Putting a Pretty Face on an Ugly Picture

In the photo the Israeli soldiers were marching through Palestine. Their faces were blackened and determined-looking with the flag of Israel waving majestically over their heads. Everything about them suggested –or at least was meant to suggest–their courageous acts…their willingness to sacrifice their very lives for their people and homeland…their unbending will…and oh, such piety…

The caption above the photo read ‘Their Job is to Protect Israel…Ours is to support them’ then; ‘You can send money to support these soldiers who are defending their homeland! Send money to relieve the stress that these soldiers go through…blah, blah, blah…’

This was in the Christian edition of the ‘Jerusalem Post’. ‘Support these soldiers’–the picture in the magazine may have looked great–it may have given the effect of wonderful, courageous soldiers, but that is due only to the fact that these soldiers knew they were being photographed for a magazine. They knew they had better at least pretend to not be the murderers and terrorists that they truly are.

I have no doubt that the photo did its work well. I am sure that at least hundreds of Christians were ‘stirred’ by this ‘touching’ scene and sent barrelfuls of money into Israel to slaughter innocents. Maybe these fools who call themselves Christians should see a few pictures of these same exact soldiers when they do not know that the camera is on them and they are being their true selves. Maybe Christians need to see pictures of these soldiers shooting the heads off of Palestinian children whose only crime has been to exist and who are committing the extremely terrorist acts of walking to school or playing in their front yard.

The suffering that these Christians support! The pain, agony, torture! Scenes of suffering are now flashing through my mind, and they stab my heart with a thousand knives! Just imagine for one moment…

A Palestinian girl and her little brother are walking to school. Their hearts are pounding, pounding. They are pounding so loudly that the children imagine they cannot hear anything else. They feel fear. Fear so intense that they do not even recognize it as fear. Their skin is cold and numb and beads of sweat form on their necks and foreheads. The cold wind blows on them but they do not feel it. They feel only the coldness of fear within them. They know that children have been killed on this road before. They remember the time that the boy who had lived only a block away from their house had been on this very path and was machine-gunned dead by the soldiers. He had been doing nothing except walking to school, just as this boy and girl were now doing.

They clutch each others’ hands and move forward, each silently praying, ‘God, keep us safe…’

Then the girl feels a sharp jerk at her shoulder and the boy feels himself sprawling forward into the dust. They see only flashes of their surroundings. The girl sees the blackened face of a man. She catches a glimpse of something long and black. She screams with a scream that seems to have come from somewhere else. Her brain is burning with only one thought, ‘Where is my brother? I cannot see him! Where is he?’

 

The boy is dragged to his feet. He sees the butt of a rifle coming closer and closer to his face. It hits his chin but he does not feel the blood running down his face, nor the pain that should be accompanying it. He realizes that he is lying on the ground. He struggles to get up, thinking only of protecting his sister. He hears a series of loud sounds and recognizes them as gunshots. Then he sees his sister.

The girl is lying on the ground though she does not know why. She thinks that she must already be dead, though she can determine no reason why it must be so. She is allowing herself to slip away into that strange realm that we call death, but just then a fleeting image of her brother enters a small opening of her darkening brain. The result is electrical. She knows suddenly that she is not dead. She jumps to her feet and whips her head around. She sees her brother, a small, writhing heap at the feet of two soldiers who are kicking him and beating him with the butts of their rifles. She is about to spring forward, but an arm is wrapped around her neck and jerks her away. It is only then that she sees blood pouring down her skirt. It is only then that she sees a hole in her stomach as large as her fist. It is only then that she knows she has been shot. And then she feels…she feels the burning of her wound, the coldness of the blood on her skin, the sharp agony of mangled organs and shattered bones. With a cry of fear and pain, she once more drops to the ground. Her senses have suddenly become sharp, quick and acute. She hears the heavy breathing of the soldier. She feels his shadow move over her body. She looks up into his face. His eyes glitter with some kind of inhuman hatred. He lifts his rifle above her head. She knows what he is about to do. In another moment the butt of his rifle will come crashing down on her head. Maybe it will kill her, maybe it will not, but she is sure it will kill her. Her breath comes in sharp painful gasps. She whispers a prayer and closes her eyes.

Then…she feels a hard blow on her skull. She hears ringing. It grows louder and louder and echoes throughout her brain. Then suddenly it stops.

She does not feel. She does not hear. She does not see or know.

She is dead.

The boy is struggling to avoid the blows given to him by the soldiers. He is sobbing, screaming. His sister is dead and he had seen her being killed. Grief that he has never before felt races through his body. He does not feel the blows of the rifle butts. He feels only burning rage and grief. ‘You killed her!’ he screams over and over again, but he does not know that he is screaming. He looks into the face of the soldier who is standing nearest to him. The soldier’s eyes are so light-colored that they seem to be completely white, with no irises. They seem to glow in his blackened face. He shows his teeth, not as in a smile but a snarl. The boy feels the hatred flowing out of the soldier. He knows what is about to happen. The soldier raises his machine-gun and points the barrel towards the boy’s head. The boy does not feel fear. He does not care whether the soldier kills him or not. His sister is dead, and he would rather die than live with the grief of losing her. He, as his sister had done only moments earlier, closes his eyes and murmurs a prayer.

Then…he hears the rattling sound of machine-gun bullets. His head feels heavy. It feels so heavy that it seems to be sinking beneath the ground. He thinks that the dirt is smothering him. He cannot breathe. Then the last gleam of light fades from his vision. He lets out a sigh.

Now he no longer feels pain or sorrow. He does not hear. He does not see.

He is dead.

The soldiers dump the bodies of the two dead children off to the side of the road. They feel no remorse for what they have just done. These children are just two more Palestinians. Just two more brats who they thought it was appropriate to kill. These children are of no consequence to them. And why should they be? After all, Palestinians are not Jews. They are merely goyim and lower than animals, really. And they themselves are Jews…their blood is pure blood. They, and they alone are loved by God. So what does it matter if they have just robbed a father and mother of two children? What does it matter if they have just destroyed their lives? It is perfectly fair and right that they should do this, for the one simple reason that they are Jews.

These soldiers do not feel the pain of dying justice. They do not hear the wails of the suffering people. They do not see the injustice of the blood that they spill. They do not know what it is like to fell these things, because they are dead– because they have allowed their souls and humanity to be killed…

And so, as if to put life back into the deadness of their souls, they will kill. And they will not stop.

And children will weep…

But they will not stop.

And parents will mourn…

But the Jews will not stop.

And according to the ‘Jerusalem Post’, our job is to support them.

2006 by Stefania Glenn

sglenn@crescentandcross.com

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