Rabbi and Father of Six Slaughtered by Palestinian Monsters

 

Earlier this week an Arab Palestinian fired twenty-two shots to kill the thirty-five year old Israeli Rabbi Raziel Shevach leaving his wife without a husband and his six children fatherless. You read that correctly, twenty-two shots were fired into Rabbi Raziel Shevach, which probably means that even with the Rabbi dead on the ground before this raving Arab Palestinian he continued firing bullets into his motionless, blood-drenched, dead body. The hate coursing through this Arab Palestinian’s veins was obviously immeasurable. Only the Hollywood movies depicting the worst of the Chicago gangster wars during Prohibition even come close to putting so many rounds into a single body. But this was no movie; this was one presumed human being filling another human being’s body with twenty-two shots continuing to shoot the victim long after he had obviously killed. This was an act filled through and through with a hatred beyond our ability to understand or describe. But let us look deeper into the reactions and causes of this horrific crime, this gruesome terrorist act.

 

The first report in our search not from an Israeli source was Sputnik News out of Moscow. Their title read, “IDF Detains 11 Palestinians on Terror Charges Following Rabbi’s Murder.” The rest of the report was equally vague about the murder but very critical of the Israeli reaction using terms such as “military operation,” “blocking the Palestinian settlements,” “trying to seize Shevach’s murderer,” “forces are busy hunting down the terrorists,” “find and severely punish the perpetrators of the crime” and closed placing the blame not on Israel for a change placing blame as follows, “The attack took place amid the recent spike of violence in West Bank, escalated over the controversial US President Donald Trump’s decision, announced on December 6, 2017, to recognize the disputed area of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to move the country’s embassy there. This move has met harsh criticism of Palestine and Muslim communities around the world and prompted numerous protests.”

 

We found an accompanying story which we could not see the relevance to the story covering the ambush murder of Rabbi Raziel Shevach concerning a Vienna demonstration against Trump’s Jerusalem declaration. We hope that this is simply the way stories are posted as otherwise all we can see is an attempt to show that perhaps the shooters were justified due to anger over President Trump’s Jerusalem announcement and intended embassy relocation. Quoting the story, “After a Vienna demonstration against Trump’s Jerusalem declaration where protesters shouted, “Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Muhammad is returning” and “death to Israel,” Austrian police are now pursuing charges against three Israel activists who waved an Israeli flag.” Then in further explanation in a different font likely quoting another newspaper they added, “The police are seeking a 100 euro fine or two days in jail for the waving of the flag at the December 8 rally near the US embassy in the capital. The criminal notice, dated 3 January states that the activists “showed an Israeli flag at a rally in an extremely provocative way and manner that was visible for participants at the rally and thereby produced considerable offense and provocation among the Palestinian protestors.”

 

Terrorist Victim Rabbi Raziel Shevach
Pictured with Family Left Grieving His Death

 

Other reports made sure to mention that this was a drive-by shooting as if that makes any actual difference. Further, we find it difficult to see how twenty-two bullets could by placed into the Rabbi if this was a drive-by shooting as one would expect that even a rifle shooting fully automatic would still require holding the weapon on-target for close to one and a half seconds which would be difficult for an experienced shooter to perform from a moving vehicle. We are willing to wager that in reality the initial shooting may have come from a moving vehicle but either the vehicle was at rest in an ambush position and the firing done from a stationary vehicle or the shooters returned and fired additional rounds into the corpse of the Rabbi just to make a statement of the depth of their hatred.

 

Outside the few reportings by places which monitor activities by the Arab Palestinians, there was no mention of the activities in reaction to this abominably violent act. For this reason, we are very glad for Palestinian Media Watch who covered the reaction with an article. They initially translated the Fatah Facebook post which read,

“The Nablus operation in numbers:
The full duration of the operation: 30 seconds
The distance between the cars: 20 meters
The number of bullets that were fired: 22
The one who carried out the operation was skilled and experienced, and escaped the site
The result: a killed settler”

 

Also included with the article was a graphic (see below) denoting how payments are determined for terrorists by the Palestinian Authority (PA). This was merely the rate for committing a terror act in which one Israeli (Jew) was murdered. In cases of multiple victims, there are multipliers incorporated and these remunerations have become one of the main incentives and one of the highest paying jobs with numerous terrorists admitting they committed their act for the cash.

 

Palestinian Authority Remunerations for Terrorists

 

What we did not see was any actual reporting on the reactions in places such as Ramallah, Nablus and other PA controlled areas. There were parades of cars all sounding their horns with people throwing candies to the cheering crowds. Women baked sweets to give to every passerby. It was New Years, Homecoming and Graduation Day all rolled into one. There were men firing rifles into the air and joyous celebrations for this “glorious successful military operation,” the murdering likely by ambush of an unarmed rabbi by men with rifles. Anywhere normal that is called a murder and potentially a terrorist act, but to the Arab Palestinians it is a brave military operation which is going to gain at least one family a lifetime of gainful employment dependent on the length of their family member’s prison term. These reward monies come from the funding so gleefully provided by the European Union, United Nations, United States, numerous European countries and numerous Arab countries. Some of these funds might even be diverted from UNWRA or even UNESCO funds originally presumably intended for the protection and restoration of holy sites. This is all part of the PA having spent over 1.2 billion shekels promoting terrorism in 2017. Yes, that was billion with a ‘B’ which would be roughly equal to $350 million. It is no wonder that the second most profitable venture and the most profitable to the average Palestinian is to commit an act of terrorism resulting in the death of Israelis (Jews) and the more you manage to murder and injure, the more wealth you will gain for your family. Being in high office and part of the kleptocracy is the fastest wealth building industry with Mahmoud Abbas and family at the top of the pile.

 

Meanwhile, proving the ‘pay to slay’ incentives displayed above are working as Khaled Rajoub was arrested after an unsuccessful attempt to murder Israelis and confessed during interrogation that “the important thing is that I will die and they will kill me, so that my children will receive a [PA] allowance and live happily.” One can only wonder how many others like Khaled Rajoub who cannot find work thanks to the PA not caring about the economy beyond what they can steal and thinking that if only they kill enough Israelis or die in the process that then their family will be cared for forever into the future. The PA is no different from Hamas and are simply a terror factory seeking every means possible to incite their people to murder Israelis. Their education has become simply a war footing education teaching hatred while the children’s summer camps are paramilitary training schools and the end result is the never-ending terrorism in Israel. If not for the security fence and checkpoints, the very same things the Europeans and United Nations along with leftist NGOs demand Israel dismantle, the toll would return to being unbearable and result in a terrifying war to end the PA entirely no matter what the world might say. As odd as it may seem, the checkpoints and security fence actually protect the existence of the PA from themselves. What is unfounded is the idea throughout much of Europe that the terrorism they are suffering is in any way or means any different from the terrorism Israel suffers. The terrorists attacking in Europe received their original ideas and techniques from the Arab terrorism used against Israel. Once they found something which was effective in Israel, it was then exported to Europe and beyond. Eventually Europe will wake-up and smell the terror or they will succumb to the Islamic violence. The only thing we can assure all is that Israel will not succumb to Arab terror violence, Israel will find means of fighting it and eventually the PA will run out of lies about Israel and the so-called peace process and will launch another terror wave which will result in Israel terminating their existence and returning them into exile.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Israeli Predicament with the World

 

Once again the world is teetering on the brink of another disastrous attempt to press a Middle East grand plan for peace. Do not misinterpret this as the idea that Israel is against making peace as there is nothing the Israelis desire more than a real and just peace. On the other hand what they fear is the concept being once again driven that if only Israel were to surrender further and just find that correct balance of sacrificed level of secure area while giving away dangerous high grounds and leaving from the areas where her intelligence gathering has proven sufficient to prevent another disastrous terror war as well as preventing the replacement of the Arab Palestinian Authority (PA) governance by Hamas or the potentially worse Islamic State replacing Abbas in another coup just as they did Gaza placing all Israel under mortal threat, then there would be peace and no further threat to Europe. Under the world’s radar Israel has prevented any number of schemes to forcibly replace the somewhat milder terrorist PA, and do not ever lose sight of this fact that the PA is a terror entity, with the religiously fanatical Hamas or Islamic State over the last decade since giving that same PA control over Gaza which they lost in a quick but deadly putsch by Hamas allied with Islamic Jihad and the Muslim Brotherhood which brought onto Israel a number of ever increasingly dangerous terror rocket wars. These all proceeded in the same methodology of a slow ramping over weeks leading to months of rockets being fired into southern Israel and eventually in this last war reaching Jerusalem and Tel Aviv all the way up the coast to Haifa. This slowly raising the terror rocket temperature to slowly boil Israeli in the pan of explosive projectiles while not disturbing the media always received little if any coverage only when there was loss of life or such loss being achieved through apparent miracles succeeded in its aim of stealth. This always led to the first mentioning of any violence always came when Israel was finally forced to use the IDF at a high level of force to end the hundreds of rockets raining down on Israeli towns, farms, kibbutzim and into its industrial heart.

 

The same being able to be directed from the overlooking Judean Hills would be more devastating to Israel than any story realized thus far. Hundreds to over a thousand and approaching two thousand rockets and now missiles being launched and directed from the heights overlooking central Israel where almost three out of four Israelis reside and over eighty percent of her industrial and power generating power is centralized and the shuttering of Ben Gurion International Airport would be ruinous for Israel and an assault from which she would take decades upon decades to recover from assuming recovery were even an option. Such an assault would cause a mass and panicked race for the borders of potentially the majority of the Israeli population which could send ripples through the IDF as soldiers moved with their families to anywhere outside the range of the rocket and missile threat. The Arab forces would then have an IDF in disarray and weakened state with the backing of her reserves likely decimated by the exodus to safety. This would be the exact scenario should the French initiative prove to be the grand success that they believe they are targeting and what President Obama might just utilize as a last grand push for peace and a second Nobel Peace Prize as well as cementing his legacy as the President that brought ruination in the form of a grand peace to the Jewish State. Trust that should the Jewish State of Israel be erased from the map, the actual desired end of the Palestinian and Arab peace plans, the Nobel Committee would be beside themselves is glorious celebration that that perceived thorn in the side of a true and lasting peace and end to all Arab terror had finally arrived that they would be handing out Nobel Peace Prizes like candy on Halloween.

 

The reality would turn out to be something quite different. With Israel out of the way the first casualty would be Cyprus followed by Crete and on to the Grecian Islands leaving an Islamic beachhead in the heart of Europe which was not dependent on Turkey or Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan whose desire to lead the next Caliphate relied on Turkey being the Islamic beachhead. Such a situation would also illicit an advance through Sicily and up the Italian Peninsula where the two thrusts would meet once again at Vienna except this time the city would fall. This would in turn permit a push northward across the Balkans and into Austria, Poland and Germany then turning westward through France and into Spain and northward into Britain. This would inevitably lead to the invasion of Scandinavia and finally the push from the west and south into the heart of Russia. This scenario is how the Islamic Caliphate which would have been formed would anticipate such a conquest aided by the millions of advanced troops using the refugees as their regular soldiers and shock troops starting internal strife and rioting escalating as the Islamic forces approached spreading each national military and law enforcement thinly defending the country from forces external and internal simultaneously. The only variable is how far into such a scenario would the remainder of Europe awaken? Assuming that such a scenario were planned and executed over a number of decades the Europeans would be slowly devoured and likely never awaken from their war weary slumbers.

 

Fortunately the forces of the coming Islamic expansion will be anything but inexorably slow and planned for minimal upheaval attempting to weaken each region internally before striking as the saviors from rioting and terror. Instead there will be an explosion of terror and rioting across much of Europe upon the conquest of the Grecian Isles and the spread into the Balkan States. Romania will be one nation which will likely be bypassed as the perception of a bitter and long struggle will linger from wars past and initially Romania might be bypassed and the assaults strike headlong into Poland and Germany while North African arm assaults Sicily and the Italian peninsula. As this will be one persistent assault and conquest, the sleeping Europe will likely awaken and unite this time before the situation has deteriorated beyond repair. Of course this is predicated on nationalist governments being elected as the more leftist socialist humanitarian governance proves inadequate to the task at hand. Such a uniting of an awakened and truly terrified and terrorized Europe with the enlisted assistance of the United States could terminate any advance before the complete fall of Poland and Germany could be completed and the Italian assault closing but not yet in possession of Rome. The Vatican calling for assistance for the sake of the Church and all Christianity could, especially with a Pope from South America, solidify a united Christian front to counter Islam and all future peace would be dependent on one side or the other being completely victorious and vanquishing the other pressing the other religion literally into the recesses of secrecy and potentially all but eradicated from the Earth.

 

Of course this entire scenario can never be carried out as long as the cork is in the bottle and that cork is Israel. The mere existence of Israel stabilizes the immediate area allowing for a moderate and economically focused military nexus in addition to security oriented Egypt and a stable situation in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. A strong Israel also acts as a restraint on Iran and its slowly deteriorating offensive to build a crescent of power across to the Mediterranean Sea through southern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon also gaining a foothold on the Israeli border and potentially striking at Jordan and the PA in order to weaken Israel. Such a scenario coming into fruition would shock and threaten Erdogan and Turkey which, if attacked, could request assistance through NATO treaty obligations bringing the powers of Europe and the United States et al into the fray and likely ending the advance and with it any Iranian hopes for further conquest. Trust that the biggest threat does not come from the Islamic State, though they are a direct threat to peace in the area any time soon, but from a nuclear armed Iran threatening nuclear ruin on any opposition and once nuclear weapons in any form from an EMP device to a hydrogen city killing device, use of such weapons would bring far more than a slap on the wrist and assisting compliant actions from the United States and even Europe. The civilizational conflict of the ages is once again simmering and potentially about to boil over. The quencher who can turn off the burner before anything gets a foothold is a strong Israel. Simply explained, with Israel positioned to be a ruinous force against any supply lines from the Middle East to any European front and the Israeli long arm which can disrupt even shipments intended for Hamas while they are still traversing the Sudan is just further proof that Israel, especially if sided through secretive agreements by Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, has an extended reach and intelligence network such that any overt actions can be anticipated and mitigated.

 

 

 

The name of the game is to prevent the fall of Europe directly to Islamic forces. That does not mean that Europe is safe as even Israel cannot prevent a European politically correct surrender to the Islamic forces within. The Stealth Jihad has been extremely effective despite not even having any coordinating framework yet established. This is most definitely changing and the race is on between the Muslim Brotherhood, the Wahabbists, Iranian Shiites and the Islamic State as to who will be the puppet master coordinating the terror actions throughout Europe and beyond into the Americas. Iran would be the most dangerous as they would necessarily require changing the dynamics of the entire equation proving to the vast number of Sunni Muslims that their Shiite form of Islam was the preeminent Islamic force and being led by the Mahdi or those sent to prepare for the Mahdi’s arrival which would need to also be sold as imminent. Of course this would require an entire propaganda coup making such an eventuality appear to be within the Iranian grasp but solely by its Shiite narrative within Islam thus giving the Shia Islam the claim of the right path following the strong horse. Until now the strong horse had always been Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Needless to point out, a nuclear armed Iran changes such a scenario once and for all or at the least until the leaders of Sunni Islam develop or procure their own nuclear weapons. Such weapons might very well be utilized by Bashir al-Assad as a final strike weapon of last resort. This is likely to be prevented by the fears of European national reaction which would agitate the European nations and potentially awaken them to the shocking and imminent threat they jointly face.

 

The Europeans and the Americans must open their eyes and realize that Islam is not a religion so much as it is a supremacist document replete with instruction to conquer the entirety of mankind, subjugate them to Islam and utilize Sharia to terrorize the masses of people into submission. There is a reason the Quran requires one to surrender to Islam. That is due to its all-encompassing directives about how to live every minute of one’s life. It invokes a class system which makes social advancement directly related to ones dedication to the precepts of Islam. Islamic teachers will tell people that it has always been the future of mankind and that none may escape the icy hand of Islam as it imposes its dominion over mankind. The ideals of Islam are totalitarian and are blatantly anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, anti-Buddhist, anti-Shinto and against every other religion and other governing structure which does not enforce Islam on all their subjects, their people. It can cause scientific stagnation and potentially lead to regressive scientific knowledge as in its most virulent form, the ones in use today in Saudi Arabia, the Islamic State, Iran, Hamas, Erdogan and all too many others. The individuals attempting to mitigate some of the sharp shards enforced under Islam leads to physical sexual mutilation of women, suppression of all thoughts outside of the Quran and Muhammad’s life, bigamy, honor killing of female (and rare cases of male) members of a family who is believed to have committed a sexual act forbidden in Islam thus detracting from the family name thus requiring their murder, misogyny, slavery (still practiced in some Islamic communities), no religious freedoms, no freedom of speech, no free press or media, no individual liberty, no freedom of thought, the murder of all found to be living a gay or homosexual lifestyle, no deviation from the accepted lifestyle limitations as interpreted by the Imams (which can include bans on such activities as dancing, objectionable lyrics, music, movies, books other than the Quran, singing outside of prayer, clothing restrictions, hair style, beard requirements and other impingements on personal choice) and Islamic supremacy. Islam as it is being applied today is straightforwardly a geopolitical framework for world conquest and domination with no allowance for accepting any other religious or political system to exist throughout the entirety of the world. Islam is banned as a threat to peace, security and general happiness in several nations. It is banned as a practice, a religion, a governing format and is to be fought by these societies wherever it may attempt to root itself within their borders and the closing of exchange be it trade, commercial, movement of people and especially religious leaders as they view Islam as a threat to their way of life and the things they hold dear within their society. These nations also banned Communism for many of the same liberty crushing reasons. Islam demands complete world conquest and subjugation as part of its observance allowing for no other religion or ruling entity other than the Caliphate which is headed by the Mahdi, the supreme Islamic entity.

 

The Islamic final conquest of the world is currently preoccupied with Israel. Their main problem with Israel is multifaceted and starts with the fact that Israel is the land of the Jewish People, strike one. In Islam Judaism is the highest form of evil and must be stamped out. Their final world conquest begins with Israel as it sits on former Islamic lands, strike two. Finally, Israel has a strategic placement which sits at the crux, the joining lands of three continents, Asia, Europe and Africa. Such a strongpoint must be taken before any real conquest of these three continents can be pursued. The Islamic phrase which captures their initial required conquest of Israel does not mention Israel and solely states in Sahih Muslim Book 041, Hadith Number 6985, “Abu Huraira reported Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.” Note it says nothing about Israel, Judea, Jerusalem, al Quds, West Bank, Gaza or any other location but insists on the death for all Jews wherever they may be found and that the Earth herself will reveal the Jews who attempt to hide. One can assume that Islam would also look favorably on the destruction of any groves of Gharqad trees.

 

Four Examples of Vegetation Thought
to Represent the Gharqad Trees Mentioned
in Sahih Muslim Book 041, Hadith Number 6985

 

Lastly and in closing, allow us to quote Winston Churchill cited a passage said to have been taken from a speech by Churchill, as reproduced in his 1899 book The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan, spoke of Islam stating,

 

I am sending the attached short speech from Winston Churchill, delivered by him in 1899 when he was a young soldier and journalist. It probably sets out the current views of many but expressed in the wonderful Churchillian turn of phrase and use of the English language, of which he was a past master. Sir Winston Churchill was, without doubt, one of the greatest men of the late 19th and 20th centuries.

He was a brave young soldier, a brilliant journalist, an extraordinary politician and statesman, a Great War leader and Prime Minister, to whom the Western world must be forever in his debt. He was a prophet in his own time; He died on 24 January 1965, at the grand old age of 90 and, after a lifetime of service to his country, was accorded a State funeral.

“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.

“A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

“Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Despicable Violence Condemnable, Period

 

An Arab Palestinian child, a one-and-a-half year-old baby, was killed and four other people were wounded as a result of an arson attack on a house in the village of Duma, northeast of Ramallah. To the best of our knowledge the perpetrator of this horrific crime has yet to be named or arrested. Whoever committed this crime should pay dearly for their crime whether Jew or Arab and that is the truth. The international outcry and the hand wringing within the Knesset, the President’s residence and from the Prime Minister is righteous anger and is completely and honestly expressed, or at least we pray their concern is as they have acted. The strange thing is that this is what it took to get them to condemn violence against people simply out of what we have thus far assumed was interracial violence out of pure hate. It is refreshing to have them demonstrate such human emotion and abhorrence to such violence but it begs a question, why all of a sudden and only now when their public outcry had been muted by comparison when the perceived violence has been in the other direction. Before waiting for the answer, allow me to try and see if I can venture a guess. It is due to the apparent first instinct that this was committed by a Jew against the family whose house was incinerated and whose infant died as a result of this criminal and hateful act and that is an aberration and completely unacceptable by Jewish laws and we are shocked beyond words so instead we issue an avalanche of condemnations even before we know who committed this crime.

 

Arab Palestinian child died as the result of terror attack was only one-and-a-half year-old baby, while four other people were wounded and were initially treated at a Palestinian Hospital but have been transferred to an Israeli hospital where a more intensive level of burn care is available as specializes in burn care which is needed as the wounded suffered burns as a result of the arson attack on this house in the village of Duma, northeast of Ramallah

 

 

May the wounded be given speedy and total recovery from their wounds by the tender mercies of Hashem as any human suffering is to be eased wherever and whenever possible. May the perpetrator of this heinous crime be caught and brought to trial for this crime. Beyond that there is little we can honestly assume or conclude in order to condemn this act with any more or less severity than we could have any other such horrific act where the life of one so young was snuffed out so early that they barely were able to get beyond the innocent amazement moment to moment as the wonders of the world were unfolding beyond their curious eyes and experiencing new sounds at every bird chirp or leaves rustling in a breeze. Such a senseless loss of one so innocent is always seemingly more horrific a loss but a life taken is a life taken and when it occurs accidently it is a tragedy and when done as a result of an act with malicious intent it crosses into abhorrence and our shock is doubled. This should be true no matter whose infant is so cruelly taken and the mourning should be just as heartfelt whether the loss is a Jewish child or a Arab child as a child so young has no hatred within them and only wonder. Much of the reaction to this loss by the Jewish leadership is due to the shock at the possibility that this act of spite and hatred may have been committed by a Jew making this a truly shocking act in an additional manner. I understand that should this have been an act resulting from an act of a Jew they are to be spit out of our community and ostracized for committing an act unacceptable no matter the reason motivating the individual.

 

That is the difference and why the reactions appear to be so out of place and amplified beyond our normal reaction to violence taking the life of an infant, an innocent from amongst the families of all mankind. We as Jews suffer the end of the life of an innocent whenever such occurs in our neighborhood for we love life and abhor senseless death of any kind. When it becomes apparent that such taking of a life of an innocent may have been committed by another Jew our abhorrence for the act is increased astronomically as we all feel we are guilty by association. We are reacting to the possibility that the stain of this act may fall on our heads as we are all to some extent feeling the extra pain of responsibility. There is the truth behind the reactions we are witnessing within our community. If the perpetrator of this horrific act does indeed turn out to be a fellow Jew there will be no candies handed out in our streets, no street named for this shameful person, no celebratory parades honoring this act, no praise for a victory in some perceived struggle, and no excuses made as we will meter out justice probably with just that extra amount of force and severity in the punishment and all because we, each and every Jew, feel the abhorrence and pain that such an act could emanate from amongst our community. This is what is behind the gnashing of teeth and the heads hung in shame.

 

What is also apparent are the reactions from outside Israel which came and each one felt as if the target was each and every Jew in Israel. The truth is that many of the accusatory fingers were pointed in just that accusatory manner blaming the entirety of Israel for this crime. That is what was different in the outside world’s reaction to this murder, an extra seeming feeling that this lost life was somehow worth just a little more of a loss than the deaths of previous infants. There were true expressions of pain and somehow no call for restraint as they expected and desired no restrain, just a wholly vindication as this one potential criminal act if perpetrated by a Jew now vindicated every crime committed against the Jews as they are now deserved. This outcry from the rest of the world was the equal of the outcry for the death of Mohammed al Dura and the special editing performed by some French media to the taping of the event in order to make it appear to fit the scripted tragedy which never occurred. When the investigation eventually revealed the hoax the reaction by much of the world was a big sigh and the comment that well, it could have been real. There is a continuing outcry heard in Europe and the United States at rallies against Israel where the cry goes out demanding remember ‘al Dura’ and the appropriate yells abound.

 

Now there will be an echoing outcry for this loss and all the more so should the evil person who committed this crime prove to be a Jew and even continued if not committed by a Jew because a Jew was suspected of committing this criminal act. This additional outcry is the result of the need to blame the Jews so that the next fifty such crimes against Jewish children will be excused because of the incrimination abounding now, simply because this may have been an act of Jewish terrorism and thus so much more of an abhorrence. Remember why it is such a greater abhorrence if a Jew committed this horrific act, it is a greater abhorrence because it flies against everything that is expected of Jews to never take an innocent’s life. The difference in the outcry against this act as it stands as potentially an act of Jewish hate is decried by both the outside world condemning this act and the equally loud condemnations from the Jews who doubly are outraged by this possible act by one of our own. When the victim has been a Jewish child the outcry usually comes only from inside the Jewish community while the outside community denounces the act couched within a demand for diminished action and for understanding of the motivations of the perceived act of vengeance more so than an act of hate.

 

There is the difference as the Jewish community is in a search of our communitive soul seeking where the cancer of hate may have invaded and we seek to excise this hate before its vileness has the chance to spread. Jews react with horror at even the possibility that such an act could have come from within our societal body and we seek it out in order to remove it from the body of our community and fulfil the act of punishment of the perpetrator and punishment we will mete out to ourselves as if a Jew committed this barbarism then we all have a small part in this act of animalistic hate. As Jews we feel the responsibility of our community when such hatred appears to have emanated from one of our own and we seek to find and denounce the perpetrator of this crime. We refuse to accept any excuse from within our community as such barbarity is never to be accepted from a Jew, and this is the additional outcry from every corner. The sorrow is that similar calls for communal purging are seldom made when the act is in the opposite direction. We are witnessing the long held belief that ‘Arab Palestinian Lives Matter’ and they apparently matter more if a Jew is to blame for their death. On the other hand we seldom see the opposite that ‘Jewish Lives Matter’ being expressed anywhere outside the Jewish community as a reaction to equivalent acts against Jews as there is always some mitigating reason which makes the act against a Jewish life somehow partly the fault of the Jews, even if it is only for being the victim.

 

How many people remember an act of equal if not superior barbarism in Itamar? How about the overturned car resulting from a rock attack on a vehicle on Route 60 near Hevron which took two lives, one not quite two years in age? Does anyone remember the tragic last year of the life of Adelle Biton who was struck in the head by a rock crashing through the family car window in an ambush where we eventually were to learn that the infant barely two years old was actually targeted when the gang of youths saw a child in an infant seat in the back of the car. The young Adelle Biton hung on to life for a little over a year succumbing to her wounds just after her third birthday. The list of Jewish children murdered are never listed as reasons to mitigate the criminal act such as this case because their deaths are irrelevant except as a metric to understand the difference in the reactions both within and outside the Jewish community and within the Arab community. The contrast that needs be made is the official reaction over time between the criminal, vicious and murderous act against an Arab child will be echoed on by those choosing to exploit those rare, though not rare enough, acts of hatred potentially by a Jew compared to an apparently similarly motivated criminal act brought against a Jewish child where immediately upon it being committed by somebody from outside the Jewish community the uproar consists more towards the demand that the Jews just suck it up and take it as just another act of senseless violence.

 

In a different look, Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, also known as Joseph Stalin, has been credited with making the callous statement that, “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths merely a statistic.” While a slightly differently quote attributed only as coming from a Frenchman in a review written by Charles J. Rolo writing in “The Atlantic Bookshelf” section of the magazine claimed the quote was, “Scourges as immense as fascism and war present the novelist with a knotty problem of ways and means. A Frenchman has aptly remarked that ‘a single man killed is a misfortune, a million is a statistic.’” Giving credit once again to Stalin when as Commissar of Munitions during a meeting of what was described as some of the highest ranking Commissars discussing the continued deaths from hunger in the Ukraine, as the figures were being listed Stalin interrupted exclaiming vociferously, “If only one man dies of hunger, that is a tragedy. If millions die, that’s only statistics.” In another instance during an interview where Stalin was questioned by Lady Astor presumably with George Bernard Shaw present according to the article in the Christian Science Monitor dated 1932, as she queried, “Mr. Stalin, how long are you going to continue killing people?” to which Stalin calmly and sternly replied, “As long as it is necessary.” The original quote of “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths merely a statistic,” can be said to apply as an explanation of the uproar largely due to the suspicions that this heinous crime was perpetrated by a Jew places it in the “single death being a tragedy,” while the murdering of Jewish infants or children fall under, thanks to a long history of such events being merely recorded rather than denounced and protested, fall into the category of “a million deaths merely a statistic.

 

My last commentary will be on the reported quotes of the graffiti found at the scene of the arson attack where the scrawling were in Hebrew, not necessarily damning by itself, but still the main lead putting the sleuths to seek a Jewish perpetrator, as only Jews are capable of writing on walls of crime scenes in Hebrew. The graffiti, which according to Walla! News read “יחי מלך המשי” which translates to, “long live King Messiah” as well as the word “revenge” while next to each phrase was the Jewish star. Revenge is a universal concept and is more often than not insufficient an excuse for taking matters into one’s own hands. Revenge can be the motivation for any arsonist though arson is rather peculiar method for extracting revenge though such has been the case. The other quote, “יחי מלך המשי”which translates to, “long live King Messiah” strikes me as somewhat odd as in Judaism the Mashiach has yet to come, though we are to live our lives as if he will appear in the next moment such as we have no way of determining the arrival of the Mashiach and thus must always be in a state of holiness just in case the improbable occurs and the Mashiach were to appear. Since the Mashiach, the Messiah, has yet to arrive one really cannot wish them long life and anyways, the Mashiach is an eternal entity and thus has infinite life, or at least life for as long as there is existence which we all pray is infinite despite the mutterings of physicists and astronomers or, dare we say, astrophysicists. I may be out on a limb all by myself on this one but it just struck me as rather a strange thing to write, especially at the scene of a horrific act of arson and murder. Hopefully the perpetrator of this unspeakable horror which caused the death of a one-and-a-half year-old baby be brought to justice and through the ordeal learn that revenge lies not in our hands but only in the hands of the state and ultimately in the care by Hashem.

 

Beyond the Cusp