Condemnations of the fatal stabbing of 16-year-old Shira Banki at last week’s Jerusalem gay pride parade by an apparently mentally ill haredi Jew, and of the death of an Arab infant in Duma at the hands of suspected Jewish arsonists, came fast and furious.
Israeli governmental, religious, and political leaders left no doubt that this is not the Jewish way and has no place in Israel.
And those responses provide an important perspective the world should – but will not – consider.
First, of course, the contrast with the Arab treatment of Arab murderers of Jews is striking. Even Mahmoud Abbas, the “moderate” Palestinian Authority president, names roads and public buildings after Arab terrorists. And he provides their families with governmental stipends if they are killed by the IDF or during the period of their incarceration.
Second, Arab perpetrators of terrorist acts are usually from the mainstream of Arab society, serving as a virtual military wing of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Yet the knife-wielding Jew in Jerusalem was a notoriously deranged person who had just gotten out of prison for stabbing people at a similar parade some ten years ago. And while police have not yet conclusively determined who was responsible for the arson attack, they are pointing to Jewish extremists – by definition unrepresentative of Israel’s Jews – as the likely perpetrators.
Perhaps the difference lies in the fact that Israel is a civilized society while others still have to be tutored in the value of human life.