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It was another heinous terrorist attack that took place yesterday in the Northern Israeli town of Shfaram. But this time, it was an Israeli Jew murdering four Druze Israelis.
The terrorist, Edan Natan-Zada was only 19, a soldier who had gone AWOL a month ago in protest of the planned Gaza withdrawal. He was a young man who had recently moved to the settlement of Tapuah, a radical West Bank settlement strong with followers of the late fanatic “rabbi” Meir Kahane, who advocated the expulsion of Arabs from Israel and the West Bank. Is it any wonder that this combination of military indoctrination with the hateful teachings of Kach (the outlawed political party inspired by Kahane) would produce someone who would perpetrate such a heinous act?
The killer’s family had contacted the Israeli Defense Forces, pleading with them to disarm Edan, who retained his weapon from his army service. The IDF did not act.
That killers like Natan-Zada, Baruch Goldstein (who massacred 29 Muslim worshippers in 1994 at Friday prayers in the Cave of the Patriarchs) and Yigal Amir (who assassinated Yitzhak Rabin) were all inspired by so-called “religious Jewish” teachings should appall Jews of good conscience everywhere, both secular and religious. But this is the inevitable result of the warping of Judaism to justify occupation, settlements, dispossession and the total disregard of Palestinians.
It is long past the time for excuses for the preachers of hate, rabbis and otherwise, to stop being made. Those who cheapen Arab lives; who would advocate that Israel should privilege its Jewish citizens over those who are not Jewish; who value expansionism over the basic human rights of Palestinians must be made to realize that their ideology produces these extremist terrorists. They cannot be allowed to distance or divorce themselves from this kind of incident.
The condemnations that have come from Ariel Sharon ring hollow. This is a man who has consistently disregarded the value of life, especially Arab life. For years, this man fomented the ideology that said “Expand the settlements! Do not give up one inch!” Condemning this act of terrorism after he planted the seeds for it is just opportunistic hypocrisy.
World Jewry must stand against the settler ideology. No longer can we tolerate an ideology that breeds daily violence, which occasionally erupts in more dramatic and headline-grabbing fashion as it did yesterday. And this will not be the last such incident until we stand together, as Jews and with our real allies (rather than those who wish to bring about Armageddon by supporting repressive Israeli policies) and declare that every life, Jewish or Arab or whatever, is of equal value. And that declaration must be followed by action—the action of quitting the mad policy of settlement on the West Bank and the repressive policies of denying the Palestinians their legitimate rights.
Mitchell Plitnick is Director of Policy and Education for Jewish Voice for Peace. In their own words, “JVP is the voice of the overwhelming majority of American Jews who, as polls consistently show, support a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and an end to Israel?s Occupation of Palestinian land.”
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