This is an excerpt from the middle of an editorial in today's Seattle PI about yesterday's shooting.
Please read the article to see this excerpt in its full context.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/jamieson/279394_robert29x.htmlExcerpt:
"Witnesses say the gunman -- who police identified as Naveed Afzal Haq -- said he was a Muslim American. He stormed the building, huffing about being "angry at Israel."
What else is new? Plenty of folks are angry at Israel.
People either have longstanding and ignorant views about the validity of a Jewish state, or they raise rational concerns about Israel's missile strikes in Lebanon.
People intellectually grasp Israel's stated need to have to deal with Hezbollah terrorists and Palestinian suicide bombers.
At the same time, reasonable people anguish over the mounting civilian toll when Israeli bombs exact collateral damage.
Jews will defend Israel to the end even as the American Jewish community debates internally whether Israel's use of military force is excessive. Meanwhile, Muslims and Palestinians will tell the world their people in the Middle East are forced to live like animals because of what Israel has done.
For every argument there is a gripe, a countergripe and a gripe to the countergripe.
But pulling a semiautomatic trigger before the evening rush hour is not the answer. Violence never is.
Whatever thread of intelligence might have been inside the shooter's mind has become forever lost in a tragic act of exceptional rage directed at Jews.
If he had entered the building with an open mind -- instead of declaring open season -- he could have learned something."
This same author has another editorial from Thursday about how criticizing Israel leads to unfair accusations of antisemitism:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/jamieson/279019_robert27.html?source=mypi