On a fine autumn day on a still green soccer field somewhere in America, golden and red leaves flutter to the ground like an unchained melody. I see children shouting and playing in the sun, carefree and happy. It is such a fine autumn day that instead of searching for the sun to warm me, I search for the shade to cool me. The panorama of what stretches out before me is alive and vivid and full of a rainbow of colors.

But as I sit watching, I can't help think of the scene I saw earlier on TV where doctors in an emergency room somewhere in Occupied Palestine frantically tried to save the life of a young Palestinian who was shot and seriously wounded in a demonstration against Israeli soldiers. One well-built doctor began to revive the youth by frantically pushing his hand down hard on the boy's chest and then releasing it, so he could keep his heart beating. But the doctor's angry battle to save the life of the young martyr was hopeless. A crowd of other doctors and nurses huddled around the body, doing everything they could too to bring this child back to the woes of his world.

In the same room, while nurses and doctors desperately tried to save the boy's life, his older brother sat in an adjoining room, burying his head in his hands dreading the inevitable outcome. When he heard people shouting, "It's no use, he's dead," the brother collapsed and his whole body shook with sobs.

Somewhere in America, while some Palestinian children die, other more fortunate children not too much younger than the child who so tragically lost his life in an emergency room a world away, tangle over a soccer ball. Across the carpet of green, dry brown and yellow leaves crumble onto the sea of grass. It is difficult for me to comprehend why there has to be such a cruel contrast where Palestinian children have to fight for their lives and for their freedom in an indifferent world against an armed Israeli militia who does its best to kill, mutilate and silence them without conscience.

Back to me sitting somewhere in America, where the trees changing leaves to golds and ambers silently watch over the melee of kids and parents. The sun shines favorably down on the innocence of youth in a very non-innocent country.

It is a country where dogs fattened by bountifuls of chemical commercialized dog food are taken out for walks. Dogs that lead better lives than many people do in underdeveloped countries. Certainly in such a country as Palestine where children must die in the name of freedom. Yet, it is a country too where homeless Americans search trash bins in hopes of finding a morsel to eat or a tin can to sell for a penny or two. It is a country where fake politicians bargain over who can castigate Palestinians the most and who can demand that the US no longer give them any more money as if the Palestinian citizens had ever been fortunate enough to get any money in the first place. No politician ever dares to mention that it is Israel that gets billions and billions of American dollars and the latest weapons in order to preserve their Zionist state and in order to kill off more of the indigenous inhabitants of the patches of what is left of Palestinian territory.

It is a country where women like Hilary Clinton have sold their souls to the devil while they denounce the Palestinian children dying in hospitals where medical supplies are scarce. In sharp contrast, Palestine is a place filled with newly dug graves watered by the tears of mothers who will not have the luxury of watching their children grow up at all.

But America is a country where pampered and spoiled American children are carted off to soccer games or basketball games or other sports and indulged in all the ways a child could be indulged while children of lesser circumstances do not have that luxury of being a participant in a leisurely game in a leisurely world where the greatest concern of such children is what cartoon to watch or what video game to buy.

I cannot understand why any child must die. Life is so precious, life should be so beautiful. Why are Palestinian children abused, crippled and killed just because they happen to be born Palestinian? Why should Jewish children whose parents had their own homes in other countries take away what is rightfully Palestinian? Why do world leaders condone the killing of Palestinian children but are outraged when one or two Israeli soldiers are killed?

I see the contrast and it pains me deeply. I taste the tears of Palestinian mothers crying for their dead or wounded children. I see American children chase after the soccer ball and hear their screams of delight. I feel the last of the Indian summer sunshine warm me but when people smile at me, I feel the shallowness of their smiles chill my very being, for it is the same people who condone either by ignorance or by willfully distorting the truth, what is happening a world away to children who deserve to be as happy as children anywhere else on God's good earth.