PALESTINIAN MAN TO SERVE FIVE LIFE SENTENCES FOR GRUESOME FOGEL FAMILY SLAYING

They had names; Ehud, Ruth.  Yoav, Elad, and Haddas.


    It's enough to bring tears to my eyes. It's enough to make me feel sick to my stomach. It's enough to trigger a rant on a blog. But it's never enough to make me act, which is always enough to make me disgusted with that fact, and with myself.
    They were men, but just barely. There were two of them. Two monsters. Amjad and Hakim were their names. They were Palestinian, but that doesn't matter now. Remorseless monsters; and I have no pitty for them.
    One family. Five were happy, five loved each other, and five were alive, but now five are dead. One father stabbed to death. One mother shot while running away. One 11 year old daughter stabbed in the throat. One 4 year old son stabbed in the heart. One 3 month old baby girl, stabbed while sleeping in her crib. They were Israeli, but that doesn't matter now.  One dead family; and I hurt desperately for them.
   They saw the children first, saw them through the window outside. With knives wielded, they invaded the home, and ended two short lives. They saw the parents next. They were not as fragile. They were not as weak. They put up a fight, but a knife and a gun were unfair advantages. Their lives ended within minutes of their children's. The monsters ran, filled with fear of capture. They hid and waited. They then regained confidence, went back with pride. Walking around the bodies, smiling, creeping through the defiled home with haughty laughs and victorious snarls. It was then that they discovered their final victim. Perhaps she had woken. Perhaps she had cried, wanting milk or attention. Perhaps she was scared. Perhaps she cried when the knife went through her back. Perhaps she screamed. Perhaps she died quickly. Perhaps she didn't. She may have done many things, but nothing she did saved her from the monsters. Their hearts were so hard, the cries of an infant could not soften them. This child had a name, she had a life, she had a future, but the monsters did not care. Little Haddas should have feared monsters under her bed or in her closet, not monsters that were once of her own kind, not the monsters that were once men.
    So often we hear stories like this, and we (of course) are saddened. But that sadness fades. We pout and say how awful, but deep down we are rejoicing. Breathing a sigh of relief that it happened to some other family on the other side of the world; not to us. In time, most likely days or hours even minutes, we forget. We forget until another tragedy comes and reminds us once again how lucky we are, how human we are, but we always seem to forget. We don't give victims faces or names, we don't want to know or want feel for them on a personal level, but this response only natural. We want to protect ourselves from pain. But they do have faces, and they do have names, even though we don't like to acknowledge that. I feel for them. Some will say I feel too much, and I'm that is true, but I don't ever want to stop feeling. I don't want to sit idly by and cry for how far man has fallen, but then wipe my eyes and forget. I want to change. I want change the core of man. I don't want to become the monster.
    I want so many things, but if only I had the strength to act.

They had names.



>>>http://www.theblaze.com/stories/palestinian-man-to-serve-five-life-sentences-for-gruesome-fogel-family-slaying/ <<<