No, Vox, The Third Intifada and Hebron Shooting Are Nothing Like Ferguson

By DMITRI SHUFUTINSKY
 Recently, a Vox article came out that compared the shooting of a Palestinian terrorist by an IDF soldier in Hebron to the Ferguson incident of 2014, where an unarmed Black man named Michael Brown was shot dead by a cop.  The author compares the systemic racism in America's justice system to "the occupation", and goes on to say that Israeli politicians telling the truth--that a Palestinian propaganda campaign that encourages a culture of hate towards Jews--is no different than racists in the United States that blame "Black Culture" for the death of Brown. This statement is nonsense, but sadly, this kind of garbage thinking is becoming more and more common among left-wing writers and organizations.  
First, I want to say this: obviously, not all police are bad, and some of the victims of police brutality were perhaps doing something illegal. But does that warrant an automatic death sentence? If cops are so well trained, then shouldn't there be other means of incapacitating an enemy or suspect other than multiple shots fired? Perhaps even more disappointing is that consistently, these corrupt cops are not punished appropriately, whether fired or arrested. Police are supposed to protect and serve the people. And there are countless cases where they have--perhaps most famously when many rushed into the burning Twin Towers on 9/11 to save people trapped inside. The best way to protect this image of the police-as heroes-and to end any kind of tensions between the police and minorities is to hold those responsible for such tragedies accountable for their actions and make it clear that this kind of behavior is not to be tolerated. But now, to the main point I'm trying to make. 
In Israel, since late last year, innocent people, mostly Jewish, have been stabbed, had rocks thrown at them, run over by cars, or shot. Some of them, tragically, perished. Included among these dead are four Americans: one was a kid who'd just graduated high school, and another  was a veteran of the War on Terror. These victims were just innocent people. Some were tourists, others were just going shopping or running errands. They were mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. They were, in most cases, unarmed and unsuspecting. And they were murdered simply because they were Jewish, or at least because the terrorists perceived them to be. If anything is similar to this scenario, it's the countless dead African-American and Latino victims of police brutality. Whether it's Tamir Rice, an 11 year-old Cleveland boy who was playing with a toy gun and shot dead by police officers; Eric Garner, who was strangled to death by cops for selling loose cigarettes--even though strangling is not allowed anymore for restraining a suspect--and repeatedly told the police that he couldn't breathe; Andy Lopez, a 13 year-old from California who was shot 7 times in 2013 by a cop that apparently felt threatened by his toy gun; and of course, Michael Brown, an unarmed recent high school graduate that was shot six times by a police officer, and whose body was left in the street for 4 hours. Like the Israelis and Americans who were murdered by terrorists in this "Stabbing Intifada", these victims were unarmed. And also like the current intifada, racist indoctrination in the media, among other places, had a hand in these tragedies. In the United States, it might be the fact that many African-Americans and Latinos are portrayed as violent criminals that are a serious threat to White people, and in particular, White women. In the Palestinian Territories, Jews are portrayed as the descendants of apes and pigs, European colonists that stole Palestinian land, and as invaders who wish to rape Muslim women and desecrate sites that are holy to the Islamic faith. None of this is true, but it gives the terrorists a perceived reason to carry out attacks. Likewise, the propaganda directed at Latinos and Blacks in the USA gives some corrupt cops a perceived reason to pull the trigger immediately. 
The second similarity between the terrorists and these corrupt cops is that many in the media and elsewhere constantly make excuses for their actions. "If only they weren't occupying the West Bank", we'll hear from various figures, including the UN's very own Ban Ki-Moon. "Well, Trayvon Martin smoked weed at some point in his life, so it's not really that bad that he was murdered", others will say. Was this the reaction when the IRA bombed Britain for it's own occupation of Northern Ireland? Was it the reaction in the 2015 case of Zachary Hammond, a White teen shot by a cop for being in the company of a woman with a small amount of weed on her person? No. Because to society, Jewish lives, Black lives, and Hispanic lives just don't matter as much, if at all. 
The Hebron shooting "victim" was a Palestinian terrorist that tried to kill an IDF officer, and was shot and left bleeding on the ground. His friend, also an attacker, was killed instantly. In the past, when terrorists were subdued or "neutralized", they were sometimes able to set off suicide bombs that killed and wounded others in close proximity to them. The soldier did a heroic act not by shooting an "innocent wounded victim", but by eliminating a possible threat that just moments earlier expressed a wish to die by attempting to murder a soldier. The only way to win this War on Terror is to stop feeling pity or empathy for barbarians, and simply bring an end to them. The first step to victory is to stand with our allies, not stand with those who celebrated and held street parties while the Twin Towers collapsed. And the first step to stop this silly, radical left-wing dogma of trying to tie the Palestinian "struggle" with the Civil Rights Era or Black Lives Matter is to point out the truth and the facts of the case, and of society. Racism is everywhere, unfortunately, including in America and Israel. And anywhere it is encountered, it should be fought vigorously and condemned as a scourge upon society. But why on Earth would anyone think that the Civil Rights Movement or any other African-American movement for equality should relate more to the Arab World? It wasn't Israel that started the slave trade, but rather the Arabs that invaded Africa, occupying and colonizing land that belonged to indigenous peoples, from the Amazigh ethnic group in Morocco to the Nuba in what is now Sudan, just to name a few. It wasn't Israel that used these Nuba as target practice, but rather the Arab leaders of Sudan. It wasn't Israel that engaged in the genocide in Darfur against innocent men, women, and children because they were Black Christians. It was the Muslim Arab president of Sudan. This is not to say that all Arab people act or believe this way. But the predominantly prejudiced countries in the Middle East, at least towards Blacks, are Arab. Just look at Lebanon, Mauritania, and yes, the Palestinian Territories, where sub-Saharan African are regularly called "abeed", the word for "slave", and where having very dark skin (even if you're not of Black African descent) is frowned upon. If anything is to be compared to police brutality in the Middle East, it's both terrorism against Israelis and the tendency of Arab countries to treat Black Africans like second-class citizens. In the 1960s, the Jewish community largely stood with the African-American community in solidarity against racism. Both ethnic groups had experienced slavery and Diaspora. Jews suffered from pogroms, and Blacks suffered from lynchings. Jews had the horrific ordeal of the Holocaust during World War Two.  Blacks lived through horrific Jim Crow Laws. And now while many unarmed African-Americans, especially men, are gunned down by some police officers, Jews face a similar danger in Israel from Palestinian terrorists. And both groups have faced relentless persecution as minorities in Arab countries. Sure, Jews and Blacks have had their tense moments with each other, but they largely tend to stand together for justice and politically. And now it's time to reinforce that bond to defeat common injustices. Black Lives and Jewish Lives Matter. The world needs to hear this. 



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