No bad news

Not even against the backdrop of a dreary 2001 | Joel Belz

You know what kind of news day it is when the most optimistic part of the whole newscast comes from Afghanistan. But that's the way it was a few nights ago with Jim Lehrer's NewsHour.

The lead story was a report on how the anti-Taliban forces appeared to be closing in on Osama bin Laden and on his top aide, Mullah Omar. It was an upbeat report—although the context was pretty grim. Already, the victors in this terrible war were showing how hard it's likely to be for them to get along in the future. Impoverished widows and orphans are everywhere in Afghanistan, but not nearly as many of them now as there probably will be. "It's a tough, tough world," I thought.

But the world got several degrees tougher with the next story—a report on the intensification of Palestinian terrorism against Israel, and Israel's tough response. Here's a sad story that never quits. If you were an editor wanting to work ahead on a front page story for a month from now, a year from now, a decade or even a century from now, just do a headline about the conflict between Arabs and Jews. One huge difference, however, as the year 2002 dawns over Jerusalem is that Islam's reputation as a source for political terrorism has now taken on such somber new dimensions. Another difference is that even after millennia of conflict, resolution appears not closer but farther away. Last week's newscast suggested that Armageddon might be right around the corner. "It is frightening beyond words," said one of the panelists—and nobody ventured to disagree.