King Henry VIII beheaded Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard in the 1500s. The charges were specious but it was Henry’s country. Priests prayed for Boleyn and Howard on the scaffold. There was no video, only a huge turnout.
ISIS released a video showing the hideous decapitation of American journalist Steven Joel Sotloff on Sept. 2. Experts suspect Sotloff was murdered on or around Aug. 16, when a faceless man in a black cloak beheaded US journalist James Foley. We’ll never know for sure.
All we do know is that two innocent, intelligent, dedicated men whose only crime was reporting on Syria were mutilated by a sword and uploaded on YouTube.
Earlier, Sotloff’s mother issued an extraordinary plea to her son’s captives. Framing her words in a context that even the most demented Islamist terrorist could understand — or so we thought — her pleas were ignored.
Our response? Shock, followed by a rage so powerful that our hearts beat triple time. Whether we spoke about it or kept it locked inside, our eyes grew hard. Whatever ISIS feels for us, we feel toward ISIS. Maybe people finally get it that Islamic barbarism can only be stopped. There are no “peace negotiations” with ISIS, Hamas, et al.
Copyright © 2014 by the Intermountain Jewish News
