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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe difference between children - Haaretz
Complete article: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.612085
After the first child, nobody batted an eye; after the 50th not even a slight tremor was felt in a planes wing; after the 100th, they stopped counting; after the 200th, they blamed Hamas. After the 300th child they blamed the parents. After the 400th child, they invented excuses; after (the first) 478 children nobody cares.
Then came our first child and Israel went into shock. And indeed, the heart weeps at the picture of 4-year-old Daniel Tragerman, killed Friday evening in his home in Shaar Hanegev. A beautiful child, who once had his picture taken in an Argentinean soccer team shirt, blue and white, number 10. And whose heart would not be broken at the sight of this photo, and who would not weep at how he was criminally killed. Hey Leo Messi, look at that boy, a Facebook post read, you were his hero.
Suddenly death has a face and dreamy blue eyes and light hair. A tiny body that will never grow. Suddenly the death of a little boy has meaning, suddenly it is shocking. It is human, understandable and moving. It is also human that the killing of an Israeli boy, a child of ours, would arouse greater identification than the death of some other child. What is incomprehensible is the Israeli response to the killing of their children.
In a world where there is some good, children would be left out of the cruel game called war. In a world where there is some good, it would be impossible to understand the total, almost monstrous unfeelingness in the face of the killing of hundreds of children not ours, but by us. Imagine them standing in a row: 478 children, in a graduating class of death. Imagine them wearing Messi shirts some of those children wore them once too, before they died; they also admired him, just like our Daniel from a kibbutz. But nobody looks at them; their faces are not seen, no one is shocked at their deaths. No one writes about them: Hey Messi, look at that boy. Hey, Israel, look at their children.
Then came our first child and Israel went into shock. And indeed, the heart weeps at the picture of 4-year-old Daniel Tragerman, killed Friday evening in his home in Shaar Hanegev. A beautiful child, who once had his picture taken in an Argentinean soccer team shirt, blue and white, number 10. And whose heart would not be broken at the sight of this photo, and who would not weep at how he was criminally killed. Hey Leo Messi, look at that boy, a Facebook post read, you were his hero.
Suddenly death has a face and dreamy blue eyes and light hair. A tiny body that will never grow. Suddenly the death of a little boy has meaning, suddenly it is shocking. It is human, understandable and moving. It is also human that the killing of an Israeli boy, a child of ours, would arouse greater identification than the death of some other child. What is incomprehensible is the Israeli response to the killing of their children.
In a world where there is some good, children would be left out of the cruel game called war. In a world where there is some good, it would be impossible to understand the total, almost monstrous unfeelingness in the face of the killing of hundreds of children not ours, but by us. Imagine them standing in a row: 478 children, in a graduating class of death. Imagine them wearing Messi shirts some of those children wore them once too, before they died; they also admired him, just like our Daniel from a kibbutz. But nobody looks at them; their faces are not seen, no one is shocked at their deaths. No one writes about them: Hey Messi, look at that boy. Hey, Israel, look at their children.
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The difference between children - Haaretz (Original Post)
Algernon Moncrieff
Aug 2014
OP
daleanime
(17,796 posts)1. K&R....
intaglio
(8,170 posts)2. In before the apologists
Thanks for this
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,781 posts)3. I reckon they took the day off
... but you are certainly welcome.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)4. Maybe we have trouble seeing these things, obscured by the bodies of innocent children we've left
laying in the damage of our supposed fearsome and terrible terrorist-seeking-war-machine.