Carroll on the Middle East, again
Jon Carroll continues to be one of the few people I see discussing the Israel/Palestine situation who shows much awareness of the complexity of it. He's also an eloquent voice for peace. In today's column, he mentions all the arguments and justifications and impassioned rhetoric that he's been hearing, and then says:
[A]t night I have imagined I have heard . . . the last soft breaths of babies dying in a cause they did not know was entirely justified by the airtight case presented before the international body.
I want silence more than anything. I want everyone to shut the hell up so we can all hear the crying.
I'm feeling too cynical right now to think there's much chance of that, but I approve of the sentiment. And this line was a good reminder for me:
[I]f we are to be humans, hope is always an obligation. We must always start again.
(And yes, I know that that column, too, is rhetoric, and could be seen as a standard "You're killing innocents!" sort of thing. Only that kind of rhetoric is usually used as further justification for war, rather than as justification for peace.)