Tuesday, May 20, 2008
SHADI Bakr Ahmad gingerly eased his legless torso into two new plastic limbs and vowed they would one day walk him back to his brutal destiny in Gaza.
The Fatah man and his 14 comrades in rehabilitation have barely six legs left between them, after being mutilated by their Hamas rivals during the violent takeover of power last June. All have unfinished business: they want to get back on their makeshift feet soon to hunt down the men who maimed them.
An agreement to be announced this weekend between Israel and Egypt, acting on behalf of the rulers of Gaza, means the former soldiers may soon get their wish...
...the would-be custodians of peace have a blood feud to take care of first: a vengeance that runs deeper than a broader commitment to the Palestinian cause and one that threatens to undermine any hope of detente. They have sworn vows to their families and to each other that guarantee more blood will be spilt as soon as the two sides are on the same patch of land.
"We Arabs have been like that since the day we were born," says another victim of the violence, Abu Mohammed, as he lays paralysed in a hospital in Ramallah. "I know the man who did this to me and it is now my life's ambition to do the same to him."
Gaza was consumed by a seemingly endless cycle of payback last year, with 439 Palestinians killed during infighting - up from 55 the year before...
...The day before the violence, Mr Ahmad was warned by Hamas that he was too familiar with a local Fatah strongman.
The following morning, as gunfire erupted around Gaza, Hamas came knocking.
They blindfolded him, took him into a room with at least six others and raked his legs with bullets. As the men lay screaming, a balaclava-clad man trampled on their wounds...
"We Arabs have been like that since the day we were born," indeed.
It's real hard not to want to enclose them all in a compound with a high unscalable wall and lots of guns and ammunition inside. Then wait till the popping sounds die down, like microwaved popcorn. Then frisk and extract the survivors, if any.
I wish them good luck taking revenge on Hamas. Then perhaps Hamas would take revenge on them. Then they take more revenge on Hamas. Then Hamas. Then them. Good luck, boys. Please use excessive force on one another. That should keep you busy and your numbers in check for a while.
This is one of the few things that has kept Israel alive all these years. There's only one thing that these people hate more than Jews ...
"...the would-be custodians of peace have a blood feud to take care of first: a vengeance that runs deeper than a broader commitment to the Palestinian cause and one that threatens to undermine any hope of detente. They have sworn vows to their families and to each other that guarantee more blood will be spilt as soon as the two sides are on the same patch of land."
For some perspective, it wasn't all that long ago that all of humankind was very much in this same mode, and for that matter is still capable of reverting to that mode. The Origins of War: Violence in Prehistory is one valuable point of references, War before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage is another. Cannibalism, in ritualized and non-ritualized forms, is but one hallmark and indicator that was common, even pervasive, during earlier epochs and throughout what is now known as the Americas, Europe and likely throughout the planet.
One of the most risible myths tacitly and at times more overtly perpetrated within academe and elsewhere is the myth of the peaceful savage. But again, some perspective only.
Civilized men would accept a formal surrender and parole them.
Lawful men would capture and jail them.
Powerful men would give them a beating and tell them to get out of town.
Desperate men would give "no quarter" - murder them because they are unwilling or unable to provide for them in captivity. Such a terrible crime could be forgiven but not forgotten.
Cowardly men would hold the family hostage.
Barbarians would shoot up their legs and dance on the bloody chum left over.
The only thing left for these poor legless men is to hunt down and dispatch every last one of those responsible. The savages who did this are too far gone - they cannot be forgiven while they remain alive. They must be sent to meet their maker for he is the only one who can make them understand what they have done.
I wish these men success, but do not inflict the same torment or you are just as evil. I hope you have learned your lesson - it is also time to make nice with the Jews.
Greg from USA