My daughter called me Friday afternoon. I was expecting it, since we have a standing arrangement that whenever she is traveling, she calls to tell me when she has arrived. This time, she went by bus from the Golan Heights to her school in Alon Shvut, and then called from her dorm.
?Hi Ima! I?m here and I?m fine; but we had a little incident on the way here.?
?Oh,? I said, trying not to sound as if my heart had just skipped a beat or two. I?m thinking, "She?s okay. She?s talking to me on the phone; it can?t be too terrible." D-e-e-p breath. Okay. ?What happened??
?Well, an Arab threw a rock at the bus as we went through Wadi Ara, and it cracked the windshield. It wasn?t an armored bus because we weren?t going through the Beka [Jordan Valley].?
?So, what did the driver do?? I asked.
?He went a little further and then pulled off the road, and once we stopped, the windshield broke all the way. But they sent another bus to get us.?
?Um, good,? I said, ?but what did they do about the Arab??
?You know,? she said, ?we were talking about that afterwards. We all crowded into the back half of the bus to get away from the glass, and the bus driver radioed to the police to report it, but that was it. And we thought it was a little strange....?
Good girl. She still has some common sense, unlike many here in the land of our dreams. The details followed: it was just a kid, about 15 (old enough to soon be moving on to rocket-propelled grenades, Kassam rockets, or the handy bomb belt). And everyone on the bus agreed that if he had been Jewish, the driver would have stopped the bus, yelled at him, called his parents.... But here, in the Jewish State, no one dares to do that to an Arab teenager.
?Why not?? I asked one of my friends, ?A whole bus load of Jews can?t catch and hold one teenager? No such thing as a citizen?s arrest??
?No,? she said, ?but if they touch him, they could have a whole village of angry Arabs attacking them and trying to cut their throats.?
?And,? her husband added, ?they would probably be sued in court for it afterwards.?
I?m flabbergasted. I grew up differently, and the idea of adults doing anything besides applying swift correction to the seat of the kid?s pants is just amazing. The father says something along the lines of ?This is gonna hurt me more than it hurts you? as he takes off his belt, and they both go visit the woodshed together. Happy ending, even for the kid, who now is quite sure that his parent loves him enough to try to straighten him out.
Of course, that doesn?t apply here. For one thing, this wasn?t really a kid?s minor act of vandalism that had unforeseen consequences. The possible result of smashing the windshield of a moving bus could be death and injury to its driver and passengers - which was, of course, the point. This was an attempt at murder. Clumsy, yes, but then the kid is only 15. He?ll get it right next time, or the time after that. The reality is, the teen was doing just what he has been raised and trained for by his sick society. No loving parent is going to spank him or even reprimand him, because they are proud of their homicidal children. And the kids are well aware that everyone they know will celebrate their successful terrorist attack, especially if they end up dead in the attack.
Israelis know this, and still they shrug and say, ?What can you do??
Well, I have an answer, taught to me by one of great leaders of our age. Not Shimon Peres or Yitzchak Rabin. Not Ariel Sharon, or even Uzi Landau. I?m talking real common sense and strength of purpose, real leadership - I?m talking about Rudy Giuliani. The mayor who said civil society cannot tolerate minor infractions of civil law without inviting worse crimes. The prosecutor who said punishing minor offenses will improve quality of life, and proved he was right. I sure wish we could replace our current leadership with someone like him.
For one thing, he would never agree that bullet-proofing our buses and building by-pass roads are the only possible responses to terrorist attacks against them. Neither would he refrain from pointing out the folly and unfairness of ghettoing the victims behind fences rather than catching and fencing in the perpetrators. Remember his commitment to personal responsibility? That?s what we need here: a demand that Arabs be personally responsible for their actions and the actions of their children.
Why on earth do we tolerate parents who go on TV to gush about how proud they are of their ?martyrs?? Every teen has someone, a parent or guardian, who is supposed to be responsible for his actions. Let them have a just consequence for failing to raise their children to a standard of decent humanity. Not because any punishment can really compensate someone for loss of his life or permanent injury, but because anything less is immoral. Why? Look at the alternatives: if the perpetrators are not responsible, then one must either blame the victim or accept a society in which violence is random, unpunishable and uncontrollable. No thank you.
I am not a racist. I am not inciting anyone to hatred or murder. But I am demanding that my fellow Israelis stop shrugging and start doing the necessary. Prosecute stone throwers for attempted murder before they graduate to bombs. Prosecute public leaders who call for and intend to cause bodily injury. Prosecute those who conspire with the enemy before they whittle us down to indefensibility. Then, deport them together with all those (Jewish and otherwise) who claim we have no right to live in Israel or to have a Jewish State.
Let us take up the Guiliani Doctrine: we must have zero tolerance for ?minor? sociopathy, and then we won?t have so much trouble from major sociopaths. See, I am not unfair and I am not anti-Arab. I respect everyone?s rights and I expect everyone?s responsibility. And failure to live up to a civic responsibility must have consequences or there is no justice. It is time we wield the power we have to return acts in kind: loyalty with citizenship and disloyalty with deportation; dedication with honor and dereliction of duty with dismissal; patriotism with public support and anti-Zionism with derision and penalty. And the most important of all -- to reward courageous Jew-loving policy with leadership and Jew-hating defeatism with pity -- not with power. And we absolutely positively have to do this right now, because it isn?t just the windshield of a bus that is a little cracked and about to shatter.
?Hi Ima! I?m here and I?m fine; but we had a little incident on the way here.?
?Oh,? I said, trying not to sound as if my heart had just skipped a beat or two. I?m thinking, "She?s okay. She?s talking to me on the phone; it can?t be too terrible." D-e-e-p breath. Okay. ?What happened??
?Well, an Arab threw a rock at the bus as we went through Wadi Ara, and it cracked the windshield. It wasn?t an armored bus because we weren?t going through the Beka [Jordan Valley].?
?So, what did the driver do?? I asked.
?He went a little further and then pulled off the road, and once we stopped, the windshield broke all the way. But they sent another bus to get us.?
?Um, good,? I said, ?but what did they do about the Arab??
?You know,? she said, ?we were talking about that afterwards. We all crowded into the back half of the bus to get away from the glass, and the bus driver radioed to the police to report it, but that was it. And we thought it was a little strange....?
Good girl. She still has some common sense, unlike many here in the land of our dreams. The details followed: it was just a kid, about 15 (old enough to soon be moving on to rocket-propelled grenades, Kassam rockets, or the handy bomb belt). And everyone on the bus agreed that if he had been Jewish, the driver would have stopped the bus, yelled at him, called his parents.... But here, in the Jewish State, no one dares to do that to an Arab teenager.
?Why not?? I asked one of my friends, ?A whole bus load of Jews can?t catch and hold one teenager? No such thing as a citizen?s arrest??
?No,? she said, ?but if they touch him, they could have a whole village of angry Arabs attacking them and trying to cut their throats.?
?And,? her husband added, ?they would probably be sued in court for it afterwards.?
I?m flabbergasted. I grew up differently, and the idea of adults doing anything besides applying swift correction to the seat of the kid?s pants is just amazing. The father says something along the lines of ?This is gonna hurt me more than it hurts you? as he takes off his belt, and they both go visit the woodshed together. Happy ending, even for the kid, who now is quite sure that his parent loves him enough to try to straighten him out.
Of course, that doesn?t apply here. For one thing, this wasn?t really a kid?s minor act of vandalism that had unforeseen consequences. The possible result of smashing the windshield of a moving bus could be death and injury to its driver and passengers - which was, of course, the point. This was an attempt at murder. Clumsy, yes, but then the kid is only 15. He?ll get it right next time, or the time after that. The reality is, the teen was doing just what he has been raised and trained for by his sick society. No loving parent is going to spank him or even reprimand him, because they are proud of their homicidal children. And the kids are well aware that everyone they know will celebrate their successful terrorist attack, especially if they end up dead in the attack.
Israelis know this, and still they shrug and say, ?What can you do??
Well, I have an answer, taught to me by one of great leaders of our age. Not Shimon Peres or Yitzchak Rabin. Not Ariel Sharon, or even Uzi Landau. I?m talking real common sense and strength of purpose, real leadership - I?m talking about Rudy Giuliani. The mayor who said civil society cannot tolerate minor infractions of civil law without inviting worse crimes. The prosecutor who said punishing minor offenses will improve quality of life, and proved he was right. I sure wish we could replace our current leadership with someone like him.
For one thing, he would never agree that bullet-proofing our buses and building by-pass roads are the only possible responses to terrorist attacks against them. Neither would he refrain from pointing out the folly and unfairness of ghettoing the victims behind fences rather than catching and fencing in the perpetrators. Remember his commitment to personal responsibility? That?s what we need here: a demand that Arabs be personally responsible for their actions and the actions of their children.
Why on earth do we tolerate parents who go on TV to gush about how proud they are of their ?martyrs?? Every teen has someone, a parent or guardian, who is supposed to be responsible for his actions. Let them have a just consequence for failing to raise their children to a standard of decent humanity. Not because any punishment can really compensate someone for loss of his life or permanent injury, but because anything less is immoral. Why? Look at the alternatives: if the perpetrators are not responsible, then one must either blame the victim or accept a society in which violence is random, unpunishable and uncontrollable. No thank you.
I am not a racist. I am not inciting anyone to hatred or murder. But I am demanding that my fellow Israelis stop shrugging and start doing the necessary. Prosecute stone throwers for attempted murder before they graduate to bombs. Prosecute public leaders who call for and intend to cause bodily injury. Prosecute those who conspire with the enemy before they whittle us down to indefensibility. Then, deport them together with all those (Jewish and otherwise) who claim we have no right to live in Israel or to have a Jewish State.
Let us take up the Guiliani Doctrine: we must have zero tolerance for ?minor? sociopathy, and then we won?t have so much trouble from major sociopaths. See, I am not unfair and I am not anti-Arab. I respect everyone?s rights and I expect everyone?s responsibility. And failure to live up to a civic responsibility must have consequences or there is no justice. It is time we wield the power we have to return acts in kind: loyalty with citizenship and disloyalty with deportation; dedication with honor and dereliction of duty with dismissal; patriotism with public support and anti-Zionism with derision and penalty. And the most important of all -- to reward courageous Jew-loving policy with leadership and Jew-hating defeatism with pity -- not with power. And we absolutely positively have to do this right now, because it isn?t just the windshield of a bus that is a little cracked and about to shatter.