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Heroic Freedom Fighters

I'm going through a "can't read the news anymore" phase again, after reading up on the massive wave of suicide bombs going off in Israel. A particularly nice touch: the Saturday night bombing in Jerusalem had a second bomb placed and timed to kill panicked, fleeing and injured civilians. And if that weren't enough to turn my stomach, check out this apologia for the murderers by Peter Preston in the UK's The Guardian -- published Dec. 3, mere hours afterwards.

Over the last couple of months, I've seen more than one smarmy pundit make the argument that suicide bombers aren't cowards. The pundits lecture us that see, there we go again, unthinkingly slapping people with the label "cowardly". A "rent-a-response", as Mr. Preston calls it. In fact, they tell us the terrorists are very brave -- after all, don't they die too? Well, sure. Facing their date with paradise and 72 virgins with steely-eyed resolve, no doubt.

Thus we are treated to one of the oldest rhetorical tricks in the book: implicitly define a term the way you want it to be, and then castigate your opponents when their definition doesn't match up favorably with yours. Mr. Preston, Susan Sontag, answer me this: how is it that your definition of "bravery" includes murderers of innocent noncombatants who can't fight back? Are you somehow muddled about the fact that the suicide bombers died also? Confusing that for bravery, eh? A rookie mistake at best. If someone hates his own life and longs for the eternal bliss of the afterlife, how is he brave if he commits suicide? You've got it backwards: it would be brave of him to to stay alive.

But I should not extend Mr. Preston the courtesy of thinking that perhaps he is merely muddled -- his atrocious timing and poor taste speaks for itself. In any case, I need to spend less time reading extreme-left wing British newspapers. There are only so many lectures on morality from Bizarro-world that you can take in one sitting.

Elana, Adiv: keep yourselves and Mom as safe as possible. I love you always... and it breaks my heart that the peace you and everyone else in the Middle East deserves is still yet to be found.

Posted by Evan Goer on Dec. 05, 2001 at 2:26 PM