The past week has been a difficult one in the US, as anyone following the news knows. The events have been hard to watch. I’ve read a lot of the commentary on it and have seen little that provides any emotional resolution for what has occurred.
But I’m not here to justify or condemn the police, and I’m not here to take a position on Black Lives Matter — plenty of people with more expertise (and also with less) than I have are already doing those things. Whatever you think about those issues, it’s not reasonably debatable that the Dallas shooter who killed five police officers committed a horrific act. Here is his father, interviewed by The Blaze:
“I love my son with all my heart; I hate what he did.”
He is clearly profoundly sad over the loss of his son, but he is also profoundly sad about the actions his son took that caused harm to others. That is the type of reaction that one would expect in this tragic situation.
Those who are trying to draw a parallel between the anti-racism movement in the US and the anti-Israel movement among Palestinian Arabs should take note of the difference:
That is the mother of the teenager who murdered 13-year old Hallel Yaffa Ariel while she slept in her bed, in her home, near the Jewish holy city of Hebron. She calls her son a hero. She says he made her proud. That sounds nothing like the American father above. It’s more like the opposite.
No society is immune from violence or exempt from criminality. People of any race or religion — or any profession — can do terrible things. The difference is between a culture that mourns such heinous acts, and a culture that celebrates them.
