In Denver, first degree murder. On the West Bank, ho hum. Morality is not divided by geography. Rock throwing is wrong and potentially lethal everywhere.
Did our eyes lie? Was the cognitive dissonance so sharp that our balance was endangered? Is morality divided by geography? If it’s wrong in Colorado, is it right on the West Bank? The prosecuting attorney in Golden, Colorado said on April 14: “This rock blew through her head like a canon.”
“Her” head was the head of Alexa Bartell, a 20-year-old woman killed by a rock thrown through her windshield two years ago. The headline in the Denver newspaper read this week: “First-degree murder trial in ‘23 rock-throwing spree starts.”
The Associated Press, as the assistant publisher of the IJN noted last January, characterized the exact same offense, when committed on the West Bank of the Jordan River, this way: “The [Palestinian] teenagers had been jailed for minor offenses like throwing stones.”
“Minor offenses.”
Just like Joseph Koenig is on trial for murdering Alexa Bartell by throwing a rock through her windshield, Palestinian teenagers throw rocks at cars driven by Jews, and are jailed for doing so. Jews driving through the West Bank have been murdered this way — with rocks. If it’s murder in Colorado, it’s murder on the West Bank, too.
Stoning was a legal method of execution in some Muslim countries and remains a method of extrajudicial punishment in Pakistan. Stoning kills. Bullets kill. Throwing stones is not a “minor offense.”
In the Jefferson Country trial of Joseph Koenig, his attorney will argue that the then-18-year-old — a teenager — didn’t intend to kill Alexa Bartell, only to damage the car she was driving (and all the other cars he was throwing stones at). However that argument goes down with the jury, there is no question that when Palestinian teenagers throw rocks at passing cars (or Israeli soldiers) their intent is to harm living people, not to damage inanimate property.
Incidentally, in the Colorado case, the defendant is also charged with nine counts of attempted murder, three counts of assault and six counts of attempted assault — because he threw many rocks at many passing cars.
Ditto, on the West Bank. Many rocks are thrown. Many Israelis are targeted. Many attempted murders. Many assaults and many attempted assaults.
Remember the Second Intifada that began on Rosh Hashanah at the Western Wall in 2000? Rocks were tossed over the top of the Wall at the Jewish worshippers below. Lots of rocks. Rocks are favored weapons among those Palestinians who do not want peace, but do who do want to harm Israelis. The use of a lethal weapon is not a “minor offense.”
© IJN 2025
