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MAHNAZ SHABBIR ON ISRAELI AGGRESSION
U.S. must stop bloodshed, destruction in Lebanon AS I SEE IT
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As the news keeps on coming into our homes of what is
happening in Lebanon, Palestine and Israel, I can’t help but wonder why our country keeps silent about
the atrocities that are mounting on a daily basis. I always think of the United States as the protector, the rationalizer, the one that will speak for the unspoken.
I and many others who represent the Muslim, Jewish and
Christian communities have worked to bring better relations with each other, but I now wonder: What good does that do when
our elected officials are silent? When our country sits on the sidelines and watches the daily death toll mount? When the
Bush administration is rushing a new delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel?
I believe that no innocent women, men or children should
be killed on either side. I believe that bombing water plants, milk factories, ambulances or residential areas is morally
wrong.
We don’t know too much about Hezbollah, but we do
know it is not the Lebanese government. Why should the people of Lebanon pay with their lives and their infrastructure for what this group is doing to the Israeli military?
I do not support its missile launchings at Israeli towns, but it appears that whatever it has done is nothing compared to
what the U.S.-made Israeli F-16s have done to Lebanon. When I hear of the body count and injured — is it only me, but doesn’t anyone else see that it is extremely
one-sided?
Since the attacks on Gaza began, I have been quiet. I have not engaged others regarding this latest situation,
hoping it will resolve itself.
Yet when I received word that Doa’a Aldalou, a Palestinian
girl who I and many of us in the Kansas City area have helped over the last couple of years with her surgeries and rehabilitation,
is living in conditions with her family in Gaza with a limited water supply, no electricity and every window in the small
home shattered, I say, why are we letting this happen? How can we sit and watch innocent people who are caught in this crossfire
suffer when the United
States has the power
to do something? This family’s situation is only one example that is replicated hundreds of times.
The United States cannot sit by and encourage a one-sided war. It must go in and broker a real peace settlement.
We have to be the leaders. The world is watching us, and we cannot remain silent any longer.
Mahnaz
Shabbir is past president of the Heartland Muslim Council. She lives in Stilwell. | 
