Murdered Israeli Settlers

There can be no justification for the murder of eight Israeli students, studying in the library of their yeshiva.

But an explanation of why now, and why students at a particular yeshiva were selected as targets, could help us understand the seemingly never ending cycle of death in the Middle East.

Sadly, the American press is far too intimated to give us the full story.

You have to go to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz for the first blunt assessment of the tragedy, which they classified as "revenge."

"The Israel Defense Forces' attacks in Gaza, which caused the death of many civilians, provided the legitimacy for yesterday's brutal attack."

Earlier in the week, the I.D.F. had attacked a number of targets in  Gaza, murdering a minimum of 19  Palestinian civilians (four of whom were children.) in one operation alone.

The Israeli students killed were studying at a particularly militaristic yeshiva - one that sought to provide a religious justification for the illegal occupation of territories in the West Bank. As the N.Y.Times wrote:

The yeshiva is famous, a symbol of the national religious strain of Judaism that provides the backbone of the settler movement.

It is closely linked with both "Religious Zionism" and Gush Emunim.

In fact at least four of the young students killed came from settlements in the West Bank. One was from Shiloh, in the West Bank, while another was from Kochav Hasahar, a settlement even Israel recognizes as illegal.  As the BBC has reported, "the international community regards all settlements in...the West Bank... as illegal under international law." Another of those killed was from Elkana, a town whose enlargement was of concern to the Bush Administration:

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the US "will be seeking clarification from the government of Israel" over the plan for new homes in Elkana.

"Israel should not be expanding settlements," he said.

A fourth was from the illegal town Neveh Daniel, an outpost from which Israeli settlers "severely" beat a 65 year old Palestinian farmer back in 2005.

The implication left by reporting in our press was that a random act of murder occurred in a Jerusalem school last week.  The truth is more complicated.

When people of good faith such as Kofi Annan and Jimmy Carter are mocked by the likes of a Marty Peretz and a Fausta for planning a trip to the region in search for peace, the lives of more Israeli and Palestinian children are endangered.   But then one of the tragedies of the Middle East is how far Israel's "supporters" are willing to go to undermine peace.

(memeorandum)

Comments

[shira]

These students, whether or not you consider them to have lived in illegal settlements, were brutally targeted and murdered. You are blaming those innocent souls for the actions of a sadistic murderer.

If people would quit trying to justify the actions of terrorists whose only targets are civilians, there would be a better chance for peace.

The murder of the students is not complicated: It was murder.

[Dov]

I see - so if you are involved in a conflict, that makes it understandable that you might be murdered in cold blood.

[Elisson]

I see that you conveniently leave out any mention of the daily barrage of rocket attacks on Sderot and other towns in Israel. The IDF's actions in Gaza were not unprovoked; they were made necessary by the constant attacks on Israeli civilians coming from Gaza...attacks that target civilians.

When civilians are killed in Gaza by the IDF - almost unavoidable when terrorists use the local populace as human shields - I don't see Israelis handing out candy in the streets. But when Israeli students - children! - get murdered, that's exactly what happens in Gaza.

Sorry, Bustard. I think you're sticking up for the wrong people here, people who do not share our Western values.

[Barzilai]

You make a good point. It is understandable that an oppressed people would dehumanize their nemesis and seek to inflict as much suffering as possible upon them, simply to make them feel what they are made to feel every day. Unfortunately, there is no solution to the conflict in Israel, because Hamas will not rest until the state is destroyed and all vestige of a Jewish state is erased, as they have often and unabashedly stated. Clearly, half measures cannot work. The only solution is to make it crystal clear to Hamas that if they continue their attacks we will fry the bloody bastards and their families, as was so effectively done in Dresden and Hiroshima. That's what the Jordanians do, and it has kept the peace there for forty years. "Proportionate" response is just another way of saying let's do this again.

[Zed]

You should have stopped at the "but." There is no excuse for murder. None.

Now shut up and apologize to the families of the innocents who you defamed.

[Rahel]

The massacre at the Mercaz ha-Rav Yeshiva was a well-planned attack on kids. Seven of the eight victims were not yet out of their teens. To imply that they deserved it for any reason -- particularly because of where they lived -- is just inhuman.

Bustard, you might consider doing some research on what it might be like to live under the Palestinian regime in Gaza. Then ask yourself just whose side you're taking here.

[JFred]

What "Law" is it that makes it illegal for Jews to live in a place?

The West Bank is outside of any country, a bit like the middle of the ocean or the south pole or even the Old West in the US. The problem is that there is no law.

For a while, Jordan grabbed the West Bank. Was that against some law? Did anybody complain? Or is it simply that there is one law for Arabs and another for Jews?

The Oslo treaty assigned some various authorities to different places in the West Bank. But the Oslo treaty is dead and the PA is dying.

[Barzilai]

The whole issue of having taken land from the Arabs is absurd. Even if one would grant the relevance of property rights-- that the inconvenience of moving a few miles to the east or west is on par with the natural right to evade extinction by returning to ancestral land-- but if we were to think of the State of Israel as a "wildlife refuge" for an endangered species, (assuming that Jews are no less important than Silverback Apes, then the liberal sensibility might find Zionism more palatable.