Israel

Folks, I have no idea how I found this. I know this hasn't much to do with art and the usual things I blog about, but hey, it's my blog and I just feel like posting this passage I found tonight. I was looking up words for a small fire engine business my dad is thinking of starting, and I came across this post. In fact the year it is written, 1991, shows that it has been transcribed to the internet, since the first blogs didn't even show up until 1994 or so. But I have been thinking a lot from a Christian American point of view about God's chosen people and somehow found this diary passage on the web ( you know how it goes). It is amazing to read this passage written by an Israeli American in Jerusalem almost 20 years ago, when we were engaged in the war with Iraq (the first time) and I am reminded of the fascinating and disturbing parallels that nature thrusts into our lives through political force: See what you think of this, in light of the short history written since 1991:

"...by writing the previous paragraph of my daughter-
in-law's anger at me; she had looked at some of my reports and, when
she came with her family to dinner on Friday night, she told me that
I was picturing our situation as if we were misfortunates and objects
of pity. She resented that, was convinced it was not true; but she
had been born here in Israel, had only spent a few years in the
States. This was normal for her; not the actual SCUD attacks and
the procedures we follow with each attack - they were new. But
the idea of being under attack, of having to defend herself - that
was part of the turf for her.

Of course she is right. It is just that my background is so
very different; I have spent more than half my life abroad, in the
bosom of decency and democracy. [Not that I do not feel that I now
live in a decent society where democracy prevails; indeed they do,
but their geographic limits are so very narrow. Size really makes
a difference, not only from the point of view of security, but also
psychologically.]

I even left the States before the cities became dangerous at
night. [Other than SCUDDs, which I hope are temporary, the cities
are still quite safe at night here.] I don't feel that I am one of
the downtrodden of the world and I do not want to give that impres-
sion. It is just that as an American [originally, and it seems ir-
revocably] I am always surprised by evil. My initial response is
to deny it; to say it is just not there. I need time to regain my
equilibrium in the face of Evil. I lived through 2 1/2 wars as an
American and this is my fifth here in Israel. I have had enough
experience of the world to ought to have learned; but as an American,
I fear, there are some things I can never really learn.

For Americans the distinction between degrees of bad is a very
difficult one to make. One bad is perceived as just as bad as any
another bad. That appears to be a consequence of the ultimate
optimism of the American. The American can and does still believe
in a perfect or perfectable world. [To that extent, I am no longer
an American.] It was to the Americans that Santayana spoke when he
said that one who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat
the same mistakes.

When I speak to Americans about Evil they do not understand;
they think that bad is the same as Evil. Until they learn - Will
they ever? Can they ever? - they will be trapped by this confusion.
Bush, some of them tell me [I really do not know], is bad. I say to
them, "Maybe or even Yes. But Saddam Hussein is Evil." And they do
not understand me.

There is a world out here that has different guiding principles.
You have to listen; some people are not sportsman and do not play by
the rules.

__Bob Werman
rwerman@hujivms
Jerusalem