Needed: A Paradigm Shift

Journalists and intellectuals authoritatively provide excuses ranging from “poverty,” “marginalization,” “exclusion,” “the Nation-State Law! We’ve pushed them into a corner,” “Ramadan,” with the most recent addition being, “They are members of the Islamic State.”

While such excuses could provide a partial explanation, focusing on them alone would miss the forest for the trees. In the long-standing Jewish-Arab struggle terrorist attacks are primarily rooted in cultural, national, and religious aspects. Yes, not just material aspects and class.

On a cultural level, it is a struggle between a modern Western society that values freedom, liberty, and human rights and a society that lives in the past and wishes to do away with the “infidels.” And just like the terrorists that brought down the Twin Towers, the murderers from Hura and Umm al-Fahm despise modernity and freedom. They cannot stomach the permissiveness in Jewish communities.

Does this deem us to live our lives by the sword? Absolutely not. In fact, there is even reason for optimism, given the hundreds of thousands of Arab Israelis who have integrated successfully into the job market.

There is always room for improvement, but Israeli leaders and policymakers must first and foremost remember that addressing the economic aspects will not necessarily bring about a decline in violence.

After all, humans are “fueled” by the price they are willing to pay to establish their identity (and rightfully so).

But in this case, it is clearly an inhumane price – a clear line connects Umm al-Fahm, the Gaza Strip, Baghdad, and Tehran: Young people eager to become suicide bombers. And the progressive camp indirectly supports this distortion.

Those that deny the religious-historical motivation (of both sides) defend the weak regardless of the circumstances. These apologists will often use academic language to explain that “these are acts of resistance by the oppressed against the colonialist oppressor, a desirable act by anti-hegemonic forces.”

Unfortunately for us, such logic has managed to poison wells and seep into our consciousness. It has succeeded, among other things, “thanks” to silence: The moment you dare come up with an alternative explanation (cultural or historical, for instance), we will immediately label you as racist.

What is truly being done to moderate these barbaric acts? Along with increased security and enforcement, we must return to the notion of good and evil that guided the founders of the state of Israel and the prophets.

Operation Defensive Shield, which began exactly 20 years ago, should have included an operation to rehabilitate the consciousness that would have brought us back to sanity and prevent the neutralization that the progressive camp has caused in the Hebrew language.

Instead of “the attacker has been neutralized,” we should use “the terrorist has been eliminated;” instead of “In the end, we are all human beings,” we should use “There are wild savages out there;” instead of “violence,” we should say “rioters and lots of incitement.” There is no symmetry and there is no “violence on both sides.” Governance begins with words.