As you can see, I didn't have much to say yesterday. I decided to observe my own moment of blogging silence and do a little reflecting on the past two years since 9/11, the past three years since the beginning of the terror war against Israel and the past year since last Rosh Hashanah. I also spent some time watching TV and listening to the radio.
Lots of names were read. So many names. Lots of close-ups of people wiping their eyes and tears trickling down cheeks were shown. So many tears. I mopped up a few myself. And lots of pontificating was going on, politicians and pundits using the day to hammer home some point or other that they figured would hit harder against the emotional 9/11 backdrop. Bravo inserted into its syndicated West Wing re-run schedule the insipid 9/11 special episode ("Isaac and Ishmael"), in which we were told repeatedly that "Islamic extremist is to Islam as the KKK is to Christianity."
The front line of resistance to any meaningful response to the terrorist attacks of two years ago is this mantra: if you get angry, they win. If you compromise civil liberties, they win. If you allow yourself to hate them, they win. We aren't like them, we're better. And we'll prove it by, what? Bending over and asking for more? We'll prove it by opening our hearts and our borders and our neighborhoods to suicide bombers and by inviting terrorists, their apologists and their sympathizers to teach our children in our schools? Sorry, I don't think so.
I've seen a lot of comparisons between palestinian and Israeli funerals lately. The palestinians in a rage, screaming, waving their fists and their guns in the air and vowing bloody revenge. The Israelis silently weeping and embracing each other, vowing to renew efforts toward peace while maintaining vigilant defense against the ongoing war. We're quite sure that the latter is the civilized response, the way rational people deal with grief, the right way to react to such atrocities. I just don't know. Across the cultural gulf that divides us, maybe we need to learn something, just a little hint, about the value of anger and outrage and, yes, even vengeance, from our enemies. Maybe a fist or two in the air is appropriate along with the tears.
Here's the thing. This myth, that the goal of our enemies is to make us resemble them, is a sort of giant tranquilizer dart aimed at our initiative and our resolve, designed to keep us watchful but docile. What can we do to fight terrorism (or, more to the point, terrorists)? As Josh Lyman put it in "Issac and Ishmael," all we have to do is "keep accepting more than one idea." Well, that's good. That's always good. But it's not going to do squat to prevent or even discourage terrorist attacks. And we don't need to "make them absolutely crazy." They're already there.
They don't want to make us resemble them. Where did that idea come from, anyway? They don't want to corrupt us, they want to crush us. They don't want to compromise our beliefs, they want to humiliate us. They don't want to stifle free speech, they want to prevent us from speaking at all. In Hebrew, a passive verb can be made into an aggressive verb merely by adding a letter. Islam means surrender, a passive verb. But the goal of "militant Islam," whatever that is, is precisely the opposite. To impose surrender, utter and complete, on anyone and anything that is other. We just aren't going to win that battle through tolerance and acceptance and political correctness. It would be nice if we could, but it's not going to happen.
This post has been painful to write. Some of it, I may regret tomorrow. I expect I'll be returning to this subject in any event. It's been bothering me for a while, and I'm not expecting to find answers any time soon.
Shabbat Shalom.
