Why Should a Child Be Born?

The Jewish/Palestinian conflict in the Middle East goes on and on without resolution, and in the course of the tactics of delay thousands of people have suffered and died. Those who have suffered the most have been women and children, and at times entire villages have been destroyed. Adherents of both sides of the conflict cry "foul" and accuse their opponents of injustice and intransigence. An Israeli bus and its passengers are blown up by a suicide bomber, a Palestinian village is bombed in response. Land owned by a Palestinian farmer is confiscated in order to build a Jewish settlement. While politicians jockey back and forth over who is right and wrong and over what is right and wrong, children die from dastardly injuries and malnutrition, and people are unjustly imprisoned. One wonders where is the cry for human dignity? Where is the cry for compassion and humane behavior? The plea of these poems is that the adherents of the three Abrahamic faiths of the Middle East--Jews, Christians, and Muslims--in the midst of conflicts that have precipitated the persecution, starvation, and death of thousands, particularly children, acknowledge their common humanity and work together for peace and harmony.