After a few weeks of unity in Israeli society, the “moral” counter-attack has begun. From this point on, we citizens of Israel are all being portrayed as responsible for the despicable murder of Muhammad Abu Khdeir.
Murdered teen Mohammed Abu Khdeir. (Photo: Flash90)
“Israel, which claims it’s a democracy — this is its true face,” said Member of Knesset Ahmed Tibi, who hurried to have his picture taken with the Arab boy who was badly beaten by Border Police. His constituency understood the message and set its own communities on fire.
This is the obvious: Whoever is found guilty for the horrible, loathsome murder of the Arab teen from Shuafat should face an even harsher punishment than the law calls for. Anyone who supported them or helped them should also be punished, denounced, and thrown out of society. Let’s hope that finding the group will allow us to take care of this cursed gangrene that threatens us all.
But we don’t need a moral stamp of approval from Tibi or Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas or the bunch of hypocrites on the radical Left who are lying in wait and spinning a blood libel, a story that we all, God forbid, wanted the boy killed. You won’t teach us morality. Morality isn’t what is guiding the hypocrites; it’s the desire to bring Israel to its knees and delegitimize it so it won’t be able to defend itself against those who attack it.
Where is the Horror at Murders in Syria, Iraq and Gaza?
That gang didn’t raise a fraction of the international outcry surrounding the current case when three Jewish teens were kidnapped. On the day Muhammad Abu Khdeir was murdered, hundreds of Arabs were killed by their brothers in Syria, in Iraq, and in Gaza. Did anyone hear a word out of Tibi? The world only cares about Jewish murderers; Arab murderers aren’t news. For years the Palestinians and their helpers have managed to infect international media and politics with an anti-Israeli reflex that plays on the old anti-Semitism. Here’s the litmus test — try to find the same measure of fear and horror about the young Jewish woman Shelly Dadon, who turned out to have been murdered by an Israeli Arab.
Arab-Israeli Member of Knesset Ahmed Tibi, interviewed on Channel 2, refused to label kidnapping of Israeli boys terrorism. (Photo: Hadas Parush/Flash90)
And now for a comparison: There is none. While in our case we are talking about the filthy margins of society, which is denouncing their crimes and wishing every evil in the world upon them, our neighbors who kills Jewish babies are admired — public squares are named after them, school materials laud their mission, and there is no condemnation other than the toothless: “We condemn any murder of innocents,” which really means “but the Jews who were killed weren’t innocent.”
When the kidnapping of the Jewish teens was announced, sweets were handed out in Ramallah in celebration. Israeli culture, in contrast, does not sanctify death. Israeli public opinion is uniformly appalled at the murder. And one last observation: Every rocket that lands in the Negev is also a murder attempt, and should meet an appropriate response.
This opinion piece by Dror Eydar was published in Israel Hayom.