As a peace-loving citizen I am deeply concerned by the recent violence caused by suicide bombers in the Middle East. As a human being I can not sit in front of the TV and enjoy my dinner while looking at gruesome pictures of explosions and death. It is not good for my digestive system and it may cause me upset stomach, even ulcer.
During the last few weeks I have not been able to avoid watching news reports. And yes, unwillingly I got involved. I can clearly see what the problem is and how to resolve the conflict amicably.
On one side I see the army of a highly civilized country fighting by the rules of war — rules of engagement that have been well defined, accepted and utilized for years by military forces of civilized societies. They use heavy artillery, machine guns, tanks and helicopters; they utilize the most sophisticated communication systems and intelligence to attack enemy villages and towns. They occupy an entire refugee camp in an orderly fashion and delicately demolish homes and shoot at ambulances to ensure that none of the enemy forces get a chance to escape.
They are so professional that from day, they effortlessly located the enemy headquarters and smoothly moved in and isolated the terrorist leader (who is also a Nobel peace prize winner). They easily gained control of every road and imposed curfews; they shut down the water supply and raided homes in search of enemy forces.
I have to admit that they seems to be in full control. Why? Because they are good at what they do. Have you noticed the soldiers in their stylish uniforms with all that high tech equipment attached to them? Don’t they remind you of heroes in our Hollywood action movies? I was particularly impressed by the fact that to protect foreign reporters and human rights groups from getting hurt, they volunteered not to allow any of them enter the occupied towns? This is nothing short of a civilized army in action. But this is one side of coin.
On the other side, unfortunately, we see a bunch of unruly teenagers mostly from refugee camps who skip school every day and rush into the streets (most likely without their parents’ permission) and throw stones at these brand new tanks and run away. Obviously they have no clue of how to conduct a war! Throwing stones at tanks and running away from machine guns? Come on! Get real!
But that’s not all, for some unknown reason, some of these youngsters come from broken families and turn into full fledge terrorists. They strap explosives to their bodies and sneak into Israeli territories and without any advance notice blow themselves up and kill innocent civilians. Clearly, they have no regards for other peoples’ lives. This is not acceptable. Any child psychologist would tell you that at that age they should be chasing girls and partying. They should be having fun with their schoolmates at coffee shops — or whatever their teenage cousins do in Israel.
What can we do to help?
I think the US government, as an impartial mediator of peace should start sending machine guns, helicopters, planes and tanks to the Palestinians as well. We should send them billions of dollars every year and teach them how to fight. Help them build a strong military just like their enemy and train them how to conduct a conventional war. We must make them understand that terrorism is not the answer to political differences. War is. We should teach them that terrorism is morally reprehensible and it hurts their cause.
We should not stop here though. On the cultural front, we should have our guys in Hollywood get involved too. They should make expensive movies with good-looking actors every year and dramatize how Palestinians have been forced to leave their homeland and victimized for decades. We should also make sure they win Oscars. This would provide moral support among our fellow Americans for the Palestinian cause, which is more important than our military and financial aid. We Americans love good movies.
We should also use our independent news media to show the pain and suffering of the Palestinians for a change. We should have political talk shows on TV where both sides of the debate take one side only. We should have an array of well dressed and highly educated politicians from any political affiliation or party, left, right, top or bottom, who know how to condemn. (They should be told before hand what to condemn).
Last but not least, we need to put our religious leaders to good use because we Americans have deep religious convictions. Theologians in synagogues and churchs, and specially our popular TV evangelists, can play an important role.
These loyal buddies should read the Old Testament a bit more carefully and discover passsages showing that this disputed land was given to the Palestinians by God himself — a few days after he promised it to the Israelis. (God has the right to change his mind and choose one cousin over another. That is his family business, not ours.) To prove their discovery, the religious leaders can show up on TV and present original documents in God’s own handwriting.
If we recognize the vast resources available to us and use them fair and square, I don’t think we will be witnessing the horrible scenes on TV every day. And I would not have an upset stomach.
