"Patience"

This article in Maan today was an appropriate and extremely saddening followup to my post on Dimona earlier today. Killing is killing. The quote made by the grandmother in a time of unimaginable sorrow and perhaps anger does bring me a tiny bit of comfort and hope. She asks God for what? Patience. This just does not seem to fit the image we are shown by the Western media everyday of Palestinians and Gaza in general. Where is the screaming woman promising to sacrifice all of her children and grandchildren to "kill the Jews?" This woman wants peace, as many Israelis and Palestinians do.

My greatest hope right now is that Israel with exercise restraint and not invade the Gaza Strip. So many more will die needlessly. Will they have enough patience?

A 5 month old baby boy. Just more "collateral damage?" A sad, but understandable casualty in the "War on Terror?" Absolutely not. Murder at its most technologically advanced and morally ambiguous. What of the pilot who fired the missile? Is there remorse? Will he hold his own baby boy in his arms tonight, never knowing he took another man's greatest love with the push of a button?

The one word that keeps running through my head from the grandmother: "Patience." There is just so much meaning and symbolism. The very thing that is running out so quickly on both sides is what this grieving woman prays for.