Before former Israel Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, he said something like this: “There will be no peace in the Middle East until Palestine does to its terrorists what we have done to ours.”

Before former Israel Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, he said something like this: “There will be no peace in the Middle East until Palestine does to its terrorists what we have done to ours.”

Several people had already told me as much, but it was only about a few hours into the flight that the real insanity of this trip really dawned on me. As far as I know, I am going to be spending more time on the way to the airport, back from the airport, and on the airplane than I will be spending at the actual place I am visiting. This seems like madness.

In 1931, George Orwell wrote a magnificent essay simply entitled, “A Hanging.” That piece is a hauntingly simple story of a prison execution. There is no fantasy in the dying and we are made real and substantial witnesses.
