Standing in front of the Duke Chapel Wednesday night, shivering slightly from a crisp breeze, I fought back tears. I had come to the Chapel steps to honor the innocent Palestinian lives that have been lost during the past two weeks of violence that has swept through Israel. To pay my respects. I wanted to show that as a Jewish American involved with pro-Israel advocacy, I recognize that there are human costs on the Palestinian side to the violence. To say that I mourn with you, and hope you mourn with me in return.
But it was not only innocent Palestinian lives that were mourned. Listed among the names read were terrorists who had been killed by Israeli police after they attacked Jews. Youthful Palestinians who had violently attacked Israelis before being stopped by Israeli authorities were mentioned alongside the names of children torn apart by airstrikes gone wrong.
Yes, there are wrongs on both sides. But there is no moral equivalency.
I stand with the innocent lives lost, and my heart aches with these tragedies. Yes, many Palestinians are focused on improving their lives and living in peace, and it is these people whom I mourn. We should not allow stereotypes to cloud our thinking. This should not stop us from recognizing violent Palestinian terrorist activity and call these terrorists attacks what they are. It should not stop us from condemning them. In the harshest terms. They should not be received with sympathy and well-wishes, some twisted moral equivalence where slashing an Israeli child with a knife is reduced to an inevitable reaction in a "cycle of violence" an idea that holds nobody and everybody accountable simultaneously.
Some of the candles flickering on the chapel steps Wednesday night honored the lives of those who, successfully or unsuccessfully, tried to end someone else's life. Some say that this terrorism is motivated by a twisted interpretation of religion. Others say it is motivated to recover lost land. I don't think either accounts for why someone would stab a 2 year old child, knife someone in the back or commit other unfathomable horrors (warning, this link contains graphic content). These are some of the people that were honored at the vigil Wednesday night. It doesn't accomplish either goal. This terrorism aims to kill Israeli Jews for being Israeli Jews. I'm not the only one thinking this.
I was hit again when the Kaddish, the Hebrew prayer for mourning the dead, was evoked to mourn the dead terrorists. I almost began reciting it instinctively but I stopped myself and thought instead. It did not differentiate between the stabber and the stabbee. A line from the prayer: "Oseh shalom bim'romav hu ya'aseh shalom aleinu v'al kol Yis'rael v'imru amen" translates to "May the One who brings peace to the universe bring peace to us and to all the people of Israel." The irony would be humorous if it wasn't so chilling.
I had come to the vigil to support the sanctity of human life, fearing the event would become politicized and hoping otherwise. It was a slap in the face when a speaker said the Israeli occupation was the cause of terror (never mind the fact that terror began before 1967, or that Palestinians had been occupied by Jordanian/Egyptian forces previously without terrorist response although Jordan allowed terrorist raids into Israel, or that prominent leaders in the Palestinian Authority have implicitly endorsed violent struggle, or...). It was a slap in the face when a speaker said the spike in terror during the last two weeks was the result of "Israeli aggression" even though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he would sit down with Abbas to speak with no preconditions if Abbas would do the same. It was a slap in the face when they wanted audience members to support the Palestinians' struggle for liberation, a seeming euphemism for violent struggle in the midst of a vigil for terrorists during a period that may one day be remembered as the beginning of the Third Intifada. It stung.
Moreover, violent struggle, a euphemism for terrorism, was viewed as a natural and inevitable reaction to the Israeli occupation — which began after this violent struggle started — and no comments were made about the environment these attacks are happening in. The last two weeks have not occurred in a vacuum. The latest violence began immediately after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared that Palestine was no longer bound by the Oslo Accords, which comprise the foundation for a two-state solution and ensure Israeli and Palestinian economic and security cooperation. The Oslo Accords also created the Palestinian Authority and established Palestinian sovereignty over their own land for the first time in history.
Abbas also said, "We welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem. This is pure blood, clean blood, blood on its way to Allah. With the help of Allah, every shaheed (martyr) will be in heaven, and every wounded will get his reward." He later said "...Al-Aqsa is ours... they [Jews] have no right to desecrate [it] with their filthy feet, and we won't allow them to."
A 13-year-old boy does not wake up in the morning with plans to murder Jews in a vacuum. Yet Ahmed Mansara, a 13-year-old boy, who Mr. Abbas said was "executed" in cold blood by Israeli police, did exactly this. Never mind that it later turned out he was not "executed" and was, in fact, in good condition at an Israeli hospital. Never mind that Abbas threatened that this conflict could escalate into a "holy war." If Palestinian leadership were to condemn even a single terrorist attack in the last two weeks, then maybe Ahmed Mansara would not have taken a knife and stabbed a Jewish boy his age. The silence is deafening.
A lasting peace can only happen if it is based on mutual recognition, on respect, on willingness to condemn the radicals on one's own side and on an appreciation for the sanctity of human life.
I will light a candle for Jewish Israeli lives lost. I will light a candle for Arab Israeli lives lost. I will light a candle for innocent Palestinian lives lost. I will not light a candle for terrorists.
Tyler Fredricks is a Trinity senior. His column usually runs on alternate Thursdays.
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