On My Block
It's a little melodramatic to conclude that every "bump" in the night is the an attack from those nefarious Israeli soldiers, so I try to be more measured in my instant analysis these days. Last night, just past 5:00 AM, when the windows rattled and the streets rumbled, I decided that it was just the opening salvo from a storm; we've had plenty of rain of late. When the pitter-patter of raindrops didn't fall, though, I went to the alternate explanation: It was just the echoes of trouble in distant Gaza, which I'd read all about in tomorrow's paper. It's always Gaza, right?
Well, maybe not this time. Students in the morning came in with the reports before the first bell. Obviously, their stories differed wildly and little of it was first-hand - exactly what I expected from this culture of gossip and innuendo. Still, there was general agreement that the Israeli army was in Beit Sahour in the wee small hours of the morning, blowing something up at just past 5:00 AM.
The early word was that they blew up a person - sorry, "assassinated a martyr" - but it has since been clarified that the explosion that rocked my windows was some device used to knock a door off its hinges. The rest of the story is familiar - sadly so. Soldiers with guns coming to take someone prisoner. Resistance, perhaps violent, from the would-be captive. Shots fired. One Palestinian dead, one captured. Nothing new under the sun, as hard as that might be for a Western mind to wrap itself around.
I have tried all afternoon to fault the Palestinians in this case, if only as a check against my natural biases. Maybe their crimes were gross and they deserved it. Maybe this was one of those times when the Israeli army was perfectly within its rights to violate Palestinian sovereignty in spectacular fashion. Or maybe the folks being taken into custody crossed the line in their resistance, that it was irresponsible to put up a fight as hopelessly outgunned as they were. Might makes right?
The morality truly is hard to measure. About all that can be said with certainty is a man who was breathing last night is dead this morning. And all the mourning all over town - shops closed, people at home, talking up these deeds on the street - it all just isn't worth that one life.