In her op-ed piece of July 23, Jessica Klinger, once of Moorhead and now of Los Angeles, sided with Israel on its current action in Lebanon, but not without some disagreement between "heart" and "head." What decided it was her religion, she stated.
I hope the U.S. government does not take on her role of sectarian partisan in the Middle East. Both sides there have gotten into a permanent wartime mindset - a warrior state vs. guerrilla warriors - and to throw in with one or the other would be an act of further zealotry. No good would come of that to either side or to the world's dominant power, which, in order to serve the good of the whole, has to keep its own interests in mind.
There is a long, rich tradition of nonreligious political thinking that has come down from both East and West. Washington should turn to this when it considers how and what to add to its already huge investment in the region.
Dangers are multiplying with the number of dead. Osama said that it was during the Israeli shelling of Beirut in the early 1980s that he came up with the idea of a direct attack on the United States. I would not, however, advocate timorous inaction. Only strong, impartial action will do.
Klinger should give equal sway to her Yankee heart and head.
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Rodney Nelson
Fargo
