The daily diet of hateful propaganda has had its intended effect. An entire Jewish family destroyed in a minute. The youngest Fogel victim was just three months old. The terror commando murdered them all in their beds during the Sabbath, cutting throats and hearts. Real Jewish lives snuffed out in tiny village of Itamar, named for the youngest son of the biblical figure Aaron.
It was a pogrom, like during the time of the Cossacks. In the city of Berdychiv, on January 4, 1919, militants stopped children who were studying the Torah, asking, “Jew?”. If they said yes, they then shot them in the forehead. To those who offered money, they said, “We want your life!”. The horde flung itself against the rabbis and scholars of the Torah with spectacular dedication.
To write the book “A New Shoah. The Untold Story of Israel's Victims of Terrorism” I nterviewed many residents of Itamar, including parents who had lost children in previous attacks. One of them, Yitro Asheri, dedicated a Sefer Torah to his son Eliyahu, abducted and killed by terrorists.
"The memory of my son is not on a stone or a monument, but in this, something that is alive,” says Yitro. Elyahu's story resembles that of Daniel Pearl, the reporter for the Wall Street Journal slaughetered because he was a Jew.
One can really understand the so called “Middle East conflict” by the sad chronicle of Itamar. All over Itamar, the people are strong, welcoming, determined to stay in spite of the bombs and the sneak attacks. Amidst the red earth terraces, grape vines and olive trees, Itamar is one of the most frequently targeted sites in the Territories.
Rachel Shabo was killed in Itamar, along with three of her children. Nothing in the house remained intact. In an instant, a large, beautiful, and caring Jewish family was destroyed, when a terrorist burst into that home with one aim in mind: to murder as many Israelis as possible.
The Holocaust survivor Binyamin Herling was killed when the terrorists opened fire on dozens of Israelis who were going to see the remains of Joshua’s altar on Mount Ebal.
Gilad Stiglitz was playing basketball outside the school when he was shot. He liked to write letters to the stars of the Maccabi Tel-Aviv basketball team.
Meir Lixenberg and Arieh Agranionic died also defending Itamar. When asked why there was no one else with Arieh when terrorists attacked him, the settlement’s chief of security, Yossi Levite, replied, “Would you volunteer here”.
Once again, the silence from the "civilized world" is deafening about Itamar's tragedy. Those who profess to deplore violence and killing on both sides of the Israel-Palestinian equation are giving the lie to their pious hyperbole by remaining conspicuously silent on the slaughtering of this Israeli family. No words of condemnation about the deaths of these innocents at the hands of terrorists have been heard from the usual human rights groups, the same faction that is so quick to vilify Israel for defending itself from terrorist attacks,or scream when Palestinian citizens lose their lives during a retaliatory foray by Israel.
There is no other conclusion to draw -- when the deaths of Jewish innocents go unmourned and unacknowledged, it is because some believe Jewish lives do not count. It is hard to escape the feeling that had similar attacks occurred in, say, London or Paris, rather than a religious settlement in Samaria, the reaction would undoubtedly have been quite different.
Itamar’s “colonists” are a tiny figure in the Middle Eastern conflict. But in the eyes of the terrorists, Israel itself is just one big settlement. On a clear day from Itamar you can see the towers of Shalom Center in Tel Aviv. The rockets will fall there in the next war. That's why in the kaddish for Itamar’s innocent victims is embodied the fate of all Israel.
Where's the outrage? Why is the world silent about the killings of a three month old Jewish infant? The silence has been telling.