By Larry Gordon
It was a hot and sunny few days, like the others during this penetratingly scorching summer in Israel. In the city of Bet El, just outside Jerusalem, bulldozers and riot police did their thing as Israel’s High Court of Justice ordered the immediate demolition of 24 unoccupied apartments on the outskirts of the community. In the center of Jerusalem, an obviously deranged man in chassidic garb stabbed six people marching in a “gay pride” parade. On Sunday, one of those victims—a 16-year-old girl—died.
In the meantime, someone, or perhaps a number of people, set a home ablaze in Duma, a Palestinian town near Jerusalem and near the key Arab town of Ramallah. A young child died in the fire and others were injured. There is something out of sync and incongruous, even though these acts are condemnable and repugnant, to the ease with which all sides seem to relish rushing to utter the words “Jewish terrorists” when referring to the perpetrators of this awful attack. As of this writing, no one has been apprehended. So from a legal and proper perspective, it is premature to talk about what happened in such definitive terms.
But even if it is Jews who will be apprehended and tried for this terrible act of murder, how can anyone be so certain that it was an act of terror? We do not know and will not know until someone is tried and convicted or confesses to the crime. In the meantime, whoever it is should also be considered innocent until proven guilty and not the other way around.
And, just as importantly, as some have suggested, if this is found to be an act of terror by Jews, keep in mind there are thousands of such acts perpetrated by Arabs against Jews. That is in no way to be used to justify what occurred. There should, however, be a parity applied to the fashion in which these situations are perceived and represented to the media. On Sunday, Prime Minister Netanyahu reached out to President Abbas asking that together they fight all forms of terror. There was no response from the Palestinian side.
For example, when a young man from Judea and Samaria is shot at point-blank range in his face and killed by Arab perpetrators, it takes days for Israeli investigators and authorities to figure out whether the attack was criminal or nationalistic. If the Arab attacker wants the victim’s car or money, then it’s just a mugging or criminal attack. Only if they are intent on murdering Jews because they feel Jews are taking their land or something like that, then, and only then, can we conclude that it is an act of terror.
In this case, at this point the perpetrators have not even been identified; nevertheless, all we hear from just about every direction are the words “Jewish terror” or “settler terror.” President Obama and others in his administration absolutely refuse to utter the phrase “Islamic terror” based on his insistence that it disparages the great Islamic religion which is overwhelmingly peaceful.
The liberal media share the president’s reluctance to attach the words radical or terror to the word Islam. In Israel last week, absorbing all the breaking news, it struck me that there was no reluctance or hesitation whatsoever to refer to what took place in the Arab town of Duma as settler or Jewish terror.
What was particularly disheartening was the way in which Jewish leaders were quick to condemn Jewish terror. Catching that make-the-Jews-look-violent wave was Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who threatened to sue Israel in the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Is he kidding? The man who has presided over hundreds if not thousands of violent attacks against Jews is incensed and bent on seeking justice. Keep in mind that this is before anyone has been apprehended for the crime.
The whole situation is beginning to sound like an Eric Garner or Michael Brown scenario, where the essential objective is a payday. It doesn’t matter from whom. It can be Israel, the U.S., or the UN—as long as somewhere down the line there is a payment coming to compensate in some fashion for the loss. In our case, the objective is for Israel to pay, but not necessarily with money. Here the currency is getting Israel to cower and retreat—preferably from territory. That’s the payday the world is so thirsty for.
The sense here in Jerusalem from the taxi drivers and others that I’ve randomly polled is that Israel would be able to withstand the intense pressure if it could also somehow resist collapsing from within. For some bizarre reason, as long as the Arabs are doing the killing and the Jews doing the dying, everything seems OK and is going according to plan.
When an Arab driver runs over and kills or injures Israeli civilians, or stabs a Jew near the Damascus Gate, there is little comment or reaction—except that the UN and the U.S. urge both sides to act with restraint. If some out-of-control Jewish teenagers commit a dastardly crime—as might be the case here—it is cause for the entire Jewish nation and Jews the world over to be maneuvered into a position that warrants national introspection and soul-searching.
Apparently to the Obama administration, what people say has either little or a great deal of meaning, depending on who is proclaiming what. When Prime Minister Netanyahu said prior to the last Israeli elections that there would be no Palestinian state as long he was in office, President Obama said that was it. As far as he was concerned, Mr. Netanyahu could not change or withdraw those words. As far as Mr. Obama was concerned, Bibi was therefore opposed to the two-state solution, which meant he was opposed to peace. The president made it clear that he had little regard for someone like that.
When President Rouhani or Ayatollah Khamenei lead thousands in a chant of “Death to America,” the administration’s policy is to just look away. When asked about this as he was testifying before Congress two weeks ago, Secretary of State John Kerry said, “We are going to judge the Iranians by what they do, not by what they say.”
It seems that vicious terrorists get the benefit of the doubt, a lot of wiggle room, and rhetorical maneuverability. Not so for the freely elected and sterling democracy that is the state of Israel. We need to stop being so comfortable and at ease with condemning and ridiculing ourselves. That a mentally ill man from the chassidic community did what he did in Jerusalem last week should not cast aspersions on the hundreds of thousands of people in this country who may dress like and resemble him. And if the perpetrators of the arson murder in Duma prove to be Jews or settlers, that is a far cry from qualifying all people in that category as terrorists. I wish I could write the same thing about radical Islam.
Comments for Larry Gordon are welcome at editor@5tjt.com.