Terror and the trash heap

Date: Sun, 18 May 2008 22:51:43 EDT
Subject: Terror and the trash heap

They come in the middle of the night, some with blackened faces, all with automatic weapons. But the dark of night yields always to the light of day. The morning sun will expose another night of shame...another night of terror.

Who are they, these men and women who steal food and clothing meant for students, orphans and needy families in Hebron, who raid and destroy bakeries that make the bread for the orphans' breakfast? They're Israeli soldiers who came in a rumbling convoy of jeeps and trucks during the early morning hours of the last day of April. They came to Al-Salam Street to raid the sewing workshop in the Islamic Charitable Society girls' orphanage. They're the soldiers who couldn't find words to answer a CPTer's challenge, "Is this the way you fight terror...stealing clothing and sewing machines from a girls' orphanage? Look at yourselves. Now tell me who the terrorists are."

Within three hours after they forced their way inside, the Israeli Occupation Forces had taken sewing machines, finished garments, rolls of fabric and office equipment valued at more than $45,000, loaded everything on two flat bed tractor trailers and disappeared back into the darkness whence they'd come.

Left behind were the orphans, awakened and frightened by the soldiers, wondering if they were next. Had they been terrorized? The calls we received in those dark hours left little doubt.

Why, I wonder, did the General in command not wait 24 hours before sending in his soldiers. It would then have been Friday morning and the girls would have been in the homes of extended family members for the weekend. Could it be the General feels about the Palestinian orphans the same way he feels about the looted sewing machines and clothing he ordered thrown in the city dump?

Salaam/Shalom Paul