HARD BALL AT THE WAILING WALL
Robert J. Lewis

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Miraculously surviving CNN's network of shredding machines and their backups, the following transcript was found intact and spittle-stuck to the bottom of bin-22.

INQUISITOR: Do you ever think of the Mothers and families of the innocent young men and women you brainwash into becoming terrorists, cold-blooded murderers?

Activist: Do you ever think of the Mothers and families of innocent Palestinians who have been murdered by Israelis?

If I may be allowed to speak of them according to their calling, their profession -- they are neither murderers nor terrorists: they are soldiers. Secondly, they are not brainwashed and we do not solicit: they come to us voluntarily. There are people on waiting lists waiting their turn to serve the cause of the liberation of Palestine. We often meet with the parents and brothers and sisters of the martyrs, and when your western Press shows pictures of grieving Mothers weeping over their dead children, they conveniently don't report that these Mothers would wish the same thing again and again for their children because they believe the Palestinian people are entitled to a homeland – the land that was once theirs. As a Father with 3 daughters, I cried when my first daughter left our home for the last time to live with the man she married. The fact that I cried didn't mean I disapproved of, or rejected her right to happiness and marriage.

INQUISITOR: How does your conscience allow you to set these mostly young innocent men and women onto a path that will result in their certain death and the deaths of innocent civilians?

Activist: How does your conscience allow your Press to systematically consign the murder of innocent Palestinians to the back pages of your newspapers? What fiction, the West calls the 6 o'clock News, would have its listeners believe that an Israeli life is inherently more valuable than a Palestinian life?

If it is universally true that all human beings would rather live than not live, shouldn't you, in the West, be asking why so many Palestinians are volunteering to die, when we have just established that everyone would rather live than not live? How many consecutive negative experiences does it take to grow what you call a terrorist? I strongly suspect you are incapable of formulating such questions because the constructs of your culture don't allow you to comprehend that our martyrs are fighting for their homeland, for their dignity and basic rights which Israel has systematically deprived them of. When they come to me, they are coming to serve the cause of Palestine's liberation. And to your question how does my conscience allow this? I do what I do precisely because I have a conscience, because I love and care for my people. No less than average Israelis love and care for their people. We all come from the same seed.

INQUISITOR: But aren't these innocent men and women 'brainwashed' to believe they are going to martyr's heaven, otherwise they wouldn't need middlemen like you?

Activist: Another misconception sustained and propagated by the West. Our martyrs are no more brainwashed or outraged than Americans would be if a belligerent nation were to enter America and take over the State of Texas. If American soldiers can volunteer to fight and die for their homeland, for their beliefs, so can Palestinians. Our role is to fine-tune the martyr's heavenly aspirations with political ones. In some cases, if not most, the martyr, who might be Christian, is motivated by the political situation on the ground.

What you in the West are afraid to face is that all of you, without exception, have lost the power to believe. You go to your places of worship but you don't believe, or act in a manner consistent with your belief, or in a manner that honors and befits your God because there is an ungodly separation of Church and State. Unlike yourselves, we don't dress one way for our places of worship, and then wear mini skirts and thongs outside these places. To us, that is a joke, a blasphemy, a contradiction the West calls freedom. What kind of religion is it that once outside your religious institutions, everything is permitted? Is it politically incorrect to mention that where the pandemic of AIDS in Africa ends is where Islam begins? One day the West will realize that the concept of freedom finds its true home and flourishes best under the vigilance and care of Islam.

In your history, there was a Christian time when you believed, but that time has long past. If I'm not mistaken, one of your great philosophers, Nietzsche, wrote that God Is Dead, and the reason your God is dead is because you're all too busy thinking about your new home, your new car, your status, the stock market, your job, your vacation, what to wear today, what film to rent, how to increase the number of available TV channels. What's very plain to us, but still unremarked by yourselves, is that there's no time for God in your culture. And so what do you do when confronted with a people who not only believe in God, but actually live according to God's will, both in spirit and deed. You demonize us. You turn our believers into monsters, like you're trying to do to me now, as we speak. You deny us our belief because you yourself don't believe. And your hatred of us is disguised envy because you know that all the unmatched genius and science of the West cannot produce a weapon like our martyr: only the chemistry of belief can produce such a weapon. And then you hate us even more because such a weapon forces you to acknowledge us, to talk to us, to respect us, an unarmed, impoverished, suppressed people, because there is no defense against the martyr, other than granting us the basis upon which your political belief system is founded: the right to self determination.

Why doesn't your Press report the fact that Arafat is a Christian? Because Arafat, as monster-fanatic, is one of the distortions upon which the credibility of American foreign policy depends.

INQUISITOR: So why don't you, yourself, volunteer for martyr's heaven, to better serve the cause of your liberation, and the Will of Allah, of which you so grandiloquently and reverentially speak? What's holding you back?

Activist: Each of us is called to play a role in the liberation of Palestine. My role, although a fairly an important one, cannot be compared to the magnificent and privileged role of the martyr.

INQUISITOR: Sounds to me like you're afraid to die?

Activist: So now you're trying to portray me as a coward, and before that, a monster. When my work is done here, and there is still much work to be done, I will gladly, and with great humility, leave my mortified flesh.

INQUISITOR: But the martyrs you train to take the lives of innocent men, women and children? How does this square with your belief in God, the Koran?

Activist: The belligerent nation of Israel, contrary to the many UN resolutions, is our unlawful occupier and oppressor. Our martyrs are delivering and will continue deliver the same message, which still hasn't been properly assessed: free us as a people, allow us the right to our homeland, as Israel was allowed following the Balfour Declaration, and the lives of innocent men, women and children will be spared. Our people are caught up in a David and Goliath War, but we, the sling-shot people, will persevere, despite Israel's American built F16s. We are not responsible for the deaths of innocent men, women and children. Israel alone is responsible for their deaths.

INQUISITOR: Let's imagine a future state of Palestine, with the full authority of a sovereign nation, where within its borders thrives Hamas, whose stated goal is the destruction of Israel. Why should Israel, by creating a Palestinian state, give Hamas virtual carte blanche?

Activist: When Palestine becomes a sovereign fact, I would wager that what you in the West characterize as suicide bombings will stop. It is a part of the public record that for years Hamas played by internationally accepted rules while big talk produced nothing. To suggest that Hamas will continue to wage war against Israel, once the state of Palestine has been established, is disingenuous argument, and the excuse Israel needs to occupy us, to deny us our dignity as individuals, as a people.