What kind of person gets up in the morning, searches his kitchen for the longest and sharpest knife in the drawer, and then goes out looking to murder a Jew?
What kind of a person takes a knife and plunges it into the back or neck of an elderly Jewish woman or a Jewish child on a bicycle?
What kind of a person circulates instructions over the Internet on the most effective way to stab a Jew, making sure that either the heart or the jugular vein is targeted in the attack?
What kind of a person encourages teenagers to engage in stabbing Jews, justifies their conduct and celebrates their achievements?
The answer to all four questions is two simple words: “evil” and “barbaric.”
Let’s assume, for the sake of discussion, that the Arabs of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria have a legitimate grievance. Let’s ignore the fact that
- None of them is under any physical threat by the Israeli government and that the rare occurrence of Jewish violence against Arabs is strongly and publicly condemned by Israel and met with harsh criminal sanctions;
- They have freedom of speech, the right to free enterprise, the right to worship freely, the right to elect their leaders and the right to receive billions of dollars in Israeli and foreign aid;
- They live in the only country in the Middle East that would provide them such freedoms and funds; and
- Access to the Temple Mount – the holiest site in the Jewish religion – is available for prayer only to Muslims and not Jews!
Ignoring all that, and giving the Arabs the benefit of every doubt, the Arab grievance is, at most, political. It is not existential. And people simply don’t stab their adversaries in a political fight. They just don’t.
Throughout history, even people under immediate and horrific assault did not plan out attacks against old women and young children.
Throughout history, even people under immediate and horrific assault did not plan out attacks against old women and young children. When Jews were fighting the Nazis in the forests of Europe, with all their suffering and justifiable rage, never did they organize or even contemplate such assaults. Here, in the United States, the African-Americans kidnapped from their homeland and sold into slavery, with every reason to violently oppose their circumstances, never developed a campaign of stabbing attacks against old women and young children.
Never. Because such conduct, no matter the grievance, is evil and barbaric. And people who are not evil by nature, or taught to be evil by cynical, immoral and corrupt teachers, simply don’t do these things.
Now, what does this have to do with Obama and Kerry? Unfortunately, everything. Their nuanced and “balanced” reaction to the stabbing of Jews is heard and felt around the world and is the antithesis of the cries of outrage and indignation that one would expect of the leaders of the free world to evil and barbarism.
When they express a lack of “clarity” as to Israel’s position regarding the Temple Mount even though Israel’s position is crystal clear, when they urge both sides to reduce their hostilities even though only one side is hostile, and when they suggest that Mahmoud Abbas is a peace-loving moderate even though he is inciting the worst kind of murder and mayhem, the world is listening. Other nations less “friendly” to Israel certainly see no reason to come to Israel’s defense, and the terrorists who are engaging in this barbarism consider themselves justified and protected.
British statesman Edmund Burke made the famous statement, “Evil flourishes when good men do nothing.” Right now, the leadership of the United States is doing nothing and, as a result, evil and barbarism against innocent Jews flourishes in Israel and elsewhere around the world.