A Time for Moral Choice

By DOVID BEN-MEIR
The celebrations went on for a long time last night. I thought there was a wedding in the neighboring villages or possibly two. Arab weddings are celebrated with loud music and fireworks. I'm sure there are other things – but that's all I can discern from a kilometer away. I'm always bemused reading a detached-from-reality article citing supposed "oppression" of Arabs in Judea and Samaria. If we were so oppressing – couldn't we at least have some quiet around here rather than loud music and fireworks until midnight and the calls to Muslim prayer at five in the morning??
You tell me who is tolerant and thoughtful of the neighbors – and who isn't.
By morning I learned that these particular celebrations took place throughout Arab villages and towns in Judea and Samaria. What were they celebrating? The murder of an innocent, unarmed couple, driving home from a friends' get-together, with their four kids in the back seat, aged nine years to four months. When Arab non-combatants are inadvertently killed (that terrible euphemism called "collateral damage") – people in Israel aren't happy, but it's war and the enemy (Hamas, Fatah etc.) embed themselves in the civilian population (a war crime), using them as human shields (another war crime), in order to shoot rockets at civilian areas of Israel (yet another war crime). When an Arab is murdered and it turns out (as it rarely does, thank God) that Jews did the terrible deed – Israelis of all stripes are aghast, sad and wish the perpetrators locked away for a long time. But when Israeli civilians are killed – there are Arab celebrations: candy, rejoicing and fireworks.
You choose who you sympathize with.
Last night wasn't the first time two parents were murdered together by Arab terrorists, leaving orphaned children. I personally know four sets of parents who were murdered together by Arab terrorists, and there at least another twenty instances of children being instantly orphaned by Arab terror directed at civilians. A couple coming home from a Shabbat with friends or on the way to a Shabbat with friends, or a couple who were just sitting down alone at a Shabbat evening meal.
Choose carefully who you side with: the parents and orphans, or the murderers.
Some excuse murder, saying that if the Jews weren't there – they wouldn't have been killed. That sounds familiar. Jews poisoned the wells, used Christian blood to bake matzo, and were Bolshevik bankers or nationalist cosmopolitans. Sound kooky? It is! Those that hate do not need a rational reason, just envy, greed and a false sense of pride backed up with nothing. This immoral irrational reasoning goes: if there weren't Jews – they wouldn't be murdered, so the Jews are the ones at fault.
Choose your side: the murderers and their enablers, or the innocents killed out of hate, envy and ignorance.
Some say: the "settlers" deserve what they get. Let's translate that into simple English: Jews in Judea and Samaria who legally bought houses in order to live in their ancient homeland on a piece of land that hadn't belonged to anybody – they are guilty of a capital crime and anyone has the right to murder them. So tell me: a group of blacks buy land and build houses in rural Mississippi or suburban Chicago, in an area that certain whites considered closed to no-whites – those racist whites have the "right" to "defend their territory" by taking pot-shots at the black neighbors and killing a few women and children? The word "settlers" is used in a fashion similar to the word "nigger" or "kike" – to de-humanize a certain group of people in order to deny them the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Choose carefully whom you side with.
There are those who build houses, schools and places of worship in their ancient homeland, without taking land from any individual. They seek to live their lives in peace with themselves, their neighbors and God. Then there are those who build monuments glorifying terrorists and suicide bombers who murdered people waiting in line to buy pizza or enter a pub, or parents of small children on their way home.
Choose carefully.