Monday, August 20, 2012

Do I Condemn Violent Acts By Jews Against Arabs?

To paraphrase something I just read,

"This sends out a very dangerous message to teenagers that roller-coaster relationships with violence-prone personalities are edgy and exciting. They're not. The relationship is toxic and unhealthy. Both are in need of help and that is the message that young people should be receiving...It is common for victims to blame themselves for violence...

That, however, was in connection to Rihanna and her opinion of her beating by her boyfriend.

But one lesson there
"...we need to stop society allowing us to normalise such behaviour."

surely applies to the Arab-Israel conflict.

I sometimes feel like Hesham Hassballa who is asked repeatedly to clarify his reaction to violence.  He is frustrated as am I.

Anyone who reads this blog or searches it know quite well that I think unlawful violence by Jewish civilians against Arabs to be illegal, unjust, immoral and, of course, counterproductive to our goal of reestablishing full Jewish residency in our historic national homeland.

But there are those of our opponents, whom, for short, I term the 'lib/progs', who will always demand a full condemnation over and over, as if we were in some church and they the priests in the cubicles of confession.


I could, perhaps, paraphrase Mahmoud Abbas, speaking in 2006:

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas condemned as an "ugly and inhuman crime" the killing of three young children of a senior PA intelligence official in a car outside their school in Gaza City Monday morning. The driver of the vehicle, 25, was also killed in the drive-by shooting, in which Palestinian gunmen opened fire in a street crowded with hundreds of school children. It was an unprecedented attack that could ignite widespread factional fighting.There was no immediate claim of responsibility.  In the attack, the gunmen pumped dozens of bullets into a car carrying the children of intelligence officer Baha Balousheh, a loyalist of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement.

Well, since that was intra-Pal. violence, maybe he was let off lightly b y his Jewish and lib-prog supporters.

What was the Arab response to a more serious Arab act of terror?  Like the Fogel family massacre?

Palestinians threw stones at buses returning from the funeral of the victims. Some Palestinian residents of the village of Awarta, who had previously clashed with settlers from Itamar for a number of years, denounced the killings.  A paramedic interviewed in an Israeli newspaper stated that on the day of the attack, settlers saw fireworks and celebrations in nearby Palestinian communities. In the Gaza Strip, the killings sparked celebrations in the city of Rafah, where Palestinians handed out candy and sweets on the streets. A resident described the celebrations as "a natural response to the harm settlers inflict on the Palestinian residents in the West Bank".  MEMRI, commenting on reactions to the murders in the Palestinian media, stated that while Sawsan Al-Barghouti, a columnist for a website affiliated with Hamas, called the Itamar murders a "heroic act", in the rest of the Palestinian media the murder of children ("even of settlers") was strongly condemned as unequivocally immoral and contrary to Palestinian values, and as doing nothing to help the Palestinian cause...A Haaretz article also reported that Palestinians in newspapers and on social networking sites condemned the attack...In January 2012, Palestinian Authority television aired an interview with the mother and aunt of Hakim Awad, who praised him as "a hero" and "a legend". Hakim's mother Nawef, who had previously denied her son's involvement, now proudly admitted it. The broadcast was part of a weekly show focusing on Palestinian prisoners in Israel. On February 1, 2012, the Tomb of Eleazar was found spray-painted with Arabic slogans praising the perpetrators...

So, as I tweeted to a friend-from-the-other-side, I do not lend any support to such actions.  And I certainly did not go up to my roof to dance and sing nor did I hand out sweets.

And I refer to "suspects" until there are arrests and even after and I surely will wait for a trial.

^

1 comment:

Jeannette said...

The government of Israel has spent many years proving that violence works - Jews can not pray on the Temple Mount because of threats of violence. Jews can not expand their villages because of threats of violence. Housing - even whole settlements (like Rahat) - built without permits on land the builders do not own is not torn down because of threats of violence. Housing legally built on land that the builder believed he owned (Migron) is torn down because of threats of violence.

Since violence works so very well, why should its benefits be denied to Jews?