As the U.S. continues to debate whether the country should attack Syria to punish the Syrian government for using chemical weapons, a Palestinian man whose family was killed in the chemical attack provides an interesting perspective.
11 members of Ahmed al-Hurani's family lived in a house in the Damascus suburb hit by the chemical attack. Everyone in the house, including al-Hurani's brother, his brother's wife, and nine sons, daughters, in-laws, and grandchildren, were killed.
But in an interview with NPR, al-Hurani said he doesn't think it makes a difference that chemical weapons were used:
Bassam al-Hurani [Ahmed's son] says members of the extended al-Hurani family have been killed in conflicts before. Two cousins died fighting Jewish militias in the 1940s. A niece was killed during a confrontation between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers in Jenin.
Several other relatives, all children, died in a conventional attack in Syria earlier this year. Ahmed al-Hurani says it hardly matters that these latest deaths were from poison gas.
"I don't see a difference," he says. "To me, all weapons kill."
al-Hurani also doesn't know whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ordered the attack.
And, perhaps most importantly, the al-Huranis don't think that strikes by the U.S. would be "illegal" and would only make things worse:
"I think other countries should have worked on solving the crisis in Syria much earlier," Bassam al-Hurani says. "In my opinion, America's intention to hit Syria is illegal. It's not right. America should stand in the middle and stop the fighting, rather than escalating it."
His father agrees.
"I only see a lot of harm coming out of such an attack," Ahmed al-Hurani says. "It will be a world war. Israel, Jordan, Turkey — everybody will be affected."
You can read the whole interview with the al-Huranis on NPR.org.
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