Is this something we should be getting used to?
The near-daily stabbings of random Israelis by enraged Palestinians is a new and sickening twist in the ongoing conflict. More than two dozen Israelis have been murdered in these attacks, many of them women. Increasing numbers of the attackers are Palestinian teenagers, some as young as 12 and 13 years old. Many of them are dead, too, shot in self-defense by Israeli soldiers or civilians. Wasted lives, indeed.
Despite these senseless killings, the incessant incitement within Palestinian society continues, spurring poisoned young minds to commit atrocities and encouraging their friends and family to celebrate the murderers as martyrs.
Since the wave of stabbing attacks began last fall, Israeli security forces have struggled with short-term solutions. One thing is certain: Blaming occupation or settlements for this brand of psychopathic hatred of Israeli Jews is absurd. And yet, that is the party line within Palestinian society and beyond.
This week, United Nations Secretary General Ban-ki Moon wrote off the wave of anti-Israeli terror as “human nature,” a natural response to occupation. This is abominable.
That same dangerously cavalier attitude rears its head in other quarters. The Jan. 24 Sunday New York Times ran this headline on page A4: “Palestinian girl, 13, shot dead by Israeli guard.” Only after reading the article do we find out she was running at the guard with a knife. (The online headline was less obfuscating.)
You’d be hard-pressed to find a security force anywhere in the world that would have acted otherwise, but too many in the international media are buying into a distorted picture.
In Chicago last week, enraged protesters shut down a Shabbat reception at the National LGBTQ Task Force convention in Chicago. Rather than letting speakers from a Jerusalem LGBT organization show how they save lives in the only Middle East nation that does not oppress gay people, they instead shouted them down and drove attendees from the room, fearing for their safety.
Apparently, Israeli lives don’t matter, and the truth doesn’t matter.
Except that they do. We say no, we will never get used to stabbings, to murder. We will never tolerate hatred or a denial of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination.
As the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin once said, “Enough of blood and tears. Enough.”