We did not hear that we must “understand” the stone murderers in Denver — the adults who threw a slew of stones at moving vehicles and killed one of the drivers, a young woman.
In Denver, we did not hear that we must take into account the oppression of the stone murderers.
We did not hear that the stone murderers were provoked or impoverished.
We did not hear that the police who arrested them were wrong.
We did not hear that the methods of the police in locating them were immoral.
We did not hear that the incursion of the police into the murderers’ space was unwise because this would just cause others to pick up their own stones and launch them as lethal weapons.
We did not hear that the police work in stopping the stone murderers was “disproportional.”
We did not hear any of this in Denver when the young adults intentionally threw a stone at a moving vehicle and killed the young woman.
Note that word “intentionally.”
It’s critical.
It fits because the stone murderers are being charged with first-degree murder. To throw a stone at a moving vehicle is not an accident, not an act of manslaughter, not a mitigating circumstance of any kind.
Murder-by-stone is murder in the first degree.
Not just in Denver. But in the West Bank, too.
In Denver, we did not hear any of the excuses routinely offered when Palestinians pick up stones and throw them at Israeli civilians driving by, killing them.
In Denver, we also did not hear any of the excuses routinely offered when Israeli police or military pursue the stone murderer.
No, we didn’t hear the excuses in Denver. Here, both the facts and the moral quotient are perfectly clear.
Enter, the speed of light.
It is a constant.
No condition can change it.
A stone thrown as a lethal weapon is like the speed of light: the immorality in doing so does not vary in relation to the conditions that prompt it.
The immorality of murder-by-stone-throwing does not vary in relation to the country in which the murder is committed. Nor does the the power of the stone to kill vary according to geography.
It doesn’t matter whether the stone is thrown at a passing car in Denver or in the West Bank of the Jordan River. It is murder.
It doesn’t matter what the ethnicity of the stone thrower is. It is murder.
It doesn’t matter what the grievance or poverty status of the stone thrower is. It is murder.
It doesn’t matter whether the stone-thrower is Denverite or a Palestinian. It is murder.
None of these variables matters because murder, like the speed of light, is a constant. This is perfectly clear in Denver, Colorado.
It should be perfectly clear around the world when murder-by-stone is committed in the West Bank or anywhere else.
Something else is perfectly clear in Denver: the moral outrage. We hear it from the citizens. We hear it from the prosecutors. We hear it from the politicians. We hear it from the police. We hear it from all levels and segments of Denver society.
We also hear it for this reason: When someone throws a stone at a vehicle, it is so much more difficult to invoke excuses. There is something utterly transparent about the crudity and the malice of the act.
Israelis get it.
Denverites get it.
Why doesn’t everyone else get it?
Must it happen in your neighborhood first? It shouldn’t. Because stone-by-murder is a constant. It shouldn’t matter where it happens, or by whom.
That, and that alone, is what needs to be understood.
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