(August 24)
On Thursday night, a Palestinian terrorist climbed through the window of the Hebron home
of Rabbi Shlomo Ra'anan and stabbed him twice in the heart.
Yesterday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that "the blood of Jews will not
be abandoned,whether they live in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, or Hebron."
Breathing reality into that statement is a strategic and moral challenge facing Israel
and the peace process as a whole.
Ra'anan was the fifth terrorist victim in Judea and Samaria since April, indicating a
shift in the focus of Palestinian terrorism towards Israelis living in the territories.
After Shlomo Liebman and Harel Bin-Nun were murdered at Yitzhar (near Nablus) on August 5,
former Rabin adviser Eitan Haber wrote in Yediot Aharonot, "Israeli citizens are
murdered in cold blood ... and half the nation, maybe more, shrug their shoulders and
their eyes are dry."
Though Haber characterizes any separation between "our dead and their dead"
as a "terrible thing," he and others effectively blame the
"patronizing" attitudes of the settlers for their own isolation. This logic is
eerily similar to that of antisemites who blame their attitudes towards Jews on a Jewish
superiority complex. Both attitudes are unacceptable stereotypes, even if, like almost any
stereotype, piecemeal examples can be brought to support them.
Whether or not one shares the political leanings of Israelis who have chosen to live in
Judea and Samaria, there is no denying that many have sacrificed safety and comfort to
fulfill what they regard as a patriotic and religious mission.
A large majority of Israelis would agree that a return to the pinched pre-1967 borders
would be unacceptable; that same majority should credit the settlement enterprise with
ensuring that Israel will retain significant chunks of the West Bank in a final-status
agreement.
It is unacceptable for Israel to react any less vigorously against terrorism in the
periphery than it does against the same barbarism in the heart of the cities. A number of
ministers have rightly pointed out that if terrorism pays, it will increase. Though
security around the settlements obviously should be increased, the key element of Israel's
response should be to more aggressively pursue the terrorists themselves, even if that
entails infringing on the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority.
By all accounts, the PA is exercising only a small fraction of its capabilities in the
fight against terror. If the PA is only weakly working to prevent terrorism generally; it
is all but encouraging terrorism against Israelis in the territories.
The current spate of attacks began shortly after Yasser Arafat himself said, "The
blessed intifada must be intensified, we must burn the ground under the feet of the
[settlers]."
Arafat's silence in the wake of the attacks in Yitzhar and Hebron is deafening. His
lack of condemnation of these murders can only be taken as an endorsement; a renewal of
the infamous "green light" for terrorism.
Though in general it may be counterproductive to suspend negotiations following
terrorist acts, it is hard to see how negotiations can continue without Arafat's
condemnation of terrorism, not to mention the lack of any systematic action against the
infrastructure behind it.
At the same time, in a classic example of how extremists are often their own worst
enemy, yesterday's outburst by Baruch Marzel against President Ezer Weizman succeeded in
distracting from the need to keep the pressure on the PA to fight terrorism.
By quickly going to Hebron for condolence call, Weizman did more to symbolize the lack
of distinction between Israelis there and in Tel Aviv than any action the government could
take. Marzel's welcoming of Weizman with personal insults and accusations has stirred up a
spate of calls for his indictment under laws against incitement.
As distasteful as Marzel's outburst was, however, it is incongruous that those quickest
to call for the prosecution of Israelis for "incitement" over insults, seem
indifferent to Arafat's overt threats of violence.
On May 15, the lead editorial of the official PA newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida,
declared, "We shall uproot the settlement occupation ... and instill our fear within
them. We are not frustrated so long as the intifada renews itself in our veins ...".
On July 29, Arafat himself told the Jerusalem Committee of the Islamic Conference in
Morocco that Israel is "determined to destroy" the mosques on the Temple Mount
and "replace them by building Solomon's temple," and called for a "jihad to
defend Jerusalem from [this] Zionist plot."
This week, in direct violation of the Oslo Accords, Arafat's security chief Jibril
Rajoub washed his hands of fighting terrorism against settlers, claiming that "if
they want peace and security, they should move to Tel Aviv."
Marzel's grandstanding should be condemned, and deprived of the light of publicity.
Arafat's true-blue incitement, by contrast, should set off alarm bells, not just in the
government, but among the opposition and international supporters of the peace process.
We have seen the deadly consequences of incitement, both among Israelis and
Palestinians. Silence, both by Arafat regarding terrorism and by peace process supporters
regarding Palestinian incitement, can be just as deadly. |
