Leprous role models

Dan Margalit

Every person has a name, the poet Zelda Mishkovsky wrote. So does every murderer. A name that was given by God, parents, neighbors, society and fate. I slowly read the names of the 26 terrorists that Israel is releasing from jail as part of the renewal of diplomatic negotiations with the Palestinians and, lo and behold, all of them have more than one name. Each of these killers will carry the mark of Cain on their foreheads forever. 

One killed a Holocaust survivor for no reason. Another axed to death an elderly man who was innocently sitting on a bench. Two others kidnapped and murdered two victims, stabbing them 24 times. I could go on, but there is only more death.

I tried to find anything positive about the murderers. Not only for their sakes, but for mine. After all, if they killed for ideological reasons, if they were self-styled freedom fighters, then it would be easier, to some extent, to accept the bitter injustice that their release represents to the bereaved families of their victims. But, ultimately, these are heinous people, whose acts were in line with the biblical story to which the poet Rachel Bluwstein was referring when she said she was not willing to receive good news from lepers.

They are different from us, even if this truth sounds condescending. Never in our history were we like them, except for a very few individuals who did not become part of our national myth and ethos. The Haganah lost fighters as it blew up bridges connecting the land of Israel to its neighbors and brought homeless Holocaust survivors to their homeland under the dark of night, away from the watchful eyes of the foreign British ruler. Irgun fighters fell in attacks on British facilities, like the Ramat Gan police station and the Acre prison, and some went to the gallows after being wounded and falling into captivity.

David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Sneh, Menachem Begin and Eitan Livni did not support personal terrorism, despite the wretched condition of the Jewish people who were crying out for national sovereignty after the Holocaust. Was there a problem with Lehi (the Stern Gang)? Yes, occasionally, such as when Lehi assassinated Lord Moyne in Cairo in 1944 (an act that was unacceptable in the eyes of the other underground groups). But such acts did not characterize the national struggle.

This does not mean that there is justification for terrorist attacks on Israeli soldiers. And there is certainly no justification for groups of settlers (like the Jewish Underground or the Bat Ayin cell) who acted like terrorists and attacked innocent Palestinians. Inappropriate behavior toward the Palestinians cannot be dismissed and the B'Tselem organization is more than legitimate, even when Israeli society disagrees with its claims. These and other issues are important in and of themselves, but they are irrelevant.

It pains us to release 104 terrorists, partly because of the means they used to kill Jews indiscriminately and partly because one needs a unique personality structure to be able to murder an old man sitting on a bench, using a heavy tool to deliver blow after blow, again and again. Ponder for a moment to whom the Palestinians will one day look as the national symbols of their past fight. Axe murderers and child stabbers? Those are leprous role models.