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Guest Column

Editorial

Sandy Hook Aftermath

Love is a matter of national security.

T

his week we are a nation of kin-
dred American spirits in a state
of collective grief. We are a post-
Connecticut school-shooting nation.
This week we give our children extra
kisses while our hearts break for the par-
ents who will never be whole again in the
wake of the Dec. 14 shooting at Sandy
Hook Elementary School in Newtown,
Conn., where a lone gunman murdered 20
children and six adults. Our lips pressed
against our children's foreheads — we kiss
the Connecticut parents' children through
ours.
This week we are grieving the loss of
basic trust in the safety of our schools as
we question whether we can
trust that the children we put on
the school bus in the morning
will safely return to us in the
afternoon. We grieve the assur-
ance of believing that the world
outside of our homes is basically
a sane and sound destination.
Even the president is griev-
ing on national TV, shedding
tears in real time as he discloses
the day's event. For this, I am
grateful. I trust a president who
grieves when children die. He
knows there is no better place,
no higher cause; he wants his children
alive here and now.
We ask in countless conversations:
• "Does this happen in other places?"
We remind each other of Norway in July
2011; Germany on March 11, 2009; and
France on March 19, 2012. But when we
really look at mass school shootings as
a phenomena since the wave began in
1996, it is unavoidable to confront the
reality that there is something uniquely
American about this kind of violence.
• "Why doesn't this happen in Israel
where there are young people armed
with machines guns literally every-
where?" Have you shopped the streets of
Tel Aviv or sat in a Jerusalem cafe? Within
sight, there are machine guns slung over
the arms of hundreds of teenagers and
young adults. To add to the risk, these
same "kids" take their weapons home
when they are off duty. When I was a
young adult living in Israel, my Israeli
boyfriend brought his M-16 home, and we
stored it for the weekend in our broken
washing machine.

Children whose lives
are revered learn how
to revere the lives of
others.

to hide if a gunman enters their school
building? Does it lie in mental health ser-
vices or anti-bullying campaigns?
Certainly, in part, it does. But these are
not real cures. The cure for the nation lies
where it always has — closer to home.
I want to suggest that
the solution rests in lov-
ing our children. Children
who are loved and nurtured
do not murder other chil-
dren. Children whose lives are
revered learn how to revere the
lives of others.
Children who have a sense
of community and feel safe
emotionally, physically and
spiritually in their homes do
not murder people.
Erich Fromm, a Jew who
fled Nazi Germany, spent his
life trying to understand the irrationality
of mass human behavior. In his book The
Art of Loving, he writes:
"Is love an art? Then it requires knowl-
edge and effort ... (People) are starved for
it; yet hardly anyone thinks that there is
anything that needs to be learned about
love:"

Power Of Love

We have a lot of learning to do about how
to love our children so that they learn how
to love themselves. We have a lot of work
to do in transforming our communities
into sanctuaries where parents and chil-
dren know they belong.
We need to be teaching love as an art
form in our elementary schools and in
our universities. There should be entire
departments devoted to love studies.
We should be leading experts in how
to build ties, heal alienation, engender
altruism and create communities that are
extensions of home.
This is the cure. Herein lies the hope. It
is urgent. Love has become a matter of
national security.

❑

What Is The Answer?
Does the solution lie in gun control? Or
in metal detectors, alarms and guards —
and drilling into children where and how

Rabbi Tamara Kolton, Ph.D., of Farmington Hills,

is a spiritual leader and psychologist in Metro

Detroit.

Hasty Timing Damages
Latest Settlement Plan

I

srael's timing in advancing plans to
build 3,000 new housing units in the
West Bank and eastern Jerusalem left
a lot to be desired. Formulating the plans
to build in the E-1 area between eastern
Jerusalem and the West Bank settle-
ment of Ma'ale Adumim immediately after
the U.N. General Assembly granted the
Palestinian Authority's request to upgrade
the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
to non-member observer state status proved, unfortunately, a worldwide
public relations fiasco.
The UNGA vote is nonbinding and doesn't create a sovereign state
of Palestine. Only the U.N. Security Council has the power to recognize
states; last year, it rejected the PLO's unilateral statehood bid.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu either didn't sense the global out-
cry, even among Israel supporters, to his Cabinet decision or that the
fragile two-state solution is still at play.
England, France, Sweden, Spain and Denmark called in their respective
Israeli ambassadors to condemn the decision. The Arab world proclaimed
that the settlement announcement jettisoned any P.A. return to peace
talks.
For its part, the United States has urged Jerusalem and Ramallah
to hold off on unilateral acts – such as seeking unilateral statehood or
new settlement activity – in the faint hope that direct, bilateral negotia-
tions could resume, in keeping with the Oslo Accords, even though the
Palestinians abrogated them by going to New York City rather than the
eight miles to Netanyahu's office to talk.
Ma'ale Adumim, four miles outside the current municipal borders of
Jerusalem, achieved cityhood in 1991. It boasts 40,000 Israelis, hardly
a renegade town. Planning new housing there isn't the issue. At issue is
Israel's diplomatic blunder in causing the world to perceive the announce-
ment as P.A. punishment for the UNGA vote.
Yes, the P.A. has snubbed the peace process. But Jerusalem riled its
Western supporters and lapsed in sustaining a higher moral standard than
Ramallah by its hurried settlement announcement, which has become an
international lightning rod instead of the reasoned plan it may well be.
Meanwhile, international hypocrisy toward Israel is spiraling. The Assad
regime in Iran-backed Syria is slaughtering its subjects, Iran relentlessly
works toward an atomic bomb, and Hamas has cultivated the black art of
mindlessly attacking Israelis. Yet the world seems more agitated about a
government decision in Jerusalem to add housing in areas every prime
minister since Yitzhak Rabin has asserted would be part of Israel in any
final peace accord.
The claim that Israeli housing within E-1 would cut off Palestinian popu-
lation centers from each other in a future Palestinian state brushes off
that Israel has built substantial infrastructure and bypass roads to con-
nect parts of Jerusalem with parts of the West Bank without traversing
the corridor, reports the Washington-based Israel Project.
Israel couldn't overlook the provocative UNGA vote. Symbolic as it
seemed, the vote elevated the PLO in its PR battle with archrival Hamas.
More importantly, it cracked open a door through which the P.A. could
charge Israeli leaders before the International Criminal Court as war
criminals.
Still, giving Zionist detractors PR ammunition because of yet another
controversial settlement declaration strips Israel of more of its shredding
diplomatic cloak.
It would behoove Israel – more isolated than ever beyond the Jewish
community, the U.S., Canada, parts of Europe and a few other brave
nations – to search deep within its soul so government decisions don't
come across as knee-jerk, while certainly not forgetting it sits in a unsta-
ble region otherwise dominated by incitement, not rapprochement.

❑

December 27 • 2012

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