TWO BABIES

Two babies were in the news this past week. One's survival was dubbed a "miracle" because she lived through the horrific tsunami when so many others died:

The four-month-old girl had been swept from her parents’ arms in the shattered village of Ishinomaki when the deadly wave crashed into the family home.

For three days, the child’s frantic family had believed she was lost to them for ever.

But yesterday, for a brief moment, the horrors of the disaster were brightened by one helpless baby’s story of survival.
Soldiers from the Japanese Defence Force had been going from door to door pulling bodies from the devastated homes in Ishinomaki, a coastal town northeast of Sendai.

Most of the victims were elderly, unable to escape the destructive black tide.

But for this precious moment, at least, it was only the child who mattered to the team of civil defence troops who found her.

The other baby...well read for yourself:

A terrorist infiltrated the West Bank settlement of Itamar, southeast of Nablus, early Saturday and stabbed five family members to death....

Paramedic Kabaha Muayua was among the first responders at the site and described the horrific scene he encountered.

“We could not help the first four stab victims. Following an inspection of the scene I spotted an infant of about three who still had a pulse. We engaged in lengthy resuscitation efforts but had to pronounce him dead,” he said. “The murder scene was shocking. Kids’ toys right next to pools of blood.”

Dennis Praeger writes about the second baby and his family:

The human being does not have to learn to hate. It seems to come pretty naturally. Nor does the human being have to learn to murder, steal, or rape. These, too, seem to be in the natural human repertoire of evils.

But the human being does have to learn to hate children and babies, and to regard the torture and murder of them as morally desirable acts. It takes years of work to undo normal protective human attitudes toward children.

That is precisely what the Nazis did and what significant parts of the Muslim world have done to the word “Jew.” To them, the Jew is not just sub-human, the Jew — and his or her children — is sub-animal.

Two babies; two precious miracles of life, separated by nation, culture, language and fate.

One survived the horrors and impassive devastation of Nature unscathed, and was reunited with family as an entire country celebrated life. The other did not survive the malignant evil of men, who were impassioned by hate and spurred by a dysfunctional religion; as an entire country celebrated death.