During the coverage of the horrific Boston Marathon bombing, one announcer said that counterterrorist officials monitoring the online messages and chat rooms of Islamic militants reported "ecstatic" reactions "overjoyed" at the events, and statements that "as long as Arabs suffer in Palestine, there will be no security anywhere."
I don't have any more information than anyone else as to the responsibility for this horror, and I'm not jumping to conclusions. Personally, if I had to guess from what little I know I'd lean towards thinking this is a case of domestic terror rather than something linked to overseas.
However, the awful comments remain and have lodged in my mind and heart, and I must respond for my own sake even though those who spoke such awful words will certainly never hear them. My reply below the break.
I won't say "how dare you". I know you dare many things worse than this. I want to ask "how could you?" but I'm afraid I know all too well. Far too many cheer for the deaths of those they think of as enemies, and would carry out strikes themselves if they got the chance. I've resigned myself to the existence of hate in this world. And yet, I must reply.
Is this how you honor your god? Don't you think he loves his creations, his children, just as you love your own? Do you think he's happy at the suffering and death of those he created? Do you really think he looks down at the world he made and picks and chooses who to bless and who to curse, and finds joy in the blood and pain and death on his earth? If so, would such a god not be a devil? Could it be that twisted hatred in the black hearts of men project their evil onto an innocent god that only wants the best for all his children?
Is this how you stand with the victims in Palestine? Do you really think it helps them for more innocents to bleed and hurt and die? Do you think it salves their pain, or heals their wounds, or raises their dead? Do you think it helps them at all? And do you really think that they want more suffering in the world, rather than less?
The blood on the pavement in Boston is the same color as the blood on the streets of Palestine. The screams of fear and pain sound the same. The weeping of women and children, the tears in their eyes, are no different. Blood is blood. Tears are tears. Pain is pain. And humans are humans. Everywhere.
You claim concern for your Arab brothers and sisters. What about concern for your human brothers and sisters across the globe? We are all human. We all bleed the same. We all cry the same. We are not alien species from one another. We are far more alike than we are different.
Many millions around the world mourn for Palestine and cry out against the atrocities committed there. In Europe, in the United States, even in Israel itself are countless thousands who protest the evil done to innocents in Palestine, as we protest evil everywhere. We kept the revolutionaries of the Arab Spring in our hearts and minds and prayers, just as you did. We cry in outrage at the "collateral damage" in the senseless, horrible wars being fought on your soil by tho.se claiming to act in our name. We are not our governments, we are not our armies. We are innocent civilians just like those being killed. We are the same. And we are as powerless to stop the horror as you are.
One day, I hope and dream that our descendants look back in horrified confusion and pity at how we of this age spilled the blood of one another and spread suffering in a downward spiral of death. One day, schoolchildren will ask in their innocence, "didn't they know we're all the same?"
I say to you, and to them, that some of us do know. And the sooner the rest of us learn, the better off we all shall be.
Fri Apr 19, 2013 at 9:53 PM PT: To my surprise, the perpetrators in this case turned out to be Muslim after all. I honestly believed that the recent activity of white supremacist groups and the attempted bombing of the MLK march, combined with the reputation of Boston as a liberal bastion, pointed to a high likelihood of right-wing domestic militia groups as the source of the attack. I was mistaken. I wish I hadn't been, as the fires of anti-Islamic hatred needed no more stoking and I fear
what is to come due to it.
In the time since I originally posted this diary, as I predicted in the comments both the Westboro "Church" and Pat Robertson have responded with their usual vile hatred. Additionally, on the radio this evening (the same station where I heard the original report I responded to) the announcer related messages of hate that had been sent to the station by listeners. One was to the effect of "Muslims go to hell, all of them" and the other was a conspiracy theory that claimed that since President Obama was Muslim like the attackers then he must have been in on the plot. The announcer listed these as examples of a significant amount of hateful and irrational feedback they had received, and that these attitudes were shameful and spoke poorly of a hateful minority in this country. He repudiated these hateful expressions as not reflective of the majority of good Americans or the values of tolerance and freedom in this country. I agree with him completely.
In light of this, I want to reiterate my statement that these attacks and the expressions of support from extremists do not help the cause of Islamic victims of oppression and occupation in Palestine or anywhere else, and that no innocent civilians want their names or their cause associated with such abomination. I want to reiterate that the peaceful majority of both the Islamic and the western worlds reject hatred, reject violence, and condemn atrocities and violence no matter who the targets or the perpetrators are. Great numbers in the western world and even in Israel itself stand against the horrors inflicted on Palestine, and great numbers in the Islamic world stand against attacks against innocents abroad. Most people recognize our shared humanity, and mourn all innocent blood spilled everywhere.
Attempts by hateful extremists to turn humanity against one another will fail. Those they call enemy will never fade from the world, but those who hate and commit violence will. Those who stand hand in hand and heart to heart with their human brothers and sisters worldwide will prevail and one day will look back at the grave of global war and hatred with sadness for those innocents it claimed before peace and justice prevailed.
It's only a matter of time. In the long run, hatred is doomed. Love and peace will prevail. I only hope that it happens in time for me to see it.