The Blogs: The Window

Light rail in Jerusalem has only two final stops. And between them there are four stops that may become truly final for you. They are located in the Arab areas of Jerusalem. I passed them a few times last month. There was at least one security guard in each car of the light rail as we were riding through those areas, and when one late evening an American Jewish girl who had missed her stop wanted to get off the rail in those unsafe areas of the city, the guard prevented her from leaving the tram until it arrived at the “Jewish stop,” and then he got off the tram with her.

This is how a window in Jerusalem light rail looks. As you sit there looking at this window that had been obviously hit by the stones thrown at the tram by the Arabs at one of those four stops, your neighbors in the tram may be many Arabs traveling to and from those four stops into the city. They sit, and chat, and check their cell phones… and board and leave the tram at any stop without worrying about being hit by a stone or, even worse, lynched due to their national origin.

As it turned out this week, and as many of us who carefully follow the news from Israel have known all along, no matter what stop you’re on, your life is as fragile as that of a butterfly. And you don’t have to be a soldier fighting on the battlefield – you only need to be Jewish. That will seal your destiny. You may be as young as a 3 months old baby girl to be hit by a car that would deliberately veer to kill the innocent passengers standing at one of the tram stops.

The world gives Peace Prizes to murderers without even a shadow of a doubt. The world is silent when anything like the above tragedy happens. The world forgets history but it doesn’t mean the future of the world will remain a mystery.

“Get ready for the future: it is murder.”

: A window in Jerusalem Light rail car.