I feel helpless to do anything productive regarding this situation. But surely there needs to be a community response in support of the victims, in solidarity with Seattle's Jewish community.

Once, in a rural town where I lived for a few months, after a local business was targeted for anti-Semitic violence and vandalism, the local paper printed a full-page Star of David for residents and businesses to display in their windows in solidarity with the victim. I'm not sure something so grand could be pulled off in heterogeneous Seattle where criticism of Israel's military action is so often comingled and confused with anti-Semitism. But maybe.

I've got a little money and a lot of sympathy. I'll be looking for something useful to do with either.

I'm so sorry for the Center and all their employees and the injured women and their families, and for the family of Pamela Waechter. This is an awful, awful thing.

Does anyone see any surprising parallels between this screwed-up killer and that other screwed-up killer from Republican street? Unemployable losers with glaring sexual problems. The streets are teeming with people like this. He can bellow all he wants about how angry at Israel he is, just like Kyle Huff was hugely outraged over the rave scene, but the fact is, it's got nothing to do with Israel or raves: it's about heavily armed no-hopers who can't face up to themselves. Tragic. Why so many in Seattle?

The local Muslim community has spoken out strongly against the shootings. Calling the act "heinous" and the guy a "nutcase."
The Jewish community has been smart and restrained as well.

Does anybody know if there's a fund for the families? It would be great to help out.

Here is a fund that goes to helping the families and children affected by this conflict:

http://www.unicefusa.org/site/c.duLRI8O0H/b.25933/k.AE95/US_Fund_for_UNICEF.htm

Please give generously, and inquire about matching conributions at your work place.

Uh, thanks for the link, Daniel, but that really doesn't have anything to do with helping the victims and families in this incident -- the shooting in Seattle where Jewish women were attacked by an angry loner.

As worthy as your cause might be, it seems a little graceless to hijack this tragedy to pimp an unrelated fund.

The Stranger is a great supporter of the local Jewish community. It's a tough time for Israel and we must all stand together against islamo-terrorists. Israel only wants peace, and this war will bring peace if we are all patient.

David - if you really think that this shooting is unrelated, then you are truly not paying attention to what is going on.

Innocent children and families are dying on both sides of this conflict. I would hope you and others would support the efforts of those in relief efforts.

Josh said, "The Stranger is a great supporter of the local Jewish community. It's a tough time for Israel and we must all stand together against islamo-terrorists. Israel only wants peace, and this war will bring peace if we are all patient."

Patient? You have got to be joking. The only outcome of this war is that more children will grow up hating Israel, with revenge in their hearts for the death of a family member. This war doesn't solve anything. It simply seeds the desperate acts of people like Naveed Haq, or the nameless suicide bombers of the future.

Oh, good grief people. Islamo-terrorists? The seeds of desperate acts? Why must strident jerks take every opportunity to hustle their own little pet neurosis?

This doesn't have to be a referendum on the entire Middle East crisis. It has nothing to do with "Islamo-terrorists" or Zionist transgressions or whatever political bent you want to impose on it. Just get the fuck over yourselves. Have a little respect for the crisis at hand, you fucking jerks.

I just checked with the Jewish Federation, and no fund has been set up for the victims yet, but will be. We can just stay tuned for now.

David - Do no equate a comment that links this shooting to a reaction over events in Lebanon as not having respect for the victims.

Indeed I am saddened by the shooting and the loss of life and the suffering of those wounded. Tragic.

But to not recognize why this happened is to be blind to the realities. It is not to excuse it, it is not to condone, it is simply what it is.

This didn't happen in a bubble. It happened with a backdrop that may not matter in your daily life, but has certainly affected the lives of so many on both sides of the conflict - as well as those caught in the middle of it.

Israel is helping America to rid the world of Islamo-terrorists. There are whole countries full of these idiots in the Middle East. We're lucky to have American bases in Iraq so we can help Israel to go after them. Israel will prevail in Lebanon, we must stand together and be patient. The war will bring peace eventually.

For me to believe that war will bring peace would be a large leap of faith at this point. War in Iraq certainly has not brought peace.

Daniel K's comments are exactly what I was referring to in an earlier post. When someone claiming their actions are based on anger over people "oppressed" by Israel committs a hate crime, people like Daniel K condone it then say (in so many words) that the person, even if what they did was horrible, was acting out a legitimate gripe.
So hey Daniel K, there are a lot of hate crimes against Muslims, do we need to take a good look at the "reality" of why some people hate them enough to do this? What about those who target gays? Blacks? Women? Am I the only one who notices that the supporters of the oppressed in Tibet and Dafur don't kill people the world over in solidarity?

Exactly. David K, shut up. Take your politics somewhere else. This shooting wasn't about Lebanon, it was about a damaged individual. By pimping your issue here, at this time, you're lining up with the shooter and trying to pass off his crime as something other than what it was -- as something justifiable. It's repellent.

Hey now, don't put my first name with that last initial, FNARF. I'd like to keep my identity clean, please.

What happens in Israel has nothing to do with local events. Israel is on the other side of the planet folks. This was just some local unbalanced nutcase confused about how the world works. A war can be happening in Israel and Iraq and sane people here just ignore it and go about our normal lives.

Crap. Sorry Davids everywhere. I meant Daniel K of course.

The people who think the war between Israel and Iran requires local action here in Seattle are perilously, perilously close to siding with the shooter.

Josh is a troll who robotically spouts the same sarcastic pro-Israel message (with slightly varied wordings) whenever the opportunity arises. Do.Not.Feed.The.Troll.

Pimping Unicef? Are you kidding me? It's unnecessarily aggressive to attack someone who chooses to see a bigger picture and totally obscene to refer to him as "pimping" an organization that attempts to save the lives of children. I saw no justification for the terrible murder of that woman and I saw no suggestion that funds should not additionally be given to her family or a memorial fund. It is incredibly extremist and messed up to attack to attack someone based on their assumption that horrific crimes and isolated nut cases are sometimes part of a bigger picture that we all have a responsibility to help rectify. There is never justification to attack rather than challenge people based on their political beliefs or social affiliations, so please don't attack Daniel while he is engaging in whatever other licentious behaviour like whoring himself to the Red Cross. You do not own the sole indignation that people in our community have been hurt, and we all are allowed our means of helping to heal it.

I'm soryy, but how can you (and when I say you, I mean specifically David, Fnarf, etc.) be so blind to say this has nothing to do with Israel.

This has EVERYTHING to do with Israel.

I submit the shooters own words as direct evidence of this. This is not a case of someone saying, "oh yeah, brown skinned man, this is a case of stereotyping".

If anyone should shut up and stop making this into their own personal agenda it's those who are trying to promote this as a Mental Illness defense.

So, Tracy, you admit it: you and the shooter are both trying to "rectify" the situation in the Middle East. Some people give money to Unicef, and other people slaughter Jews in Seattle. As long as you're all working for the cause.

Are you really equating the support of an organization that tries to prevent the deaths of innocent people of any faith or nationality (including holocaust Jews) with supporting murder? If so, I think you are much closer to the extreme and flawed logic of a murderer. I would also donate to Unicef in your memory, maybe it would roust you back from the grave in some righteous indignation to know that some mutilated child was prevented from suffering in agony before dying in memory of your name. Of course, this wouldn't actually rectify bloodshed, but I don't understand why trying to help someone heal is a poor attempt, or how one could remotely compare it to brandishing a gun and killing people. Do you see nothing in the Middle East that needs to be rectified, or is there a certain group in particular that is giving you special joy to see in a bunch of bloody pieces crying over their dead family and destroyed life? Which group is it do you want to see that continue to happen to with--unrectified?

Gee Tracy, perhaps you could use an evaluation if you don't perceive at least the possibility of mental illness involved with someone who walks into a building and shoots six unarmed women whom he knows nothing about and has never previously met. If that makes perfect sense to you, you may have one of a number of serious maladies. If you actually see this as some obvious response to a dispute half way around the world involving a country 1/3rd the size of San Bernardino County and one of it's neighbors, that would probably just be old fashion ignorance, perhaps prejudice.

Tracy, I've lived in the Middle East ( Western Galilee ), practically on the border with Lebanon, and I'll tell you this. The Middle Eastern wars are fueled, ironically, in large part by people like you, and the countries they comprise. Those that have never lived, or even stepped foot in the region but manage to subvert even a local event, most likely perpetrated by an unbalanced loner, as a rational extension of events that have absolutely nothing to do with, nor any other connection to, what is happening over there. There's been more than one serial killer that claimed their actions were caused by talking animals. I suppose you would then be scrutinizing farms for those actions, since, after all, that's what the killers *said* was the problem. When this Haj character exposed himself to women recently at a mall, that was probably a demonstration against Israel, huh?

Daniel K, would you even try to claim that you weren’t making a statement about a dispute overseas? I don't think you are that stupid. And since you obviously were doing so, and since that would most certainly be, at best, a rationalizing of insane actions, perhaps you could offer an apology to this board and the victims of this horrible, gutless, cruel crime. There isn't a good reason, obvious link, natural reaction, fair defense, or any other validation for this. Nor is there for you to desperately try to use the suffering of these six women, and the local Jewish community, to further your twisted politics. If you need to bury your head in the sand, at least do so locally. Tracy might have an extra "hole in the sand" for you.

Obviously people can't read, so I will repeat what I wrote:

---

Do no equate a comment that links this shooting to a reaction over events in Lebanon as not having respect for the victims.

Indeed I am saddened by the shooting and the loss of life and the suffering of those wounded. Tragic.

But to not recognize why this happened is to be blind to the realities. It is not to excuse it, it is not to condone it, it is simply what it is.

This didn't happen in a bubble. It happened with a backdrop that may not matter in your daily life, but has certainly affected the lives of so many on both sides of the conflict - as well as those caught in the middle of it.

---

Was this man unstable? Certainly - it is a mad act to shoot and kill innocent people like he did. There is no excusing it, there is no condoning it.

Was this man angry? Certainly - he said so himself.

Was this man angry at Israel?
Certainly - he said so himself.

Do I think the last two weeks of non-stop fighting in Lebanon had a role to play in his going over the edge? Yes, I do. Again, that is not to suggest I excuse or condone what he did. I DON'T!

But to ignore that is to ignore the most relevant events leading up to a shooting in which the shooter proclaims that he is "angry at Isreal".

I believe I referred to the man as a nut case committing a horrific crime. I supported another blogger's position in donating to a humanitarian organization based on his views. It seems to be a more useful action than making false and inflammatory extrapolations from what others say and doing nothing. I actually have no way of knowing what this man's motives are, and furthermore I don't care why he thought he was doing what he was doing. I think some people feel that based on their own pain, position, and frustration--that they can lash out at others because they have a monopoly on what a just view and a just response is. They will deceive themselves and misrepresent reality in order to perpetuate pain. But some of you seem to already understand this.

Tracy, if you believe the nonsense you've written, you are more dangerous than I originally perceived.

Let's be clear:
1.) Daniel K placed that link as a comment on the dispute in the Middle East.

2.) It's not coincidence that he placed it in this thread, rather than one about infant mortality, child labor, or some other unbiased, unilateral discussion on the welfare of children

3.) He, and you, are an extension of the killers thought pattern, that there should be a connection between the two.

4.) You claim the connection should only be that we divert at least some attention from the six victims and place it on the cause of children in a dispute which the killer claims was the cause. You try to veil this diversionary tactic by claim it's for children, which is disgusting. That’s why children are in the mess they're in. They only become an issue when they fit someone’s agenda, in this case, although you aren't honest enough to be able to face it, is a dispute in the Middle East. Where else can we find your posts concerning the welfare of children?

6.) Those women who were mercilessly shot deserve better than to have you divert even on moment of attention to the sick reasoning of the murderer that shot them.

Haq did the same thing that you Tracy, and Daniel K did; only you two at, admittedly, a much lesser level and, at least, you two attempted to soften and veil the message.

When a murderer claims his reason was anger at Israel’s recent fight with Lebanon, then in a discussion about the victims somebody links to an aid organization whose homepage is focusing on that very dispute ( and an organization that is not only anti Israel, but in fact refuses to even include them in a map of the world, check it out yourself on their website. They always refused to even recognize Israel or it’s citizens. Check out their own maps ), well, weather your brave or intelligent enough to recognize it, your are adding some slight recognition, rationalizing and ultimately normalizing what this coward did. To just add some blithe words “..oh it was horrible..” ..but by the was..the killer says..

dan w - no that's not what either I or I believe Tracy E. is doing.

Nice try though.

It's interesting how it's easier to discuss politics than talk more about what happened or the victims. I don't necessarily think it's wrong but knowing some of the women who were there and how shaken they are, I guess the conflict in the Middle East seems like the least interesting of the topics to me right now. I'm much more interested in hearing about the woman who hid in her office and when she heard the doorknob turn, jumped from the 2nd floor into a dumpster. I hope I have the composure to be as brave as some of these women (and in parallel, some of the victims/would-be victims of the 2112 shooting) have been if put in a similar situation.

I do find the correlation between the two recent shootings a little creepy if nothing else. No matter why you're shooting, if you just heard about someone doing it months ago in Seattle, wouldn't it make you, as a possibly psychotic person, think it was a "good" idea? Shudder.

Thanks, Jenmoon. A little sanity. Not everything is an excuse to pump up a political viewpoint on a complicated issue that the Tracy Es of this world will never grasp. This shooting is a tragedy, and arguing that whether the murderer is, well, you know, right on the issues, just not on the solution, is offensive.

From a certain perspective, Israel is the only thing that matters; Israel is responsible for all that is evil in this world. And this shooter, you know, has a point, he's just going about it the wrong way. It's Israel's fault.

I reject that point of view, and find it repellent. Israel is not to blame for the suffering of these women! My heart goes out to them, and their friends and families.