The recent escalation of Arab Palestinian violence and homicidal rage which had claimed too numerous Israeli victims’ and Palestinian attackers’ lives, caused untold misery, left scores injured and disrupted all activity in Jerusalem and beyond has had some telling differences in how they have been covered by the respective media outlets. The Arab Palestinian coverage had emphasized the glorious carnage which should fill every Arab Palestinian great pride and desires to emulate these shahids and their great courage committing these acts of vengeance and for the protection of the Arab Palestinian cause and the area of the al-Aqsa Mosque which they are protecting from being “defiled by the Jews and their filthy feet.” The Israeli coverage has decried the carnage and mourned the deaths of every victim including the Arab Palestinians who needfully were killed as they would not cease their homicidal rage even after being shot and wounded and already having murdered numerous others and injured far more. Our coverage of these events has spanned the past week starting with our article, “Intifada or No Intifada, Media Keeps Silent,” where we discussed mostly the incitement coming from Mahmoud Abbas amongst other Arab Palestinian spokespeople, “Terror War Escalated with Calls for More Stabbings,” where we discussed some of the attacks, both current and historic, the escalating rhetoric and instigation with stirring anti-Zionist, anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic broadcasts and Imam’s sermon on the attacks thus far and the need for more Arab Palestinians to emulate with their own bodies and lives and finally “New Day and Terror Attacks Increasing,” where we summarized a single day’s attacks and where we gave special mention to the needless death and concurrent loss of Rabbi Yeshayahu Krishevsky (pictured below), his murderer by a radicalized Israeli Arab and a short video of those gathered towards the end of that fateful day with the crowds spilling into the streets in an attempt by many to honor and pay their respects for Rabbi Yeshayahu Krishevsky as he was lain to rest. The instigations and encouragement to violence by Imams and Arab Palestinian Authority terror instigators including Mahmoud Abbas and others has shown no signs of decreasing and could be summarized as increasing and it must be pointed out these calls to murder Israeli civilians have been echoed in sentiment if not outright calls from Arab and Joint List Knesset Ministers knowing they will never be made to pay a price for their traitorous activities as they too break Israeli laws against incitement to violence. Opposing the Arab Palestinian and Arab Israeli calls, which include an Imam brandishing a knife and using motions to indicate its use in a stabbing (though his form left room for improvement), were the calls from Israeli politicians and enforcement personnel who have implored people to avoid places where violence had been occurring such as traditionally parts of Eastern Jerusalem including the vast majority of the Old City of Jerusalem particularly on and around the Temple Mount, and the other areas from Ra’anana just outside of Tel Aviv to the rest of the locations of the other attacks.
Rabbi Yeshiyahu Krishevsky Was Run Over by the Terrorist Vehicle after which the Arab driver took to the ground with a meat cleaver, not actually though technically the knife the media referred to the weapon as being, chopped at the Rabbi assuring he had died and then took after the other person he had struck and chasing the others were injured through stabbings until the terrorist was shot by a security guard as well as several border police who arrived ending his continued attempts to kill people
The definitive difference between the Arab Palestinian and the Israeli broadcasts is one of implications looking back as well as going forward. The Arab Palestinian views have been all about further instigations and the demand that Arabs, both from the Palestinian and Israeli coverage made inflammatory rhetoric in attempts to encourage far more violence, death and destruction from Arabs coming from Judea and Samaria locations beyond the Green Line which demarcates the 1949 Armistice Line from the 1948-9 War of Genocidal Intent launched by over a half dozen Arab armies and several militias all attempting to decimate and commit a genocidal war against the State of Israel from the day of her inception and even before she was able to fully organize a military to defend the people of Israel and repel the invaders. The Arab broadcasts since day one encompass calls to arms and the instigation of Arab attacks against Israelis of all kinds though more often than not the calls are made to target Jews first and foremost. The Israeli broadcasts give pertinent information of locations where assaults are taking place so as to warn Israelis against walking in on a potentially deadly situation. The Israeli broadcasts reverently lists the dead and stricken victims from these attacks speaking of their accomplishments and the loss felt by the society with interviews of those who know the victims. The Israeli broadcasts beseeched that Arabs cease their homicidal attacks and allow for a return to normalcy.
So we have the Arab Palestinians calling for more violence whether the broadcasts originate from the Gaza with Hamas or Islamic Jihad spelling out their designs of incitement meant to encourage violence against Jews in particular and any Israeli generally even if they are sympathetic to the Arab cause as unless they are committed to acts of violence against the Jews they should feel unprotected from the potential of Arab violence being brought to the fore by Arab acts of violence. On the other side are the Israeli calls for calm and an end to the violence which has caused so much uncertainty and misery due to the deadly attacks. The Israelis decry these attacks, especially the suicide attacks, as antithetical assaults on society and the individuals, both those who perpetrate the attacks and those made to be the victims of these attacks. The Basic messages from the two sides are such polar opposite as the Arab Palestinians glorify the death of both the shahids who give their lives for the cause and their victims claiming such are the ultimate form of Jihad and support for the eventual formation of their state of Palestine replacing the state of Israel. These actions which are demanded by these calls for violent jihad really will not be successful as the threats of death will not prevent the Israelis from living their lives to the fullest. Such is the ultimate futility of the Arab Palestinian violence that the Arabs committing what is for all intent and purposes have all been a form of suicide attack as in almost every case as long as the terrorist is capable of movement of any sort they continue to grab their weapons, the knife, hatchet, meat cleaver or firearm and continue to attack until rendered completely neutralized which is a euphemism for dead. The Israeli response until very recently was to try and take the terrorists into custody almost at any cost. As incidents continued to rise both in lethality and numbers of attacks the Israeli response has also slowly been ramped up both in manpower and firepower. The real difference comes when one determines the intent of those involved. The terrorist has only two modes, the one where they continue to be a danger to those around them and the one where their threats have been mitigated and they are no longer a threat to the rest of the public body. The Israeli side aims for a continuation of life and the celebration of all the aspects and potentials in life and the loss to all when somebody’s life is interrupted and even terminated by an act of ruthless and wasteful terror. The Arab Palestinians worship the sacrifice just as their predecessors who also worshiped death and they commit their lives as had their idolaters with their human sacrifices to Ba’al and other stone edifices. The Arabs terrorists are the sacrifices to their false gods and their political leaders who never make such sacrifices with members from their own family, or at least extremely seldom use their own family members, play the part of the medicine man or priests from the idolatrous temple who commit the final act of sending the sacrificial individual to their death, be it on a stone altar or be it in some display of suicidal homicidal rage, the result is the same, a violent act of worship to their false god which demands sacrifices of death.
The Jews on the other hand celebrate life and believe that all lives matter in every situation. This drives the ethos where the emergency personnel and physicians treat those needing medical interventions suffering life threatening injuries before treating those with lesser wounds or suffering from shock. There have been the few who have called for the physicians to treat the Israelis first and leave any terrorist for last treatment if receiving any treatments at all. Those supporting such a heartless response are just further down that slippery slope where some lives are treated as more important than other lives, something which is counter to much of the ethics taught the world be the Judeo-Christian ethos. A life is a life and as we cannot know, fathom or even begin to understand the ramifications of any act when compared to Hashem’s plan for the universe, we cannot begin to claim to know whose life is most important. We are always joyous when the character in some fateful event is a person we can all use as an inspirational person to be held in high regard but we are far more challenged when the hero or the one responsible for some great consequence and the advocate for this betterment of society is somebody no one would ever mistake for an admirable person around whom would desire their child to emulate. Anyone who has ever read any Charles Dickens novels is familiar with the anti-hero, a person who does great acts of kindness and gives people assistance without asking for the monies to be repaid and we find often that the person behind these admirable acts is one of lesser morality who was particularly disreputable in their early life which has acquired for them quite a deal of wealth and then we find they are often doing self-imposed penance. This is given as the reason our learned rabbinic sages hold that all lives are precious and that we have no right to take a life unless it is to save lives.
Judaism has held for millennia that all lives matter, even that of the enemies of the Jews. Torah teaches the Jews and its students that one may not know or even recognize the hand Hashem as He manipulates and controls certain outcomes and guides everything such that all results as it should. This also means that we will not know who Hashem has great designs which will be placed upon their plate to be accomplished which will benefit all, and such will more often than not be beyond the capacity for mankind to understand and especially predict from whom and from where the next miracle may come. For these reasons and the other peculiarities which are just as far out of our cognitive investigative prowess as anything performed by Hashem and as such should never be questioned as all in the end will be as it should. Still, mankind was taught by the original codification in the Noahic Code which contains seven laws which are pretty much the same as the Ten Commandments minus the first three commandments. The Noahic Code is considered to be one of the earliest definitions of a basic framework for modern civilization as it calls for a fair and unbiased judiciary, basic rules which spell out protection of property, the sanctity of the marriage bond, and even one law against certain mistreatment of animals, thus the dictation that all lives matter as if a simple animal is worthy of our mercy and respect; even an animal we will be consuming as our meal. This is where the originating basis for the Jewish ideals of life as a sacred gift which we have no capacity to fully understand how each animal’s life is worth. There are boundless specifics in Judaism on even which animals one may consume and which are not for human consumption. This might beg the question as to why all the animals which Jews are restricted from eating are banned or why the clean animals are permitted for consumption. There are those who try and depict the laws as a simply guide for eating a safe diet which will restrict the possibility for food poisoning. This had been fed further by the standard claims about the difficulties with pork and the potential for salmonella should dairy product remains seep into the crevices in either wood or unfired clay bowls and then at the next meal that same bowls used with meat, possibly then the bowl could continue poisoning the person using it over a long period of time such that when the person does finally become ill, there would be no accurate way to discern what the poison was and from where it had come. The one overriding theme in Jewish culture and laws is that life is precious and a gift to be treasured and used respectfully of others such that every life is capable of fulfilling Hashem’s plans as directed.
Beyond the Cusp
Beyond the Cusp 