It is disheartening to need to state the obvious: Torching a mosque is not a civic, Jewish, Israeli or Zionist value.
A mosque was torched in the Maghayer village near Ramallah on June 7. Burning tires were rolled into the mosque.
Thankfully, no deaths or injuries were reported. But what kind of mindset undertakes such an act? Since the perpetrators have not been caught, we cannot know for certain.
However, the mosques walls were sprayed with graffiti that reportedly read Alei Ayin the name of a nearby settlement outpost that was demolished last week by Israeli police.
Let us say for the sake of argument that it was wrong for Israel to demolish the outpost. Let us concede that successive Israeli governments both Labor and Likud asked Israelis to settle in the West Bank in order to provide a buffer for Israeli cities against enemy invasion and terrorist attacks. Let us affirm that Israelis may settle anywhere in the land of Israel by right. Even so, what logic dictates the torching of a mosque? None. The act is nothing but sheer violence, groundless hatred, incendiary political action.
The act is certainly not a reasonable response to either an Israeli or a Palestinian anti-settlement act or sentiment. Fight politics with politics; dont drag in an extraneous factor, a mosque.
True, mosques are sometimes used as places to plan or incite terrorist attacks. But there is no evidence that this mosque was used for that nefarious purpose.
Bottom line: Religious hatred is not going to advance peace under any definition, even the most expansive, greater Israel conception.
Only fools deny the right of Muslims to pray in their mosques, or the right of Jews to pray in their holy places, whether the mosque or the Jewish holy place is in the West Bank or anywhere else.
Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News
