We
know a lot about him. Taylor Force grew up in Texas, loved horses, was an avid
skier, played the guitar, graduated from West Point, served as an officer in
Iraq and Afghanistan, lived in Lexington, Kentucky before moving to Nashville
to continue his studies at Vanderbilt. “He
lived really large.” His father said of him. A friend remembered his as a
peaceful, kind and just an all-American guy. Then he went on a school trip to
Israel where he was stabbed to death by an outraged Palestinian. By any
measure, 29 year old Taylor Force was an innocent victim and his death was an
unnecessary tragedy. I can only imagine
how I would feel if it had been my son.
My
local newspaper headlines, “American Student Latest Victim in Palestinian
Violence.” Vice President Joe Biden said
“the U.S. not only deplored a recent wave of Palestinian attacks in Israel but
also condemns the failure to condemn these acts.” Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu points to the challenges Israel faces. “The first one is the persistent
incitement in Palestine society that glorifies murderers of innocent people and
calls for a Palestinian state not to live in peace with Israel, but to replace
Israel.”[i]
My
newspaper seems to forget Israeli daily violence committed against Palestinians
on their own land, both by the IDF and by settlers. Joe Biden, as usual, blames
the conflict on the resistance and not on the occupation. And poor Netanyahu
believes his own propaganda that it is the Palestinian and not his Israeli
government that glorifies violence.
However,
when seen in context, Taylor Force was just one of the many innocent victims of
Israel’s oppression. And unless we are willing to remember, face and address
that context, Taylor Force will have died in vain. He stepped into a hornet’s
nest of hostility.
Less
than two years ago, over 500 children were killed during Israel’s bombardment of
Gaza which deliberately targeted schools, hospitals and water supplies. Today, Gaza
is an open air prison lacking housing, water, food, medicine and electricity.
Its people, most of them refugees from Israel’s previous aggressions, have been
used as a testing ground for Israel’s arms and surveillance market. In the West Bank, Jewish only roads and a twenty-five
foot wall separate families from their loved ones, farmers from their fields,
children from their schools and the sick from their hospitals… all justified,
defended and financed by the U.S. in the name of “security.” No one dares ask about
“Palestinian security?”
Does
anyone question what is going on that would cause young kids to sacrifice their
lives to express their frustration. It is too simple to just label them
“terrorist.” That label has lost its sting. Anyone who resists being occupied and abused has been called a terrorist.
I
don’t know if Taylor Force was targeted because he was an American, but he was
certainly put in harm’s way and set up by US indifference to Israel’s violence.
Thomas
Are
March
12, 2016
[i] Isabel
Kershner, Biden Condemns Attacks in
Israel. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, March 10, 2016, p. A-3
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