Madness
July 17th is the birthday of Chana Szenes.
At the same time, Israel is caught up in yet another bloody escalation. 
Save the Children reports that children are bearing the insane brunt of the Israeli bombings and violence, and that a humanitarian crisis is looming fast, especially in Gaza.
I feel so stunned and helpless and deeply angry. How many more innocent people must die, how many lives ruined needlessly, before it is over? The question itself is cliche. It is unbearable.
To give money to help end this madness and suffering:
Middle East Children's Alliance
Save The Children
What is significant about Chana, especially today?
Chana emigrated to Israel before parachuting behind Nazi lines to try and save Hungarian Jews; before being tortured and then executed at the age of 22. By the accounts I've read she was brave, fiery, passionate, a gifted poet. She knew what was worth dying for. I have looked up to her for much of my life.
Yet knowing what is worth dying for is not enough, if the cause is unjust. In Chana's time the cause was just, I think. Today, I don't think it is. Not many people do, outside of the United States and Israel. The blindness of my peoples is terrifying.
I find it a likely, although ugly, truth that as a Zionist who saw the deaths of so many Jews, Chana might in all likelihood have supported Israel's current actions.
But perhaps not everyone would succumb to this madness. Perhaps she would not have. Perhaps she would have the seen the difference between parachuting into Yugoslavia to save European Jews, and killing 200 civilians (as of today, as reported on KPFA as well as the BBC) in Lebanon over two soldiers.
Can we not harness these deep passions for something better?
-----
Found in Chana's cell after her execution:
One - two - three... eight feet long
Two strides across, the rest is dark...
Life is a fleeting question mark
One - two - three... maybe another week.
Or the next month may still find me here,
But death, I feel is very near.
I could have been 23 next July
I gambled on what mattered most, the dice were cast. I lost.
Comments
I am right there with you on the sadness and anger. I don't think I am stunned because this seems to be the same old story. Right when peace seems closest is when violence breaks out again. I could say I am horrified at Bush's outright approval of what is going on, but that's not right either. His actions are not a surprise to me any longer. I am especially sad to see an area of the world that was just recovering from a long tragic war being destroyed again. The rules have shifted a bit, but again the powerful are using their power against the weak and the weak, using admittedly sketchy moral arguments and choices, are being blamed. When will this madness end?
Posted by: Becka | July 19, 2006 02:39 PM