With your divestment from five Israeli banks, you are either ignorant or bumbling or evil.
Whichever, you are complicit in evil.
You are an accessory to cold-blooded murder. [See Page 1.]
You aid and abet a Palestinian society that teaches hate and bloodshed — that names streets for terrorists, that glorifies the murder of Israelis on children’s TV shows, that calls the murderers of innocents, if killed in the midst of their terrorism, “martyrs.”
You make a statement: The murder by a Palestinian teenager, at extremely close and conscious range, no less, of an Israeli mother, in front of her own children, no less, is totally right, or justified or understandable.
“Thou shalt not murder” has escaped your attention.
And you call yourself a religious body.
If you say, “Well, there is an unfortunate cycle of violence here, there is murder on both sides, there is more than enough blame to go around, there are Israeli atrocities, too; the matter is not simple,” then your ignorance, or your capacity for rationalization, or your anti-Semitism, truly reaches monumental proportions.
For on the Palestinian side, there is a pattern — repeated, deep-seated. On the Israeli side, there are rare exceptions. On the Palestinian side, there is the teaching of hate to children in every medium of Palestinian society. Do you not know this? On the Israeli side, there is yearning for peace, abhorrence of war. Do you not know this? Or is it just more convenient to attack Jews who also have the name “Israeli” tacked onto them? On the Palestinian side, there is rejoicing in the murder of Israeli innocents. On the Israeli side, there is utter disgust and widespread condemnation of the rare exceptions of Israeli terror.
With your divestment, did you cite as one of your reasons the Palestinian murder of Eitam and Na’ama Henkin, in their car, in front of their children, Oct. 1, 2015?
With your divestment, did you cite, as one of your reasons, the Palestinian murder of five members of the Fogel family, while they were asleep on the Sabbath, March 11, 2011?
With your divestment, did you cite the Palestinian murder of Dr. David Applebaum and his daughter on the eve of her wedding, Sept. 9, 2003?
With your divestment, did you cite, as one of your reasons, the Palestinian suicide bombing deaths of more than a thousand Israelis?
With your divestment, did you cite, as one of your reasons, the firing by Hamas of thousands of missiles at Israeli civilians; or the Hamas call for the destruction of Israel?
With your divestment, did you cite, as one of your reasons, the fact that Arab Israelis have more civil rights than any other Arab people in the Middle East? Yes, while Arab Israelis are equal before the law in Israel, they are not yet fully equals in Israeli society. Yes, this an issue before the Israeli public. Yes, this is neither hidden nor ideal. Yes, against the reality of this imperfect equality, with your divestment, did you cite, as one of your reasons, the radical divergence between the level of Arab civil rights in Israel and in the rest of the Arab world? Did you cite Arab beheadings and hand amputations?
Or, in your worldview, is it only a Jewish state that must perfect its society? That double standard is classic anti-Semitism. Do you care about the fate of Jews in a Middle East environment that, from Day One of the Zionist movement, its Palestinian neighbors wished were gone? Do you understand that this conflict has a long history whose essential dynamic has not changed: Palestinian rejection of the right of Jews to territory — any territory, of any size, in any location — in Israel?
With your divestment, did you cite, as one of your reasons, the Palestinian leadership’s rejection of Israeli offers of an independent Palestinian state in 2000 and in 2008?
With your divestment, did you cite, as one of your reasons, an expectation that your divestment would bring the two sides closer?
With your divestment, did you cite, as one of your reasons, the expectation that an attempt to hurt the Israeli economy would make Israel more likely to adopt your position?
With your divestment, did you cite, as one of your reasons, the radical diminution of the Christian Arab community from Palestinian society due to the hostile attitude and actions toward it by the dominant Islamic leadership of Palestinian society since 1967? Did you contrast that Christian diminution in the Palestinian areas with Israel’s tolerance for and aid to Christian churches (and the Bahai’i, and the Druze) throughout Israel?
You are an accessory to the distortion of the religious and the ethnic reality within Israel that has become an alternative universe in public consciousness. Yes, with your divestment, you are an accessory to the distortion of the nature of the most significant Jewish community in the world today. Anti-Semitism is growing around the world. Congratulations on your participation in this ugliness.
Copyright © 2016 by the Intermountain Jewish News
