While the bodies of 14 innocent unarmed Jews are still fresh in the ground, our “allies” are calling for restraint. Good friends should know when to keep their suggestions to themselves.
Meanwhile, leftist Israelis are raising millions for the “poor Arabs” whose property was destroyed. Good sense prevailed and hey were not permitted a solidarity event there. Solidarity with whom? The Huwara Arab,s of course.
Except the owner of the parking lot that was burned is a public supporter of terror and the residents of the town, long a hotbed of terrorist activity, gave out candies to celebrate the murder of two sweet-faced Israeli young men.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Well, let me give you a reality check. Because if it wrong to take the law into ones own hands and attack the town (try to remember the cities burning in the USA last summer - without prior murders - and nothing happening to the perpetrators), it is even worse to collect money for its residents. Why worse? Because Huwara's residents did not condemn the murders, they gave our pastries and sweets instead to celebrate them - and because the grieving mother, sitting shiva, knows of the candies and knows of the left's collection for those who did not try to apprehend the murderers of her sons, but rejoiced at their deaths. .
Huwara is a narrow two lane road with a very busy Arab only commercial area on either side of the road. I had travelled this road many times and each time with a prayer on my lips and my foot at full speed on the petal. Thankfully, I have never been in a traffic jam there because of the non-peak hours in which I travel.
I sped through that strip knowing that if by any chance I got stuck it would take nothing short of a miracle to get to the other side alive. The two brothers murdered this week on that rode did exactly that. Stuck in a traffic jam they were shot mercilessly in cold blood at point blank range! What kind of person shoots two young boys he never saw before at point blank range just because they are there?
Every Jew that drives through that area understands what I am telling you and they are living there anyway. They believe with all their heart and soul that this Land was G-d given, and that any sacrifice is worth it to grow and prosper and build up the Holy Land. They are certain, and they have lost enough friends and relatives to these barbaric terrorists to know that the only response is to evacuate the town.
Move them elsehere.They will never ever live in peace with the Jews, even though there is ample space for everyone. Because it is not about land or space, it is about our very existence in this Land.
I have written before about the dichotomy between the Jew and the Israeli, this is the real struggle and it manifests in many dimensions throughout society. Are we living in the Holy Land, the promised land of the Jewish people, or a state like any other that represents its citizens? Are we a secular democratic state or a JEWISH state? Are we the homeland of all the Jewish people and therefore required to be pluralistic so as not to offend Diaspora Jewry! Or are we first and foremost responsible to the Jews who live here and vote and fight for this Land? Can we be all things for all the people? Are we having an identity crisis perhaps?
Huwara is the guillotine we Israelis stick our neck under. And this guillotine can be released at any time anywhere on civilian Israelis. However on road 60 in Huwara it is at its most extreme. There is no bypass road…only this very narrow death trap.
Restraint? Of course. We have an army and it is their job under the instructions of the government to provide security for our people, ALL of our people wherever they are in this Land, by confiscating weapons, treating rock throwers as the criminals they are and by deporting all those that celebrate the murder of Jews. And relocating all of them.
Yes, all of them. A deterrent must be restored. In spite of how they behave, few if any want to live in Gaza or even Jordan. Israel is very generous to its Arab citizens. One only needs to visit any university or college in Israel to see that almost half of the student body are Arabs! But if they murder Israelis, Mahmoud Abbas is even more generous. With hard cash.
To speak of Huwara without any understanding of where or what it is, is not simply ignorant, it is also damaging. This is a glimpse into the reality on the ground.
Chaya Gross[email protected] has beenliving in Israel for forty years, and is originally from Canada. She is grateful for the privilege of call Jerusalem home.