Unrighteous Indignation

Your 16 year old brother gets sent off to blow himself up. When you find out, how do you respond? Do you rail at the handlers who attempted to murder your kin? Do you express outrage and horror at the attempted act? Not if you're Palestinian.

In that case, you rail at the handlers: "The ones who sent him are stupid, because the army will give him two slaps and he will tell them who sent him."

Ah, yes, that wonderful expression of unrighteous indignation.

Never mind that the kid was seduced into attempted suicide: "Abdu told soldiers of his dream of receiving 70 virgins in heaven, which his dispatchers had promised him, and said that he had been tempted by the promise of sexual relations with the virgins."

Never mind that he was paid the handsome sum of 100 NIS (approx US$23). Never mind the sickness in believing that this would make him "a hero."

Nope, nothing wrong there! No if you're brother Hosni, you get pissed because they took your gullible brother who "has the intelligence of a 12 year old."

Given Hosni's response, I am having a little trouble completely buying Mom's indignation:

"Hussam left home this morning to school, and this was the first we hear of what happened," Tamam Abdu told Reuters from the family home in Nablus, just north of Hawara. "This is shocking. To use a child like this is irresponsible, forbidden."

I really want to believe that she is saying it is irresponsible to blow her child up, but at the same time I have to wonder if she didn't mean that it was irresponsible to send him out with a vest that wasn't remotely detonated. Given the warped minds possessed by quite a few, it raises some doubt about the veracity of the statement.

I will be interested to see how the Palestinians react to this latest setback to their cause. This is now the second child who has attempted to hit this checkpoint - and the second one to have failed.

Is there any question as to whether or not the handlers will decide to take care of things themselves? Will they decide that it's just not working to send a child to do a "man's job" (as if suicide terrorism can be called a "man's job")?

Does anyone actually believe that they would even consider self-immolation? Especially when it's that comfy sitting around sending others off to their untimely deaths?

Sorry, but I don't believe that to be in the murderous mindset.

Unfortunately, so long as the bombers families get more upset that the handlers chose the family idiot than the fact that they were murdering your brother/sister/child/parent/etc., I don't really think that anything will change.

Unrighteous indignation is just wrong.