Every Murderer a Poet
The Russian writer Vladimir Voinovich told the story of a dissident exiled during Czarist times to Siberia. There while walking alone through the forest he encountered two Aleuts who murdered him hoping to rob him. Upon searching his body they discovered that all he had with him was a crust of bread.
But as Voinovich tells it, every murderer is also a poet. In his own eyes the murderer of the innocent is a hero. He does not feel guilt, he feels that he has accomplished a great deed. A deed he must relate and mythologize. The two men who had killed an unarmed innocent man were no exception to this rule. They returned to their settlements and drank and composed a ballad telling of the time they encountered a huge Russian giant in the woods who attempted to murder them and how they bravely defended themselves and slew him.
They went from settlement to settlement telling the story, singing the ballad and drinking. Eventually the story came to the ears of a Russian police officer who ordered them arrested and interrogating them obtained the true story of how the two of them ambushed an unarmed man in the woods and killed him for the money he didn't have.
Gaza and the Arab world today too is filled with poets. Samir Kuntar who murdered a little girl is a national hero in Lebanon and Gaza. The suicide bombers who murder people eating in pizza stores and cafes are martyrs. The terrorists who drive by shooting at cars filled with families are great warriors of Palestine. Every atrocity is a virtue. Every crime an achievement. Every horror a celebration. Every murderer is a poet.