Christian and Jewish Babies Face the Same Enemy
Christian and Jewish Babies Face the Same Enemy

Chaya Zissel had just returned with her parents from the Western Wall when the Arab driver killed her last month. The three-month old flew ten meters from her pram. Four-year-old Daniel Tragerman wasn't able to reach the shelter in his kibbutz during thjis past summer's war. 

These are just the last two Jewish babies killed by terrorists. Last week, a Palestinian Arab terrorist hurled acid at an Israeli family south of Bethlehem: father, mother and three of their children. Thursday night, terrorists lobbed a firebomb at an 11 year old child, who is critical condition and on a respirator as a result.

During the Holocaust, Jewish children were left alone, while Christian children were safe in their own houses. Christians were also silent when Jewish families were wiped out in the Muslim world. 

Today, Jewish and Christian babies are united in the struggle to survive. They are facing the same enemy.  

A few days ago, I read a terrible story from a Christian enclave of Baghdad which fell into the hands of the Caliphate. One day the terrorists began their manhunt. 

The Islamic militants told a Christian father: "Say the words to convert to Islam or we will kill your children." Desperate, the man uttered the words. But the four Christian children said no, that they would follow Jesus to death. "We love Yeshua (Jesus in Arabic, ed.), we have always followed Yeshua, Yeshua has always been with us," replied the children to the jihadists of ISIS. The terrorists replied: "Say the words." The children: "We can't". So they paid with their lives. The terrorists beheaded them

What is the difference between those four Christian children and the little slaughtered Fogels or the seven bombed Jewish children of the Sbarro?

It is that while I am sure you can find rabbis and Israeli leaders showing compassion and anger for the fate of the four Christian children, you will hardly find an Iraqi or Christian leader protesting what the Palestinian Arabs did to the Fogels or the Schiverschurdeer family.

Jewish children are the promise of our post Auschwitz world. 

A couple of years ago, speaking at the Coliseum, Rome’s Chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni slammed the Western “indifference” surrounding the massacre of Christians in the Middle East.

Why don't Christian leaders condemn the killing of Chaya and Daniel? 

Princes Charles last week used strong words, at least for him, to denounce the fate of Christians in Middle East. But the Prince didn't find time for the Fogels. 

The same thing happens with the artistic community.  In August 2003, Daniel Barenboim was conducting the "Concert for Peace" in Spain with an Arab orchestra. Meanwhile in Jerusalem, a number 2 Egged bus full of Jewish faithful returning from the Western Wall was blown up by Hamas. There were many children among the dead. Barenboim, who has always been very generous about the Iraqi children or the Palestinian Arabs' "suffering", could have use the concert to denounce the massacre of Jewish children. But he remained silent.

The stories of children were good for our Western newspapers and opinion makers when they were victims of Anglo-American bombs dropped to free Baghdad from Saddam Hussein or when they were unintentionally killed by the Israeli bombs launched to  stop lethal rockets that Hamas put in schools and civilian areas. 

When the victims are Christian children at the hands of Islam, their stories are met with a grimace of sordid indifference. When the victims are Jewish children, they are delivered to the dustbin of history with an unexpressed,  but real, pleasure. 

Chaya Zissel bundling up for the grave is an image that must never leave us. At least me.