...And Justice For All

The interrogation sessions held in Iraq earlier today for two of Saddam Hussein’s former top aides cannot but arouse a mixture of conflicting emotions.

There was, of course, something heartening about the fact that a monster such as Ali Hassan Al-Majid (aka Chemical Ali), the man allegedly responsible for the 1988 chemical weapons attacks which killed thousands of innocent Kurds, will now at last be facing justice for his crimes. The sight of this once powerful general, now sitting humbled before a set of independent Iraqi judges, was as splendid as it was thrilling.

And yet, in pondering this turn of events, I couldn’t help but wonder: why aren’t similar trials being held here in Israel for the terrorist leaders of the Palestinian Authority?

Sure, Marwan Barghouti, one of the heads of Fatah, was arrested and sentenced to life in prison for his lethal acts against the Jewish state. But there are so many others, such as the heads of the various Palestinian “security” services, nearly all of whom are believed to have been involved in acts of terror against Israel in recent years. But no one talks of detaining or interrogating these thugs – instead, the government is hoping to “coordinate” with them the proposed withdrawal from Gaza – in effect rewarding them for their years of violence and bloodshed.

Why have the Iraqi people merited to see their tormentors put on trial, but we haven’t? When will Israelis at last see justice done?

The answer, of course, is quite simple: when our leaders finally overcome their boundless capacity for self-delusion, and start to treat our foes with the severity they so richly deserve.

May that day come soon.

The Forgotten Victims

The mind struggles to grasp the extent of the disaster.

With each passing hour, it seems, the number of victims of the earthquake and tsunami in the Far East grows to numbers that are increasingly unfathomable and downright frightening.

As of this writing, the latest count is 122,000 dead, with fears that even this enormous number will continue to soar.

Think back to the last time you went to a baseball or football game, and imagine the stands filled to capacity with 50,000 to 60,000 human beings. Now take that image and double it, and you still don’t reach the total number of people lost in this disaster.

It is of course only natural that our attention is drawn to the fate of the dead, to the pain and sense of loss felt by their families and loved ones. Just yesterday, an 11-month old Belgian Jewish child who died in the flooding in Thailand was buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. What can one say in the face of such horror?

But we must also not lose sight of something equally important: not to forget the fate of the living - of those people who survived the catastrophe but were injured in the process, and who now must battle their way back to health and a sense of normalcy.

I was reminded of this by a terribly sad story that I heard the other day. I hesitate to even tell it, but here goes: a young married Israeli woman was critically injured in a Palestinian suicide attack, leaving her in a vegetative state. As a result, her life has been ruined forever, effectively destroyed just when she was about to embark on building a family, a career and a future.

The impact, however, was not limited to her – it has, inevitably, taken over the lives of her loved ones as well. Her two parents have been forced to drop everything else and now devote themselves day and night to caring for their daughter, while the victim’s husband grapples with the impossibly painful and wrenching decision that none of us should ever have to face: to stay out of a sense of loyalty and commitment, or to move on with his life in the hopes of marrying again and having children?

Then there are the victim’s siblings, her in-laws and cousins, her friends, her neighbors…

I guess what I am trying to say is that when we ponder such events – be they a natural disaster such as a tsunami or the work of human hands such as a terrorist attack – we should always try to look beyond the statistics and remember the forgotten victims, those who continue to live with the aftermath every day of their lives, be they the family of the dead and wounded, or those who were badly injured. They, too, are in need of our help, and our prayers.

Ramallah and Remembrance

For a brief moment this week, Israelis were given a pointed reminder of the type of foe we are up against.

This past Sunday, the Judea Military Court sentenced Azziz Mustafa Salha to life in prison for his involvement in the infamous lynching of two Israeli soldiers in Ramallah four years ago. Salha is the person whose image was broadcast around the world after he raised his hands stained with the blood of the two victims before a cheering crowd of thousands of Palestinians.

The lynching took place on October 12, 2000, when Reservist Sgt.-Maj. Yosef Avrahami and Corporal Vadim Novesche made a wrong turn and drove into the Palestinian-controlled city. Instead of being assisted by Good Samaritans, they were instead assaulted by an angry Arab mob, which included uniformed members of the Palestinian police.

After being taken back to a Palestinian police station, Avrahami and Novesche were set upon by their captors with inhuman cruelty. Military officials at the time told Arutz-7 that the two were "deliberately tortured and abused...  The bodies were mutilated and torn to pieces.  There was great difficulty in recognizing them..."

Salha’s charge sheet adds another set of gruesome details to our knowledge of what happened that day. According to the prosecutor, Salha saw Novesche lying on the ground at the police station with a knife sticking out of his back. He grabbed Novesche in a stranglehold, took the knife and then stabbed him to death before running over to the window to raise his bloody hands in “triumph”.

The body of one of the Israelis was then thrown from the window, before being tied to the back of a car and dragged through the streets.

At the time, the lynching shocked all of Israel, and underlined exactly why our “partners in peace” were neither partners nor very much interested in peace.

But now, just four years later, it is as if the lynching in Ramallah never happened. Our government seems to have learned nothing from those horrific events, as it plunges forward intent on giving Gaza to the Palestinians, thereby enabling them to create a terrorist rogue state from which to carry out further attacks.

On that terrible day, the Palestinians demonstrated to the entire world precisely why they can not and must not be entrusted with the tools of statehood. They showed no respect for the living and no remorse for the dead, preferring to celebrate their mindless destruction of two innocent human beings.

It is hard for me to imagine what further evidence, what further proof would be needed for the world to finally see our foes for what they truly are and to stop hectoring us to grant them a state.

Then again, if our own Prime Minister is so willfully blind to the consequences of his proposed withdrawal from Gaza, and if he too has chosen to forget the events that occurred in Ramallah just 48 months ago, then can we really expect more from the nations of the world in this regard?

I for one have neither forgotten nor forgiven those bloody events in Ramallah – and I hope that you won’t either.

Shabbat Shalom.

Don’t Believe Everything You Hear (except on Arutz-7 of course)

Far too often, many of us watch or listen to the news and accept it at face value. If something is being broadcast or written, well, then it must be true. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be reporting it, right?

Well without meaning to sound too cynical, all I can say to that is: hogwash. Poppycock. Phooey, hooey, hokum and bunkum.

Here’s a case in point: Israel Radio this morning filled the airwaves with a story bound to penetrate even the coldest of hearts. It seems that a young Palestinian mother had given birth to quadruplets at Laniado Hospital in Netanya some two months ago, where they have been kept for post-partum treatment and observation. But the vindictive and callous Israeli authorities have refused to grant the children’s Palestinian father a permit to visit his newborns, and so he has not merited to see them since they came into the world.

Adding insult to injury, Israel was allegedly allowing the mother to visit her babies no more than twice a week.

What a story it was! In one fell swoop, it managed to elicit the listeners’ sympathy for the hapless Palestinian couple while at the same time portraying Israel and its “occupation” in the cruelest and most pitiless of lights.

There was, however, one small glitch: it turns out the story wasn’t true.

In its 5pm news broadcast this afternoon, Israel Radio offered a slightly more accurate description of the situation. After hearing the report this morning, Israel’s Civil Administration looked into the matter, and contacted Israel Radio to inform them that:

a) the father of the children is actually a Jordanian citizen living illegally in a Palestinian-controlled city in Samaria, and not a Palestinian;

b) Israel could not possibly have refused the father’s request to visit his children, for the simple reason that to date he has not yet submitted any such request;

c) the mother of the children was actually given an open-ended permit to visit the hospital whenever she wished;

d) despite having such a permit, the mother chose to visit the babies only twice a week, and not because of any alleged restriction imposed by Israel.

Now, many people like to criticize the foreign media for the manner in which it portrays the Jewish state, often pointing out the myriad inaccuracies and biases that seem to typify much of the coverage of Israel and the region.

All that is true. And yet, as bad as the foreign media might be, much of the Israeli media is hardly any better, as the incident above makes clear.

If Israel Radio itself chooses to portray events in such a twisted manner – then it is hard to expect much more from the likes of the BBC or CNN.

And there you have it – yet another reason to get your news from www.israelnationalnews.com.

A Synagogue in Flames

Where is the outrage? Where is the outpouring of anger, fury and indignation?

A synagogue, a Jewish house of worship, a place where Jews gather solely for prayer and contemplation, was attacked yesterday by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza – and everyone is silent.

Some 20 worshippers in the Jewish community of Netzarim were gathered for the weekday morning service, their arms and heads bound in tefillin (phylacteries), their bodies enveloped in prayer shawls.

They had reached the verse, “Who among the gods is like You, O G-d; who is like You, majestic in sanctity”, when a Palestinian rocket struck, causing grave damage to the building. Miraculously, no one was injured, though two people had to be treated for shock.

The rest of us, however, apparently felt no shock. A synagogue was hit? It’s just another headline, just another blip in the news – hey, now where is the sports section…

Just imagine if the Israeli Army had mistakenly hit a mosque or a church. Just imagine the reaction that would not be slow in coming from the left, from the Palestinians, from Europe, from the world.

But you know what – I’m less concerned about their reaction.

I’m more worried about ours.

An attack on a synagogue is an attack on the Jewish people everywhere. It is an assault on our faith, our traditions and our beliefs. It is the ultimate indignity, and it can not be dismissed as “just another terror attack”.

Whatever you may think about Jews living in Gaza – this is an incident that should touch every Jew to the core of his being, reminding each of us what this conflict is truly all about: the ruthlessness and callousness of our foes, and their desire to bring about our demise.

But whatever threat they may pose to Israel’s existence, it pales in comparison with the true menace to the future of this country: our indifference and our apathy.

If a synagogue can go up in flames without evoking a peep of protest – well, then, it seems that things might really be worse than we had thought.

“Who among the gods is like You, O G-d; who is like You, majestic in sanctity”.

May G-d save us from our enemies – and from ourselves.