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Print9-11 connect the dots
Nine months before the history-changing attack on the twin towers of the World Trade Center, I was standing at the Top of the World observation center on the North tower, just outside the Windows of the World restaurant, with two of my school-age daughters.
For almost an hour we studied the extraordinary views below while I struggled with a low-grade anxiety. It had been almost seven years since a truck bomb, ignited by Islamic extremists, blew out the basement of the same building. Standing there, I couldn’t help wondering if another attack could occur, even as we stood there, more than a thousand feet above the ground.
Less than a year later, 9-11 interrupted a California wedding, so two months after the towers came down I found myself back in Manhattan restaging the nuptials for the East Coasters who couldn’t travel west that September. During that visit I went for a run through Battery Park, past blocks of posters with the names and faces of the dead and missing, and over to the still-smoking remains that had come to be known as Ground Zero. Sucking in cold November air on the close periphery of the ruins, I found myself inhaling the thin, toxic plume that seemed to pulse out of the rubble, and I marveled at the people still toiling around the clock in that pit, digging out the tragic residue of the attack.
Almost exactly 10 years later I was traveling through the Middle East and into a series of paradoxes painfully hard to reconcile.
In a massive Beirut refugee camp, an 80-year-old Palestinian widow, whose kindly, wrinkled face reflected a lifetime of struggle, described the Israeli confiscation of her family farm and what she described as the “murder” of her husband. “I pray every day,” she said in a sweet, humble voice, “that God will kill all the Jews.”
Days later in Jerusalem, a cab driver who said he was an Armenian Jew, described the explosion of a suicide car bomb that killed several children and scattered body parts around his taxi. “That,” he said through clenched teeth, “is why we have the wall.”
Passing through a Bethlehem checkpoint in what the Palestinians call the “Apartheid Wall,” I watched a young, female IDF soldier, with her boots on the sill of a glass booth and an M16 in her lap, facing the stream of several hundred Palestinians obediently presenting their papers to her as they tried to reach their homes in the West Bank.
In Arab culture, showing the bottoms of ones shoes is a profound insult, communicating to others they are beneath contempt, nothing more than dirt. And that was the message sent by this young Israeli to hundreds of proud Arab men. I wondered how many future suicide bombers were being born in that line as I watched .
In the aftermath of another Sept. 11, and in the more immediate shadow of yet more rioting and deaths in the Middle East, it is almost impossible to reconcile these endlessly conflicting images. The dots don’t connect into a coherent solution, they just lead to more rage.
In an eerily Biblical sense, the challenge of world peace is distilled into the Middle East conflict. And the only clear message is that rage and the violence it breeds, will never be the solution.
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I am so grateful that this sort of nihilistic moral relativism did not exist during WWII. It is absurd to think that suicide bombers are created from the petty offense of seeing shoe bottoms, a cartoon, or a movie trailer. More likely to blame is the cradle to grave indoctrination of anti-Jewish blood libel, the glorification of anti-Jewish suicide bombing martyrdom, and the steady drum beat of anti-Israeli propaganda in state owned and run Arab media. If the Arabs want peace, all they have to do is accept the existence of Israel, none do.
Well said Phineas !! I would like to add this. Are Muslims
so weak in their faith that they fall to pieces when anyone
points out the truth, or comments on...or pokes fun at...
their precious Koran or Muhammad?? Please !!! They do far
more to Jews and Christians. Look how the left-leaning
Media in this country treat Christians and the Bible. Let
them talk I say!! I am not so timid and unsure in my faith
in Christ that I would kill people and destroy property
because someone makes fun of the Christian faith. It happens
every day. Making fun of Christians is OK though....just
don't say anything bad of Islam. That is taboo.
Dear Friends,
I think the best way to make it a better world, overcome the rage and violence of 9/11, and challenges to bringing world peace, is to join me. See the following invitation:
You are welcome to join us for the November Interfaith Freedom Marches:
Jenin,West Bank, Wed., Nov. 21, 2012, 2:30 pm, Main Square, Abu Baker Street
Ramallah, West Bank, Friday, Nov. 23, 2012, 12:30 pm, Manara Square
Jerusalem, Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012, 2:30 pm, Damascus Gate, Old City
My friends, it’s no longer possible to say, “Ah, that’s the other side of the World, what does this place have to do with me, my family, my world….”
The people in the Holy Land, Muslims, Jews and Christians alike, are enshrouded by deep suffering, terrible restrictions on freedoms, limitation of circulation, restricted access, unfair confiscation of land, etc. Whenever that happens in the World, we all suffer because I truly believe, my friends, we are all connected.
When they are free (of suffering, etc.), only then can we be free!
As such, the occupation of the West Bank must end as a precursor to peaceful coexistence.
It’s time we all do something about it, in an effective, non-violent way.
Let this march be a precursor to freedom through love and understanding by bringing all people together in the cosmic light, as brothers and sisters and as children of the creator, showing the world that all people want peace in Israel and Palestine.
Dr. Frank Romano
A Land Day Organizer: March 30, 2012, Qalandia Checkpoint
Professor: University of Paris
Member of the California and French Bars
Author: Love and Terror in the Middle East
Dear Readers:
I'm returning to Santa Rosa, my hometown and am bringing ideas about tempering world fanaticism, violence and rage. You're invited to the below event. Please come with an open mind and ideas for world peace.
Sincerely,
Dr. Frank Romano
EVENING with AUTHOR DR. FRANK ROMANO, sponsored by SRHS Foundation
Wednesday, Sept. 26th, 7-8:30 pm, Santa Rosa High School Auditorium, 1235 Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa, CA 95401
Moderated by CHRIS SMITH of the Press Democrat. Discussion and audience participation is welcome. Book signing after the event of the following book:
LOVE AND TERROR IN THE MIDDLE EAST, 3rd Ed., by Frank Romano:
It dramatically captures the author’s efforts to promote understanding and cooperation in the region between Jews, Muslims and Christians.
This 3rd EDITION includes new chapter entitled “Return to Killing Fields.” It recounts the aftermath of the murder of Juliano Mer-Khamis, peace activist, in the Jenin Refugee Camp and the author’s recent return there to uncover the truth buried deep within the shrouds of his friend’s mysterious death.
Dr. Romano is professor at the University of Paris and member of the California and French Bars.
www.frankromano-lt.com