A Man Died Today

Paula R. Stern
March 2010

That's right - as I sit here working ... a rocket was launched at my country, as two were yesterday, one the day before. Two days ago, it was two people treated for shock, before that, a direct hit on an empty warehouse. The building destroyed, but thankfully no one was hurt. And so it continues.

Until this morning when a man, a foreign worker who came from far with the hope of earning money and perhaps returning to his family...got up and went to work in the fields of our country. He works in a hot house, growing wonderful produce in a land of sunshine and little water. And a rocket slammed into the hot house...and he died. It would be, I think, more appropriate to say he was killed, to say he was murdered. Yes, that's what I'll say - this morning a man was murdered in my country because in a nearby place there is a people and a culture that finds it acceptable, even holy, to murder.

I don't yet know the man's name - I do know I never met him and never will. His body, or what is left after being hit by a rocket hard enough to kill, will likely be returned to his family - the end of a dream, a nightmare just begun.

And in a far off land, President Obama may or may not hear of this attack; he may or may not think of that poor man's family, of the agony of that innocent family. No, sadly, President Obama is more upset about Israel building in our own capital and of our rebuilding a synagogue in the exact location in which it was destroyed by other Arab violence and hatred.

A man died today - and President Obama is calling on Israel to work towards peace. The irony, the stupidity, the misguided righteousness is enough to make you sick.