On November 18, my mom would have been 104 years old. She died nearly fifty years ago.
I'm sorry I do not have a picture of her to share.
But maybe a few memories will be good enough.
She was one of ten sisters who grew up in Nashotah, WI. She attended the little two room school house there and graduated from 8th grade. I have no doubt she'd could have handled the upper grades and college if there had been any real opportunity for further schooling. Like her older sisters, she worked as a housekeeper out among the mansions on Lake Chenequa.
She met dad out at Moose Lake Beach, two miles north of Nashotah. Dad said what told him it was love was the time the car had a flat tire and she helped fix it.
There are a lot of things I remember about her. She was always helping someone, like giving hairdos to our aging relatives. In 1940, she ordered two blankets from a Sears-Roebuck catalog. Laundering one a few months later, she hung it out to dry. When she went to bring it in, it was gone. Her response? "Someone else needed it more than we did."
She wasn't as generous toward the one pet we had. A kitty showed up at our door and was becoming a part of the family. But it made the mistake of jumping up on the table and eating a piece of baloney we had out for lunch. It ended up as a barn cat down the road and was never replaced.
She was an at-home mom until Judy and I were both in grade school. That meant she did a lot of cooking and baking. And teaching us how to fill the kerosene tank of the stove, dusting the furniture, doing dishes, and ironing our own clothes. She made the best pork roasts, holiday turkeys, and Christmas cookies.
In typical teenage fashion, we each drifted out from under our parents influence with school, jobs, and friends. But we did not drift that far from our parents' roof. We had a home there until we each married, even if we did not happen to be in the house for periods of time because of school (in my case) or Coast Guard (in Jack's case).
Once Ann and I married and went off to school in Texas, Mom sent us ten dollars a month as support. Just so you gain some perspective on how significant an amount that was, gas cost 28 cents a gallon and Ann's tuition was $98 a semester.
We always were welcome at home during those days. We seldom got there. And just when we were getting settled after graduating from college and seminary, Mom's high blood pressure caught up with her and she died of a heart attack.
She never met our kids. We were in the process of adopting David when she died and he came into our lives just months later. So they never got to meet her either. My only hope is that I followed her example and they got a sense of who she was by who I have been.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Friday, October 25, 2013
Merle Howland, 1915 - 2013
Aunt Merle passed away last weekend. It is hard to believe. She was always there ever since I was old enough to notice.
My family moved to Nashotah (WI) in 1936, a year after I was born. It was the middle of the Great Depression and we had to live someplace my folks could afford, and that was with Grampa Freihube. My earliest memories of anyone outside of my immediate family was of the Howlands. Patsy and Billy were about my age and so at Christmas time, we got to play with them and their amazing presents. I have great appreciation for their willingness to let us do that.
I remember Aunt Merle as my mother's younger sister, one of many sisters! There were three aunts in Oconomowoc, two in the Milwaukee area, one in Chicago, and I never could keep track of where the rest were. There were nine who lived to adulthood and they each had families and when there was a family reunion, there were too many cousins to get to know. It was quite impressive to be part of such an extended family. My older brother Jack was great about getting to know all the older cousins but during those prree-school years, I was glad to be in the same town with just the Howlands. They were nice, easy to know, and I could always walk to their house and find a welcome.
Uncle Bill also had a good-sized family, some of whom lived in our village. One 4th of July, I saw some kids who were from out of town put firecrackers into the wood railing on the bridge above the railroad tracks. It caught fire. Luckily, the Howland clan lived next to the bridge and were having a picnic and the men came up in a hurry to put it out.
Two months after WW II began, we moved to Waukesha to be closer to my dad's work. The next we heard, Aunt Merle and her family moved in with Grampa Freihube. They remodeled the house and made it better, though when we visited there it was a little strange. A water closet was added at the end of the kitchen. I wish my folks could have done that! After that nice addition, no one had to go down into the dark, scary basement to go to the bathroom.
That house served the Freihube family from the time of Oscar and Amelia's 1894 marriage in the lovely little Episcopal Church across the road. From that house as the sisters grew to young womanhood, each one went to school and then to work. Most frequently, they were housekeepers in the mansions of the wealthy who lived out on Lake Chenequa. Some like Merle got to work in town at what was once one of the most famous restaurants in the Midwest, the Red Circle Inn.
Each married over time and had families, some as large as their own. My mother and Merle each had three. Helen had two. Louise had one. Aunty Dot and Uncle Harold did not have any and the youngest, Arlene, died in an auto accident before she and her husband had any children. The oldest sisters were married not long after the First World War so they had grown children who had already married and had kids our age.
Summer Sunday afternoons during the war years, my dad would get out the car and our family went for a ride, usually to see one or another of our relatives, including the Freihube clan.
Then came junior high, high school, and college and we didn't have the time to do more than see each other once in a great while. During that time, Aunt Merle and Uncle Bill surprised us by having Tim, their child number three, the very youngest of the direct offspring of the sisters. Eight years later, Billy, who was serving in the Army, was killed in a jeep accident on base. Nearly everyone in the clan attended the service for him at the little Episcopal Church across the street.
Patsy and her husband Tony settled in Mukwonago and became part of the weather observer network for WTMJ Radio in Milwaukee. Aunt Merle and Uncle Bill moved out to the lake near Oconomowoc. Tim grew up and married. At one point, my sister Judy and her husband Lynn were in Texas with the Air Force, my brother Jack and his wife Joana were on the east coast with the Coast Guard, and Ann and I were in many different places in Wisconsin as I followed my career. We were caught up in our own lives, working, raising our own families, and every now and then, touching base with each other.
After Uncle Bill died and Aunt Merle had lived alone by the lake as long as she could, she moved to the Masonic Home in Dousman. She had always been active as a person with church and family and work. She entered into the activities at the Home as it developed into a major retirement center. The last I knew, she was the "paper boy"who delivered the morning paper to many apartments in the complex. In our own retirement to the South (Louisiana and then to Florida), I had reason to come back to Wisconsin and with the help of my brother-in-law, was able to gather some of our family with Aunt Merle. Even in her 90's she was sharp and "with it" during those gatherings. They were way smaller than the reunions the Freihube clan had. But it was a treat to be together, and with her, especially.
It is hard to think about Aunt Merle without thinking about her in the context of her sisters and all the cousins. It will be even harder to think about the fact she isn't there any more where she had been all my seventy eight years.
My family moved to Nashotah (WI) in 1936, a year after I was born. It was the middle of the Great Depression and we had to live someplace my folks could afford, and that was with Grampa Freihube. My earliest memories of anyone outside of my immediate family was of the Howlands. Patsy and Billy were about my age and so at Christmas time, we got to play with them and their amazing presents. I have great appreciation for their willingness to let us do that.
I remember Aunt Merle as my mother's younger sister, one of many sisters! There were three aunts in Oconomowoc, two in the Milwaukee area, one in Chicago, and I never could keep track of where the rest were. There were nine who lived to adulthood and they each had families and when there was a family reunion, there were too many cousins to get to know. It was quite impressive to be part of such an extended family. My older brother Jack was great about getting to know all the older cousins but during those prree-school years, I was glad to be in the same town with just the Howlands. They were nice, easy to know, and I could always walk to their house and find a welcome.
Uncle Bill also had a good-sized family, some of whom lived in our village. One 4th of July, I saw some kids who were from out of town put firecrackers into the wood railing on the bridge above the railroad tracks. It caught fire. Luckily, the Howland clan lived next to the bridge and were having a picnic and the men came up in a hurry to put it out.
Two months after WW II began, we moved to Waukesha to be closer to my dad's work. The next we heard, Aunt Merle and her family moved in with Grampa Freihube. They remodeled the house and made it better, though when we visited there it was a little strange. A water closet was added at the end of the kitchen. I wish my folks could have done that! After that nice addition, no one had to go down into the dark, scary basement to go to the bathroom.
That house served the Freihube family from the time of Oscar and Amelia's 1894 marriage in the lovely little Episcopal Church across the road. From that house as the sisters grew to young womanhood, each one went to school and then to work. Most frequently, they were housekeepers in the mansions of the wealthy who lived out on Lake Chenequa. Some like Merle got to work in town at what was once one of the most famous restaurants in the Midwest, the Red Circle Inn.
Each married over time and had families, some as large as their own. My mother and Merle each had three. Helen had two. Louise had one. Aunty Dot and Uncle Harold did not have any and the youngest, Arlene, died in an auto accident before she and her husband had any children. The oldest sisters were married not long after the First World War so they had grown children who had already married and had kids our age.
Summer Sunday afternoons during the war years, my dad would get out the car and our family went for a ride, usually to see one or another of our relatives, including the Freihube clan.
Then came junior high, high school, and college and we didn't have the time to do more than see each other once in a great while. During that time, Aunt Merle and Uncle Bill surprised us by having Tim, their child number three, the very youngest of the direct offspring of the sisters. Eight years later, Billy, who was serving in the Army, was killed in a jeep accident on base. Nearly everyone in the clan attended the service for him at the little Episcopal Church across the street.
Patsy and her husband Tony settled in Mukwonago and became part of the weather observer network for WTMJ Radio in Milwaukee. Aunt Merle and Uncle Bill moved out to the lake near Oconomowoc. Tim grew up and married. At one point, my sister Judy and her husband Lynn were in Texas with the Air Force, my brother Jack and his wife Joana were on the east coast with the Coast Guard, and Ann and I were in many different places in Wisconsin as I followed my career. We were caught up in our own lives, working, raising our own families, and every now and then, touching base with each other.
After Uncle Bill died and Aunt Merle had lived alone by the lake as long as she could, she moved to the Masonic Home in Dousman. She had always been active as a person with church and family and work. She entered into the activities at the Home as it developed into a major retirement center. The last I knew, she was the "paper boy"who delivered the morning paper to many apartments in the complex. In our own retirement to the South (Louisiana and then to Florida), I had reason to come back to Wisconsin and with the help of my brother-in-law, was able to gather some of our family with Aunt Merle. Even in her 90's she was sharp and "with it" during those gatherings. They were way smaller than the reunions the Freihube clan had. But it was a treat to be together, and with her, especially.
It is hard to think about Aunt Merle without thinking about her in the context of her sisters and all the cousins. It will be even harder to think about the fact she isn't there any more where she had been all my seventy eight years.
Friday, March 8, 2013
Cynicism Today
What is a cynic? A cynic is someone to whom nothing can be proved.
They do not need proof because they already believe it. If they believe it, then it cannot be disproved.
Even if they believe something else that is exactly opposite of something else they believe, that does not make it false. Because the cynic believes both, then there is no argument because to the cynic, both are true.
There are two explanations for this kind of thinking. One, it is genetic and there is no hope of changing the person. The Greeks must have believed that because they executed their greatest cynic, Socrates, because his students brought Greece wrack and ruin.
The other is environmental, that the cynic has power, prestige, and possessions. With power, there is no argument. The powerful wins every time no matter what the argument. With prestige, the issue is privilege of place which wins every argument. This kind of cynic answers to no one beneath him/her. With possessions, the cynic buys whatever s/he wants to be true. Who can argue with success?
I suspect both explanations are true. But either way or both ways, philosophers had better start protesting the cynics of whatever stripe because cynics do not live in a truth-based universe. If they are in authority over us, they cannot help us or anyone else but themselves.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
The Florida Republican Primary
I’ve been a poll worker since 2006 but this was my first experience with a Republican primary. This year I have had the privilege of working on two early voting days. I feel odd saying this but everyone looked alike.
I might not have noticed their similarity had not one looked especially concerned and asked me if I was sure there was no fraud going on. That got me to paying attention. Three people were later turned away. All three were tall and slender, unlike the voters who tended to be heavier though not unpleasantly so. Not being the clerk, I don’t know why they were not allowed to vote. Frankly, I could not answer the concerned man. Everyone who voted looked like someone else who had already come through.
During the two days, I saw one Asian American and four who by their accent were Hispanic but did not really look it. There were three older women in wheel chairs and two older men who needed some special attention because of infirmity. And there were maybe eight young people in their twenties, all of whom looked like siblings. Beyond that, of the 528 voters who came through, it seemed like a social club of twenty couples just past middle age who took turns. I could not tell them apart. One woman made the mistake of wearing the same pink jersey with very distinctive embroidery twice within an hour.
They were all pleasant people, friendly and intent upon making their vote count.
The new voting system with paper ballots to back up the count of the scanning machines is close to fool proof as is the registration by drivers’ licenses. I trust the system which is a great improvement over the touch screens and chads of previous Florida elections.
I’m sure I’m wrong. But honestly, I couldn’t tell.
I might not have noticed their similarity had not one looked especially concerned and asked me if I was sure there was no fraud going on. That got me to paying attention. Three people were later turned away. All three were tall and slender, unlike the voters who tended to be heavier though not unpleasantly so. Not being the clerk, I don’t know why they were not allowed to vote. Frankly, I could not answer the concerned man. Everyone who voted looked like someone else who had already come through.
During the two days, I saw one Asian American and four who by their accent were Hispanic but did not really look it. There were three older women in wheel chairs and two older men who needed some special attention because of infirmity. And there were maybe eight young people in their twenties, all of whom looked like siblings. Beyond that, of the 528 voters who came through, it seemed like a social club of twenty couples just past middle age who took turns. I could not tell them apart. One woman made the mistake of wearing the same pink jersey with very distinctive embroidery twice within an hour.
They were all pleasant people, friendly and intent upon making their vote count.
The new voting system with paper ballots to back up the count of the scanning machines is close to fool proof as is the registration by drivers’ licenses. I trust the system which is a great improvement over the touch screens and chads of previous Florida elections.
I’m sure I’m wrong. But honestly, I couldn’t tell.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
O. J. Simpson’s “Confession”
Two years after the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, a book came out entitled KILLING TIME by Donald Freed and Raymond Briggs. It was the first book I bothered to read about the sensational crime.
Having investigated much less traumatic events, usually cases where a minister was accused of sexual misconduct, I wasn’t about to immerse myself in a major crime like that. I watched bits of the trial, scanned some of the articles in the papers, even read an article or two in TIME or NEWSWEEK. When the glove did not fit and the jury voted not guilty, I was satisfied that OJ didn’t do it, though I had no idea who else might have done it.
I saw an interview on TV with Dr. Briggs who described the book. I decided to read it because he brought up the importance of developing a chronology of events, something I did on the church cases.
The book was more than a “how to” book on trying to sort out the facts. It included, among other information that had not been published in the news, evidence of a number of smokers in Nicole’s garage, the fact that she and Ron had black belt karate skills, that there wasn’t a mark on OJ except for a minor cut on his finger which bled because he had taken Nsaids for his arthritis for many years and would have bruised and bled very easily, and, most important, the autopsy reports on the two victims which showed the probability of four different size and shape knife wounds, indicating at least four assailants.
The chronology I developed also showed he couldn’t have done it.
I was writing a novel about an adult Sunday School class that solved crimes and decided to integrate what I read into the story. To be fair, I read all kinds of other books, mostly against OJ. When I got done, I was most moved to believe the jury. Some of them had written a book about what they heard and saw during the trial that persuaded them OJ was innocent.
I sent my book to friend for his critique. He didn’t accept my analysis. I showed it to a crime lab specialist and he didn’t either. Another friend who is probably the most intelligent person I know was still convinced OJ did it after reading my book.
It must be a lousy book because no one agreed so I never tried to publish it.
Some dozen years later, I added as a PS to the first friend I’d showed my book, “OJ didn’t do it.”
He wrote back immediately, “He confessed. He wrote a book about it.”
---To be continued--- (See the posting below.)
Having investigated much less traumatic events, usually cases where a minister was accused of sexual misconduct, I wasn’t about to immerse myself in a major crime like that. I watched bits of the trial, scanned some of the articles in the papers, even read an article or two in TIME or NEWSWEEK. When the glove did not fit and the jury voted not guilty, I was satisfied that OJ didn’t do it, though I had no idea who else might have done it.
I saw an interview on TV with Dr. Briggs who described the book. I decided to read it because he brought up the importance of developing a chronology of events, something I did on the church cases.
The book was more than a “how to” book on trying to sort out the facts. It included, among other information that had not been published in the news, evidence of a number of smokers in Nicole’s garage, the fact that she and Ron had black belt karate skills, that there wasn’t a mark on OJ except for a minor cut on his finger which bled because he had taken Nsaids for his arthritis for many years and would have bruised and bled very easily, and, most important, the autopsy reports on the two victims which showed the probability of four different size and shape knife wounds, indicating at least four assailants.
The chronology I developed also showed he couldn’t have done it.
I was writing a novel about an adult Sunday School class that solved crimes and decided to integrate what I read into the story. To be fair, I read all kinds of other books, mostly against OJ. When I got done, I was most moved to believe the jury. Some of them had written a book about what they heard and saw during the trial that persuaded them OJ was innocent.
I sent my book to friend for his critique. He didn’t accept my analysis. I showed it to a crime lab specialist and he didn’t either. Another friend who is probably the most intelligent person I know was still convinced OJ did it after reading my book.
It must be a lousy book because no one agreed so I never tried to publish it.
Some dozen years later, I added as a PS to the first friend I’d showed my book, “OJ didn’t do it.”
He wrote back immediately, “He confessed. He wrote a book about it.”
---To be continued--- (See the posting below.)
O. J. Simpson’s “Confession” Part 2
Five years ago, OJ tried to publish a book that told his side of the story and included a “confession” which he called “hypothetical.” The last I’d heard, the book was not published because of the Goldman law suit against it.
Turns out that the Goldmans were given the rights to the book and decided to publish it after all.
The library had a copy so I read it this past week.
OJ spent 90 percent of the story describing his marriage to Nicole and its break up. His story was what had been pieced together by Freed and Riggs eight years earlier but had more details which I found persuasive. He was married to an energetic, confrontational, and caring woman who got caught up with a crowd of drug-users and partiers. I do not think he was the spouse abuser poster boy he was made out to be by the anti-abuse movement peaking at the time.
He spent a few pages on his early life and first marriage and a few pages on his reactions to the news of the murders and the police arresting him. The slow “chase” in the white Bronco was revealing because he said why he decided not to commit suicide.
The “confession” chapter was pretty lame because it really did not fit into the narrative, ignoring such facts about his arthritis and his incredible patience with Nicole based on his commitment to parenting established in the rest of the book.
The “confession” also included things that could not have happened.
I reported my findings to my friend who said he was not surprised. “You wouldn’t believe it if OJ came up to you and said he did it.”
He was right! I’d have asked him a ton of questions because I did not think the facts I had would support a confession and he would have to show me how it was possible. I could be persuaded but, for example, he would have to tell me about the cobwebs he encountered just hours before Mark Furman went through them during his investigation.
My friend didn’t think I could ever be shown OJ did it so I challenged him if he was open to the possibility that OJ was innocent.
“Only if someone else confesses,” he wrote back.
I think the killers are long since dead just to prevent that from happening. Besides, can anyone get past the roadblocks to the evidence held by the LAPD. Is anyone else even interested because of the overwhelming prejudice against OJ?
Turns out that the Goldmans were given the rights to the book and decided to publish it after all.
The library had a copy so I read it this past week.
OJ spent 90 percent of the story describing his marriage to Nicole and its break up. His story was what had been pieced together by Freed and Riggs eight years earlier but had more details which I found persuasive. He was married to an energetic, confrontational, and caring woman who got caught up with a crowd of drug-users and partiers. I do not think he was the spouse abuser poster boy he was made out to be by the anti-abuse movement peaking at the time.
He spent a few pages on his early life and first marriage and a few pages on his reactions to the news of the murders and the police arresting him. The slow “chase” in the white Bronco was revealing because he said why he decided not to commit suicide.
The “confession” chapter was pretty lame because it really did not fit into the narrative, ignoring such facts about his arthritis and his incredible patience with Nicole based on his commitment to parenting established in the rest of the book.
The “confession” also included things that could not have happened.
I reported my findings to my friend who said he was not surprised. “You wouldn’t believe it if OJ came up to you and said he did it.”
He was right! I’d have asked him a ton of questions because I did not think the facts I had would support a confession and he would have to show me how it was possible. I could be persuaded but, for example, he would have to tell me about the cobwebs he encountered just hours before Mark Furman went through them during his investigation.
My friend didn’t think I could ever be shown OJ did it so I challenged him if he was open to the possibility that OJ was innocent.
“Only if someone else confesses,” he wrote back.
I think the killers are long since dead just to prevent that from happening. Besides, can anyone get past the roadblocks to the evidence held by the LAPD. Is anyone else even interested because of the overwhelming prejudice against OJ?
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Thoughts on 9/11
Many people were asked this past weekend what they were doing on September 11, 2001, and what they thought about the planes crashing into the Twin Towers. Even though no one has asked me, I wish to offer my answers to those questions.
But first, a little background: I had just finished writing a novel which included a lot about Israeli-Palestinian relations. My views had sharpened considerably from the typical pro-Israel stance most Americans take to one sharply critical of Israel’s policies toward Palestinians and of the American government giving Israel carte blanche.
For instance, Israel persisted in maintaining its military occupation and building new settlements in Palestinian territories. They were taking over all water sources from Palestinians. They were building highways that split up the occupied land so that Palestine’s economy and social matrix were physically disrupted (farms were separated from the farmers’ residences, commerce between towns was disrupted by forcing Palestinians to drive many miles around the obstructing highways, schools were separated from their communities, etc.). All ports of entry into Palestinian territories were controlled by Israel. No matter what agreements were negotiated, Israel dragged its feet or completely refused to implement what they had officially agreed to.
By 2001, the Israelis had established, as former President Jimmy Carter observed, apartheid in the Palestinian territories.
It had not always been like that. Palestinians, Jews, and Christians had lived side by side in the Holy Land for more than a thousand years. Even with the early influx of Jews seeking to return to the land of their forefathers, even with those financed by the Zionist movement, there was relative peace.
But that all changed. Following WW II, Zionist squads began systematically forcing Palestinians out of their villages using bloody tactics. In response to the flood of refugees coming across their borders, neighboring Arab states sought to halt the flow and demand that the refugees to be returned. Israel ignored them and continued its campaign to ethnically cleanse Palestinian territories so that new Jewish settlers coming from Europe, the Asian subcontinent, and Africa could have some of the better land on which to settle. Despite winning acceptance into the United Nations based on promises to repatriate the refugees, Israel never did.
America consistently supported Israel in the United Nations, vetoing nearly every challenge the UN mounted against Israel’s behavior and practices. We also provided billions of dollars each year to Israel’s military support. It is no wonder America joined Israel as targets of radical Islamic sects' and organizations' wrath-filled rhetoric.
In 1993, one of those radical organizations, Al Qaida, truck-bombed the World Trade Center in New York. A number of people were killed and injured by the blast. The damage was serious but could be repaired. The perpetrators were caught and tried in American courts and life went on.
On September 11, 2001, I was mowing my front lawn when a car from further into our sub-division stopped. The driver told me that the Twin Towers had been hit by airplanes. Since they had been targeted in 1993, I just knew that Al Qaida was looking for more payback.
The attack on the World Trade Center, even if the Twin Towers had been full to their normal complement of 33,000 workers, would not have come near comparing with the thousands of Arabs killed in the various Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza and the hundreds of thousands they had displaced through ruthless treatment of Palestinians, both Arab and Christian, over the previous 60 years.
Americans do not realize just how cruel the Israelis have been to the Palestinians. Bin Laden tried to tell us but his actual words rarely got through the American media. His writings were always described as crazy talk or pure hate speech. But he was trying to point out how America showed no inclination to deal fairly with the Palestinians and only continued disrespect for Arab culture. To Bin Ladin, the American presence in Saudi Arabia added insult to injury.
While a few extremist groups kept some violence going after Israel soundly defeated the handful of Arab nations that threatened them militarily in 1967 and 1973, the political use of fear in Israel overwhelmed the large number of peace-seeking Jews, Arabs, and Christians who were citizens of Israel. The assassination of the last Israeli Prime Minister who actually worked for peace, Yitzhak Rabin, by a right wing Zionist was the decisive moment when the conservatives took and maintained power undermining all peace efforts since.
So, this weekend as the TV, newspapers, and local groups all were remembering the ones who died, especially the first responders, mostly presuming the nineteen men who hijacked the four planes were terrible people who hated us because we love freedom, I prayed for the government to be more aggressive in holding Israel’s feet to the fire and working with other nations to bring about some decent resolution so that there is less reason for the extremists to hate us. . . and just maybe begin a new era of peace in the Middle East.
I wonder how long it will be before there is a national interest in the hijackers, an exploration of why those intelligent, educated young men were motivated to do the horrible deed they did and the impact on their families and friends.
Their unspeakable action should never be trivialized to be understood as the use of a 2-by-4 to get our attention. But neither should the Israeli occupation and suppression of Palestine be interpreted as Israel's "manifest destiny." Nor should our turning a blind eye to Israel's behavior be left unchallenged.
Unless America becomes realistic in viewing the Israeli-Palestinian problem and understanding our policies which fed into that conflict, there will be no chance for a peaceful solution to the Middle East Crisis.
But first, a little background: I had just finished writing a novel which included a lot about Israeli-Palestinian relations. My views had sharpened considerably from the typical pro-Israel stance most Americans take to one sharply critical of Israel’s policies toward Palestinians and of the American government giving Israel carte blanche.
For instance, Israel persisted in maintaining its military occupation and building new settlements in Palestinian territories. They were taking over all water sources from Palestinians. They were building highways that split up the occupied land so that Palestine’s economy and social matrix were physically disrupted (farms were separated from the farmers’ residences, commerce between towns was disrupted by forcing Palestinians to drive many miles around the obstructing highways, schools were separated from their communities, etc.). All ports of entry into Palestinian territories were controlled by Israel. No matter what agreements were negotiated, Israel dragged its feet or completely refused to implement what they had officially agreed to.
By 2001, the Israelis had established, as former President Jimmy Carter observed, apartheid in the Palestinian territories.
It had not always been like that. Palestinians, Jews, and Christians had lived side by side in the Holy Land for more than a thousand years. Even with the early influx of Jews seeking to return to the land of their forefathers, even with those financed by the Zionist movement, there was relative peace.
But that all changed. Following WW II, Zionist squads began systematically forcing Palestinians out of their villages using bloody tactics. In response to the flood of refugees coming across their borders, neighboring Arab states sought to halt the flow and demand that the refugees to be returned. Israel ignored them and continued its campaign to ethnically cleanse Palestinian territories so that new Jewish settlers coming from Europe, the Asian subcontinent, and Africa could have some of the better land on which to settle. Despite winning acceptance into the United Nations based on promises to repatriate the refugees, Israel never did.
America consistently supported Israel in the United Nations, vetoing nearly every challenge the UN mounted against Israel’s behavior and practices. We also provided billions of dollars each year to Israel’s military support. It is no wonder America joined Israel as targets of radical Islamic sects' and organizations' wrath-filled rhetoric.
In 1993, one of those radical organizations, Al Qaida, truck-bombed the World Trade Center in New York. A number of people were killed and injured by the blast. The damage was serious but could be repaired. The perpetrators were caught and tried in American courts and life went on.
On September 11, 2001, I was mowing my front lawn when a car from further into our sub-division stopped. The driver told me that the Twin Towers had been hit by airplanes. Since they had been targeted in 1993, I just knew that Al Qaida was looking for more payback.
The attack on the World Trade Center, even if the Twin Towers had been full to their normal complement of 33,000 workers, would not have come near comparing with the thousands of Arabs killed in the various Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza and the hundreds of thousands they had displaced through ruthless treatment of Palestinians, both Arab and Christian, over the previous 60 years.
Americans do not realize just how cruel the Israelis have been to the Palestinians. Bin Laden tried to tell us but his actual words rarely got through the American media. His writings were always described as crazy talk or pure hate speech. But he was trying to point out how America showed no inclination to deal fairly with the Palestinians and only continued disrespect for Arab culture. To Bin Ladin, the American presence in Saudi Arabia added insult to injury.
While a few extremist groups kept some violence going after Israel soundly defeated the handful of Arab nations that threatened them militarily in 1967 and 1973, the political use of fear in Israel overwhelmed the large number of peace-seeking Jews, Arabs, and Christians who were citizens of Israel. The assassination of the last Israeli Prime Minister who actually worked for peace, Yitzhak Rabin, by a right wing Zionist was the decisive moment when the conservatives took and maintained power undermining all peace efforts since.
So, this weekend as the TV, newspapers, and local groups all were remembering the ones who died, especially the first responders, mostly presuming the nineteen men who hijacked the four planes were terrible people who hated us because we love freedom, I prayed for the government to be more aggressive in holding Israel’s feet to the fire and working with other nations to bring about some decent resolution so that there is less reason for the extremists to hate us. . . and just maybe begin a new era of peace in the Middle East.
I wonder how long it will be before there is a national interest in the hijackers, an exploration of why those intelligent, educated young men were motivated to do the horrible deed they did and the impact on their families and friends.
Their unspeakable action should never be trivialized to be understood as the use of a 2-by-4 to get our attention. But neither should the Israeli occupation and suppression of Palestine be interpreted as Israel's "manifest destiny." Nor should our turning a blind eye to Israel's behavior be left unchallenged.
Unless America becomes realistic in viewing the Israeli-Palestinian problem and understanding our policies which fed into that conflict, there will be no chance for a peaceful solution to the Middle East Crisis.
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