verified) on

all killings, in any form or shape is condemned.

//www.searchles.com/links/show/id/1145132


default

No Deldaar khanom, you're not the only one!

by amused (not verified) on

In fact, we've been "infested," as one commentator put it, with the -- oh, how can I put it politely?! -- misinformation and disinformation and -- this is going to be even harder to put politely -- extreme veqaahat that the Israel lobby is capable of.

If you really don't know about the Palestinian "rocket attacks" you can check out the link provided by Ajam below. Hopefully that will interest you enough to research the topic a little more on your own.

Don't call us "puppets of IRA" either. You just sound silly.


delldaar

Am I the only one,

by delldaar on

Am I , the only one , who thinks that after months of rocket attack by hamas, Israel has duty and right to defend itself, also instead of yelling Allaho Akbar, why don’t you sit down without being a puppet of IRA and resolve your deference with your enemy and offer poor Palestinian a chance to better themselves, instead of smuggling more rocket and KLASHNIKOF.


default

Ultimate zionist fantasy!

by Ajam (not verified) on

Of course, for zionists it can't get any better... it's like shooting fish in a barrel! They will never, ever get a sweeter deal than this in their liftime! Dreams come true... finally, revenge for Aschwitz! Tit for tat!!!

Here's a great video by United for Palestine:
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSbfcSHqvCo


default

Israeli sightseers flock to border to watch Gaza killings

by shocked citizen (not verified) on

Picnicking on Hill Overlooking Gaza, Israelis Engage in World's Creepiest Spectator Sport

//news.antiwar.com/2009/01/12/israeli-sightse...


default

Media reports--US vs. the rest of the world

by Ferdos (not verified) on

Thank you friend for writing this piece. It is sad and heartbreaking. I watch the news, the American CNN and I want to puke at their reporting, they show nothing, barely anything especially in recent times. One of their reporters, Anderson Cooper, the Mr. 360 degree, who has covered various conflicts, went to Jerusalem and was there one night. The way he was reporting the news from Gaza was despicable. He had a smile on his face and reporting from the border as he was talking about Obama's kids'first day at school!!! this shows what mentality these so-called reporters have and what is important to them. Basically they are afraid and are told not to show the images anymore. Gaza does not exist for them. They have shown nothing of the demonstrations taking place all over the world. I watched BBC and half the program was about Gaza and it was decent reportage. They spoke to the Norwegian doctor, one of the only 2 doctors in Gaza's major hospital.
I watched Amy Goodman last night and I saw for the first time, brave Jewish women in NY and in Toronto who had gone to the Israeli cosultates to have a sit. All seventeen women were arrested and both women said we deplore what Israel is doing in our name. These women said that the Israeli government and AIPAC have been harassing them and their groups but that they will not stop anymore. They will confront the Israeli lobby. this isn't a joke anymore. Israel is exposed and doomed with her latest brutality.
Their signs said: We support the people of GAZA and we want Israel to stop killing the children.


Paymaneh Amiri

Thank you.

by Paymaneh Amiri on

Beautifully written piece, with heart and soul.  For those who want to know the way out: hate and apathy are causes of human suffering worldwide.  Compassion and responsible world citizenship comprise the only way out. 

Thank you.


default

Informative Video

by Anonymous15151 (not verified) on

on the Israeli influence in America:

//www.brasschecktv.com/page/315.html


Setareh Sabety

well said

by Setareh Sabety on

beautiful essay. I am an atheist for whom allaho akbar has meaning. yet I remember when hearing the azan Iran recently, when I lived there and was forced to wear the hejab daily, it had lost its beauty and resonance. It had become an imposition that spoke of suffocation rather than harmony. great essay. love how zion finds a way to bash us in every writing or post. what dedication!


default

...Yes, but no Allaho Akbar....please.....

by aaj sr (not verified) on

I agree with almost all statements mentioned here in regards to atrocities, killing, bloodshed, innocent people slaughtered, hunger, etc, but I do not want to hear " Allaho Akbar". This sentences brings back the nightmare we have had during revolution and continuing to this day, all the killings, all the injustice, millions of people were killed or crippled during the war, poverty, all hardship we and our people endured last 30 years are coming back . I wish we could prohibit these two words in our vocabulary forever and ever. I do not believe in these words any longer, and if there was any such a two words, we wouldn't be in these position, in our Iran, in Africa, Middles East, South-West Asia, and South America.
No Alah Akabar please because there is no such a thing.


Nazy Kaviani

Dear Iranian Reader

by Nazy Kaviani on

Thank you for the beautiful writing. Thank you for your courage in articulating feelings which are really hard to articulate. Thank you for your conscience and your transparent and kind look to all of humanity, not just one group.

I once tried to write about one family's excursion to death and back through Iran-Iraq War, a trip which had no return for their 14-year-old son, and from which two of their other sons had returned only in half, a trip which had also left the family's mother on the threshold of a twenty some year old nightmare.

Until every single citizen of our planet has not had a chance to really look at all of humanity with a transparent view, free of prejudices and bigotry, there will unfortunately continue to be wars in our world. Weapons and missiles and bombs are only intended to kill. As long as nations and armies own them, they will kill. Where people die with those weapons, grief and hate and revenge grows.

The aim of a pen which attempts to articulate and make transparent that pain, that fear, and that grief, can be no other than to end wars forever and to deliver humanity into a peaceful world.

I kiss your pen. Thank you.


Jaleho

Americans $10 BILLION enabled GAZA massacre

by Jaleho on

Zion, I wonder how long are you going to ignore FACTS and support slaughter of a people whose home and land your Israeli brethren have stolen, enslaved them in a place like a concentration camp, and is now pouring bombs in that closed prison?

The butcher Ariel Sharon (who deservedly became a vegetable but didn't pay enough for his crimes) begged and got $10 billion of American taxpayers  in the form of loan gaurantees to remove 9000 Israeli thieves from GAZA. That is equivalent of every Israeli thief who had stolen Palestinian land in Gaza and put a mobile home there, getting about $1 million from American taxpayers as reward for his THEFT!!

Sharon achieved few evil goals all at once:

--Stole $10 billion from Americans,

--Froze Peace process,

--made a viable Palestinian state impossible,

--made it strategically possible for Israel to pour bombs on the head of Gazans who were trapped in a sliver of a land without killing any of the Israeli thieves. This is what in 2007  the racist criminal Israeli chief Rabbi Eliyahu has asked Olmert to carpet bomb Gaza so no Israeli would die even if 1 million Gazan died,

//www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1180527966693&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

"Eliyahu ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings... "

--Sharon achieved all these mayhem and theft while he called it "unilateral disengagement" for ugly propaganda spread by people like you.

The following is the Gaza plan, first appeared in Haaretz, Oct8, 2004, which I can not find now, but here's parts of it from antiwar:

//www.antiwar.com/hacohen/?articleid=3803

"While Israel's military, purportedly on its way to get out of the Gaza Strip, is getting deeper and deeper into it, exercising its long terrorist tradition of forcing the civilian population to collaborate in massive killing and the destruction of homes and infrastructure, Sharon's top advisor Dov Weisglass made it to Ha'aretz's front page (Oct. 6, 2004):

"The significance of [Sharon's] disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process. … The disengagement is actually formaldehyde, it supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians. … What I effectively agreed to with the Americans was that part of the settlements would not be dealt with at all, and the rest will not be dealt with until the Palestinians turn into Finns. That is the significance of what we did."

In the full interview (Oct. 8, 2004) Weisglass elaborated:

"When you freeze the political process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and you prevent a discussion on the subject of refugees, borders and Jerusalem. This whole package called 'the Palestinian state' has been removed from the daily agenda for an unlimited period of time."


default

Adamiat!

by Ajam (not verified) on

Thank you dear Iranian Reader, one does not have to be a mother to be convulsed by the images of children being the indiscriminate targets of the global expansionist policies. These children have never tasted freedom, and yet, their young lives come to an abrupt end due to no fault of their own. And those who survive, like chickens in hatcheries, are born in captivity, generation after generation, never known the life outside the fences, and have nothing but death, one way or another, to look forward to!

Dear IR, talking humanity works with humans, not self-deluding frauds! As (Sa'adi's?) poem goes:
Tan-e Adami sharif ast be jan-e Adamiat
Na hami lebas-e zibast neshan-e Adamiat!

Through out the history of the third world, one can always find those who have sold out their nations to imperialists and colonialists out of Darwinian instincts. To them, righteousness is where the power lies. Hence, there's always something to justify their betrayal of their nations in favour of the global power-wielders. If there was no saddam, there would be other pawns than Ahmad Chalabi using a different reason to collaborate with the Americans to take over their country. To them, Americans are masters of the world, and since they share the moral superiority of their masters, they consider themselves a cut above the rest! Thus, if you're nice to the master, he will like you and put you on the favorite list! They are totally oblivious to the fact that to Americans, they're just another pack of rag-heads who happened to be useful at the moment!

In the Middle East conflict too, these cheer leaders of the white masters, find Isarel to be the Top Dog, hence their unconditional loyalty to their zionist superiors. Therefore, to deflect the universal rage against the crimes committed by Israel, these days, they have become the champions of the Iranian people's rights. Needless to mention that the same gang who accused Shirin Ebadi of being an IRI-supporter, are now shedding crocodile tears for her and her family! The same bunch who find Shah's reign -- during which torture and breach of human rights were institutionalized in Iran-- a fair rule and an ideal regime! "Well, he was not perfect, but you know, our people weren't either, they did not deserve any better, they were not ready for democracy then...", but apparently they are now!!!


default

regime thugs broke up an

by bunch (not verified) on

regime thugs broke up an unauthorized demonstration by “Mothers of Iran for Peace” in Tehran against Israel’s military operation in Gaza. (Better not to think what would have happened to them had they been demonstrating in support of Israel.)

It is odd that the regime should seek to prevent Iranians demonstrating in solidarity with Gaza, both the Mothers of Iran for Peace in Tehran and Arabs in Ahwaz City where the police fired shots over demonstrators’ heads and arrested dozens: //yalibnan.com/site/archives/2009/01/iran_fir...

I can only guess that this is control freakery gone mad, crushing independent civil society completely even when it agrees with the government line. As such, that means the repeated and sometimes violent attacks on the British Embassy in Tehran are sanctioned by the regime, since there has been no attempt to arrest these hooligans.


rosie is roxy is roshan

You know, ISRAELI LOVER

by rosie is roxy is roshan on

this is SERIOUS and you have to choose your words SERIOUSLY. Otherwise...it's not helpful...it's just not helpful...

NO ONE, no person, no group, no army, no nation in history, and no tsunami, no volcano, no earthquake, has EVER been worse than Hitler".Please do not try to engage me in any discussion about whether what Israel does is AS bad as what Hitler did until you take out the "decent guy" part.

Be a decent guy, will ya?

//dosome.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/chaplin.jpg

Peace Now.
Roxane


default

Israelis are proving that they are worse than Hitler

by Israeli Lover (not verified) on

Israelis today are making Hitler look like such a decent guy! They are really asking for it now. Do they have no faith? Is there no judgment?


default

to Iranian reader

by a woman (not verified) on

I have a question for you. Have you ever been in any demonstration against abuse of human rights in Iran?
Iranian activists are arrested and killed in prison. Iranian people live in misrey. I am very positive you never took any action or do anything to oppose the iranian government.so why you are so concerned about palestinians. How come you bother yourself to march for palestinian people not for your own people?
You are afraid to go through any trouble for sake of iranians. Shame on you.


default

what's "more sad"?

by anti-zionist human (not verified) on

What's even sadder than what's going on in front of our eyes, is your persistance in justifying murder! We don't need you to explain Islam to us, go find out what the Christians see as the day Jesus comes back and who's blood is it they think would have to be shed for that day to come. You people have no idea what the religions are saying and make stories as you go on!

Now leave this blog alone. Let us mourn humanity while you go kill another defenseless baby.


Zion

What is even more sad...

by Zion on

Dear Iranian Reader,

It is always sad to view innocent victims of violence. Violence that could be avoided, should be renounced in favor of peace and prosperity for all. But it is even more sad to see the ugly face of bias and prejudice surviving even in the midst of such grief. It is sad to see a poignant moment of humane emotions be utilized to further hatred. Isn't that so?
To voice opposition against war and at the same time talk lovingly of supporters of an organization that is the cause of war and the real perpetrator of such grief on innocent men, women and children as Hamas is. Does the Christian brother of your Palestinian friend also know what Hamas charter says:
The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up...
"There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

//www.mideastweb.org/hamas.htm

You know what Jihad means, don't you? You know the only outcome of a continuation of jihad is sights of children in blood, don't you? You know the only hope not to see such images is in the form of peace negotiations and proposals, that they are not a waste of time, that an organization like Hamas who sees them as a waste of time and who revels of warfare is an obstacle to any kind of future for all children of that region, that it is not worthy of support, that trying to manipulate feelings of grief to paint a lovely picture of such an organization and its fanatic members is nothing but participating in all their crimes against al children Palestinian and Israeli alike? Yet you do it. Why?
Yet you talk of one side, even the supporters and members of such an organization, like

'young men at the demonstration, wrapped in kafiyehs and oozing very angry male energy. They acted the way young men do when they want to look as menacing and bad-ass as possible. I’m used to this act. When I taught in an inner-city college most of my young black kids put on this act.

When the other side is only portrayed like this:

This [Israeli] guy oozed conflictedness...When he had left the army his mother had said, “So you’re not going to defend us anymore?” One schmuck of a Jewish mother.

You know what is it she needs defending from?

Hamas Charter:
Moreover, if the links have been distant from each other and if obstacles, placed by those who are the lackeys of Zionism in the way of the fighters obstructed the continuation of the struggle, the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:
"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Muslim).

Why, why infuse even such a moment of human grief to denigrate Jews, one side of this bloody conflict, in favor of another? Why further perpetrate antisemitic allusions?
Why is it that one side oozes conflicteness and the other is oozing with angry male energy?
Why does the call or the need for defense on the side of your enemy only bring out in you to remark on what a shmuck Jewish mothers are , but the angry cries of death of your side inspires you to:

I trembled for those young men whose anger screamed grief as much as it did revenge. I tremble for the young men who have no choice but to fight. I tremble that what they expect of themselves—and what society expects of them—is to fight, to defend, to set right.

Why? Why do your higher emotions only manifest themselves in glorification of revenge and how it sets things right? Why does one side have to be your enemy in the first place? Why does "grief" have to justify "revenge"? Why can't you see that revenge is what causes such pain? Why don't you want them to know they have other choices but to fight? They do. They can build their society. They can learn to surpass their ideological hatred of Jews, they can learn to live side by side their Jewish neighbors and to collaborate instead of killing and fighting.
Why manipulate deep human feelings to perpetrate more hate and death Iranian Reader? Why?


IRANdokht

beautifully written

by IRANdokht on

WOW

Thank you for writing about these feelings that a lot of us share too. I am in tears again  which has been the norm for me these past two weeks....

As long as there are people who can "feel", there'll be hope for humanity.

Thank you so much for posting

IRANdokht


default

-

by l (not verified) on

Thank you ... i cannto write more simce tears wont allow me.
There is PAIN PAIN. when theres killing there is pain