‘No better than thugs’

‘No better than thugs’

In light of the devastating earthquake in Japan and the violent crushing of a mass rebellion in Libya, what significance does a heinous crime, however brutal, against a Jewish family in Israel’s west bank have? Why should the murder of three young children and a mother and a rabbi in their beds, in the middle of the night, deserve special media attention? This is a serious question that, as an Israeli Jew, I ask myself when I see such barbarism relegated to the back pages of our media, and my heart screams in rage while my head acknowledges that there is just too much that is newsworthy at the same time.

The answer lies in the U.S. attempt to broker a lasting peace between Israel and its neighbors and the realization that the Palestinians cannot hold the proverbial “stick” from both ends. Either they want peace or they want to follow their unrealistic yet fundamentalist dreams to push the Jews into the sea.

As a culture that releases murderers from jail in a revolving-door fashion, and declares killers to be martyrs, naming squares and summer camps after them, they cannot seek the world’s recognition as “victims.” A society that wipes Israel off its map and incites hatred in its media and in its curricula cannot compare itself with other civil rights movements and peace-seekers.

If the Palestinians can learn from their Egyptian brothers who brought about a revolution with calls for “no violence,” they will have peace in a week. Unfortunately, they prefer to pose in front of the world media as “freedom fighters” while murdering children in their sleep.

America and the West must show the Palestinians that for as long as they incite hate, they are no better than thugs and pirates, and certainly not the liberty-seekers they claim to be.

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