Three Israeli
teenagers – Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach — were
kidnapped and murdered in cold blood on their way home from school, only
because they were Israeli Jews. Their Palestinian Arab murderers, as
identified by Israel, did not know their victims and they did not care –
the objective was to attack some hated Israelis, and perhaps exchange
them or their bodies for jailed murderers. Any random Jews would do.
So it has been
for some 100 years in this long war against Jewish national sovereignty
and equality among the nations. Long before the 1967 war and the
“occupation” provided an excuse for hate and murder, such acts of
inhuman violence were common. In 1929, when the Jewish community of
Hebron was massacred (ethnically cleansed in modern parlance), there was
no cycle of violence — this was an entirely unilateral act.
In November 1947, when all Arab leaders
rejected the minimalist UN Partition Plan and launched a wave of mass
terror against the Jewish community, there was no cycle. And the 1967
war, which led to the subsequent “occupation”, was triggered by Nasser’s
renewed effort to destroy the Jewish state, and not part of an
action-reaction cycle.
Similarly, today, there is no “cycle of
revenge,” as cliched journalists, diplomats and self-proclaimed human
rights activists often claim. A cycle means symmetry, automatic
tit-for-tat, mindless action and reaction, in which all sides, and none,
can be held morally responsible.........
No comments:
Post a Comment