Pictures, Big and Small

There is evil in the world. It is inevitable that someone will ask, "Who are you to judge?" To my secular friends, I admit that I am pedestrian. To my Christian friends, I admit that I am a sinner. It is important to search for motes and beams, but ocular clarity is useful beyond navel-gazing.

Since 9-11, the cliche has been that everything changed. Maybe for some but not for all of us. The late Michael Kelley devoted some words about Alison Hornstein and moral judgements. Michael Kelley applauded Alison for moving beyond moral relativism, and yet observed that she could go yet farther. Right and wrong goes beyond the cellular boundaries of my body. There are absolute wrongs that transcend boundaries across the world.

In remembrance of 9-11, Esquire published a story about "The Falling Man." The story is about a quest to discover the identity of a man who jumped from a World Trade Center building. Most newspapers did not publish the photograph, thinking that it would offend American sensibilities. It's perhaps too gruesome. And some think that it's an invasion of privacy. The photographer, Richard Drew, ironically notes that it's "the most famous picture nobody's ever seen." The primary goal of the quest may not have been accomplished, but it established an identity in a way. It was not figure adding to the statistic of nearly three thousand that day. The man in the photograph was a human being.

In his LA Times piece, Mr. Drew notes a fellow photographer, Nick Ut, who photographed the Pulitzer Prize winning napalm girl that many insist embodied what was wrong with America's involvement in the Vietnam War. In this case, as Richard Drew notes, the photo was not too gruesome.

The naked nine-year-old girl in the photo has a name. She is Kim Phuc. South Vietnamese aircraft were bombing an enemy position, and as unfortunately happens in war, she and her family were caught in the crossfire. Nick Ut saw her running from the napalm, photographed her as she ran toward him, and as she ran by, Nick put away his camera and poured water from his canteen over her body. He then took her to a hospital staffed by Americans.

Later, after the war had ended, Vietnam recognized her value as a propaganda tool. This was not without side benefits, for she was able to continue her studies abroad. She met her husband in Cuba. The first time the opportunity arose, they defected to the West. She became a Christian. Eventually she came to America and in Christian fashion, she forgave. She was also able to thank her American doctors. She is a spokeswoman for peace and against the horrors of war. Her story is a human story.

There can be no doubt the about the power of imagery. The powerful voices of Abortion are apoplectic over some ultrasound images by Stuart Campbell. The images are clear enough to show the fetus smiling. Oh, the humanity!

Biologists call it instinctual. Mammals are driven to protect their young. That may be so, but a young seventeen-year-old woman understood that feeling of protection. After 9-11, Eliza Gauger drew a picture of the Statue of Liberty holding a baby wrapped in the American flag and in Lady Liberty's other hand she drew a gun. Eliza is not pro-gun^[1]. The intensity of her feelings is evident in the text she wrote on the picture, "The most dangerous place in the world is between a mother and her child." Such was the insecurity of those days.

Imagine then, that feeling of insecurity, day in, day out.

In the unforgettable words of James Lileks, "This is, or rather was, five-year old Gal Aizenman. She was ripped to shreds by poison-soaked nails at a Jerusalem bus stop this week." (A link showing the position of photo relative to the text is here.)

Her mother Penina Eisenmann (the last name is found alternately as Eisenmann or Aizenman) describes her daughter, "She was a delightful girl, beautiful with blonde hair. She was very intelligent; so much so, that sometimes I could not understand what she wanted, because she made so many explanations. Her kindergarten teacher told me she contributes so much. I think they [the kindergarten class] will be very sad."

"I'm crying enough tears to fill an ocean."

At the funeral of Gal and her grandmother Noa Alon, Effie Eitam raged against Israel's tormentors, "For we know who you are. You are the sons of Balaam, the sons of 'bela' (destruction and deceit), the sons of 'bli-am' (no people), the sons of 'bliyaal' (wickedness, worthlessness), and the sons of 'bli eretz' (no land). You are experts of impurity, cursedness, and evil..."

Perhaps the rage is understandable. It is the passion of the moment. There is an equivocation. Both Palestinians and Israelis have a long history of blood spilt and vengeful hatred.

But perhaps cooler heads and more ethical voices may be heard. Avraham Burg, a former speaker of the Israeli Knesset, realizes the demographics are insurmountable:

Between the Jordan and the Mediterranean there is no longer a clear Jewish majority. And so, fellow citizens, it is not possible to keep the whole thing without paying a price. We cannot keep a Palestinian majority under an Israeli boot and at the same time think ourselves the only democracy in the Middle East. There cannot be democracy without equal rights for all who live here, Arab as well as Jew. We cannot keep the territories and preserve a Jewish majority in the world's only Jewish state - not by means that are humane and moral and Jewish.

Avraham Burg recognizes the humanity of the Palestinians. He sees their suffering. He recognizes the terrible choices before Israel: 1) To empty the land of Palestinians, 2) To make the Palestinians second class citizens, or 3) To die and fail as the odds slowly become impossible. Clearly, options 1 and 2 are ethically unacceptable. Choosing option 3 denies the right of self-preservation. He chooses option 4) to live in peace with the Palestinians.

It is easy enough to confuse the issue: both Israelis and Palestinians hate each other and are killing each other. Goodness knows what happens when we take a "holiday from history." ^[2] It's obvious enough what will happen when we compare the worst of Israel with the best of Palestine. It requires sainthood of each Jew. Yes we should expect better from Western Culture. But it is also that soft bigotry that assumes that the Palestinians can not do any better. It lessens their humanity.

The flaw in Avraham Burg's reasoning is that the Palestinians want or may someday want option 4. I don't have a crystal ball, and I wish I could believe otherwise, but I just don't see the Palestinians choosing option 4. Time is on their side. By process of elimination, if 1, 2, and 4 are crossed off, then the acceptable option for Palestinians, option 3, wins by default. There's no need to point out that this presumes evil intent on the part of the Palestinians.

The evidence is overwhelming.

A few weeks before Gal is torn apart, a mother rejoices over her son's martyrdom ("After the martyrdom [operation], my heart was peaceful about Muhammad."):

"I am a compassionate mother to my children, and they are compassionate towards me and take care of me. Because I love my son, I encouraged him to die a martyr's death for the sake of Allah. Jihad is a religious obligation incumbent upon us, and we must carry it out. I sacrificed Muhammad as part of my obligation."

But mention of Gal does not end at her funeral. A little more than a year later, Israel is releasing Palestinian prisoners and her uncle does not understand, "I am not able to grasp how a peace agreement jibes with the release of terrorists and attempted murderers who express no regret over their actions." Less than a fortnight later, an Islamic martyr (Shahid) kills a score of Israelis and the road map to peace is folded.

It is true that the "cease fire" was really a low-grade conflict between IDF and Hamas. But to view this as some sort of share the blame game is to confuse issues. Since the bombing, Avraham Burg is published in Forward where he acknowledges that the Palestinians are human. The "moderate" Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas is now gone. And Palestinian TV continues to broadcast sermons preaching hatred and inciting the killing of Jews: "Blessings to those who wage [Jihad] with their body and are killed for the sake of Allah. Blessings to those who fight by means of their money and spend it for the sake of Allah..."

Yet there is a broader perspective. Phillip Winn combines the pictures of Gal Eisenmann and a three-and-a-half-year-old Muslim girl named Basmallah. Only a month before a Shahid dispatched Gal to Heaven, Basmallah explains on a Saudi sponsored satellite TV station why she doesn't like Jews, "They're apes and pigs."

On what basis do we build a road map to peace?

I'm sure there are some good Palestinians and Arabs as there were good Germans during Nazi rule and good Russians during Soviet rule. But as Peggy Noonan noted in her biography of Ronald Reagan, When Character was King, the cracks appeared in the Soviet Empire when he began to call it an Empire of Evil. There is something to be gained by moral clarity. Evil cannot withstand the light of Truth.

This is not an incitement to hatred. It is well that we ask our Israeli brothers to hold the high standards of Western tradition (which we claim aspires to universal Truth). It does no good to submit to the soft bigotry which holds that our Palestinian and Arab brothers are incapable of reaching that same standard, unless we do believe that they are apes and pigs or that Islam is not a religion of peace.

It was amazing restraint when after 9-11, President Bush declared that "Islam is a religion of peace." This is understandable; the president was not required to give Osama his holy war. If the statement is true, there is no fault in this. It is better to forgive than lash out in revenge. It is fair to ask, however, what the Arab leaders say, what the Muslim preachers teach. Indeed, Arafat himself invites the comparison when he declares that he will dismantle Hamas when Israel agrees to dismantle IDF (reported by Israel Insider) What do warriors of (radical) Islam do? Are warriors of the West in the same class as those of radical Islam?

Two days after 9-11, Joseph Dwyer enlisted in the Army as a medic. A year and a half later, he is with his unit, the 7th Cavalry, moving North along the Euphrates. After a night of ambushes, they discover that an Iraqi family is caught in crossfire. This is when PFC Dwyer is photographed carrying a wounded four-year-old boy.

Here is a link to a picture of the Hanson family of Groton, MA. They planned to go to Disneyland and visit relatives in California. From Flight 175, Peter Hanson was able to phone his father. In his penultimate phone call to his dad, he reported that terrorists had stabbed flight attendants as they attempted to force their way into the flight cabin. His wife and his two-and-a-half year old daughter Christine Lee Hanson were with him on that tragic flight; it was the second plane that hit the World Trade Center. Christine was the youngest victim of 9-11.

Footnotes:

[1] My own mother deplores guns of all kinds, having been held at gunpoint when she was about three years old by her abusive, screaming father. But if she felt she had to protect me or my brother, she would pick up anything she could to defend us. That's what I wanted to represent. The torch of freedom replaced by the gun of defense.

[2] Stop taking such comfort in Bill Clinton's two wins. Move on. He was a great political talent, but he won by confusing the issues, not facing them. That's a trick that tends to work only at certain times and only with powerful charisma. And even with that his leadership will be remembered, is already being remembered, as "a holiday from history,"