November 26, 2001

Why Shoot a Child?

I learned that the "Peace Talks" I had hoped for are not really "Peace Talks", but rather "Cease-fire" type talks. Oh well, I had hopes, but they weren't so high. Israel security forces meet with a US envoy. So it wasn't such a big deal.

It sure wasn't news in the places I worked today. We did talk about some of the killings over the weekend, including the young Palestinian boy shot through the chest by an Israeli soldier in Bethlehem. The talk around town here was that the boy was holding his schoolbooks in front of him. I was told that the bullet penetrated the books and then hit him. So sad.

What would it take in a person to shoot a child? How would your mind have to be trained in order to shoot a kid? Your brain would have to be so twisted. I'm not sure how soldiers are trained, but it must be some incredible process. If you can "teach" someone to shoot a child, then you could teach them to do anything. If you would shoot a kid, what wouldn't you do? What could be worse than shooting a kid? How could you convince your own mind that shooting a kid was a good thing? Maybe only the malleable mind of a kid could be trained to kill another kid. Could someone with children kill a child? Or someone with nieces and nephews? Maybe that's why all the soldiers I see are so young. If you're a little older, then maybe you have too much sense and maturity to do something like that. Well.....maybe not.

This evening there has been some sporadic shooting in the area. Around 8:15 there was some shots in Beit Sahour. I was still there teaching my "Internet for Advocates" class, but I didn't hear it. Some people told me about it. So I decided to accept a ride home rather than walk from Beit Sahour to Bethlehem. There were some local soldiers stopping cars in the street. I'm not sure who or what they were looking for, but it was unusual.