Beth Schiemer – 7/28/06

This page was last updated on July 28, 2006.

My hands; Beth Schiemer; Beaver County Times; July 28, 2006.

Ms. Schiemer once had a book published (“The Veil,” 2002). That may explain the letter’s language.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“I saw my hands today in the Middle East.

“I don’t know if they were Lebanese hands or Israeli hands. They were the hands of a mother as she comforted her 8-month-old daughter. She held her child and caressed her bare back as I have done so many times to my beautiful daughter.

“In a nearby bed, her 9-year-old son shook with pain as he cried out for his mother. Her hands are the only comfort she can offer him as he lies badly burnt and blinded by the bomb that killed his father and wounded his family. I saw my handsome boy lying in that bed shaking with pain and fear.

“Does it matter whether those were Lebanese or Israeli hands? To those who teach the lessons of hatred, it matters a great deal. To those who teach there is only one way to follow God, it matters a great deal.”

[RWC] I must be one of “those who teach the lessons of hatred” because I believe “it matters a great deal.”

The government of Lebanon allows Hezbollah to operate freely within its borders and Lebanese civilians accept rent money from Hezbollah to allow Hezbollah to store weapons in their homes. While Israel targets Hezbollah and its enablers (innocent civilians are hit by accident), Hezbollah specifically targets innocent civilians with shrapnel-containing rockets.

It never ceases to amaze me when people like Ms. Schiemer try to draw some kind of moral equivalence between the Israeli military and Hezbollah, the U.S. military and terrorists, et cetera.

“To that mother, hatred does not matter. To that mother, her only thoughts of God are that God heal and comfort her children.”

[RWC] How does Ms. Schiemer know what that mother felt? Lest we forget, anti-Israel mothers routinely strap bombs on their kids and send them into Israel on suicide missions. To the best of my knowledge, Israeli mothers don’t do that.

“Tonight I saw my hands in the Middle East, for I am only a mother as well.”

[RWC] What difference does it make that Ms. Schiemer is a mother?