I wrote this article on 11 September 2006

I wrote this article on 11 September 2006

9/11 saw thousands of innocent people killed in cold blood by an act of terrorism. Yet the impulse to retaliate has already shown us why a ‘war on terror' cannot be won. "Why would other people," asks David Kean, "not feel similar emotions and impulses when they are attacked, when their innocent people are bombed or shot in the name of somebody else's ‘justice'?"

In the words of Shylock, in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice,

"He hath disgraced me ... laughed at my losses ... scorned my nation, and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? ... If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?" (The Merchant of Venice, Act 3, Scene 1)

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