As morally wrong as it is to murder innocent adults, mankind seems to have a built-in revulsion against killing babies. If a baby does not evoke any tenderness, if a baby is regarded as worthy of being deliberately hurt or murdered, we know that we have encountered a degree of evil that few humans — even among murderers — can relate to.
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That is why what Palestinian terrorists did to a Jewish family on the West Bank this past weekend deserves far more attention than it received. Normally Palestinian atrocities get little attention — certainly far less attention than an Israeli apartment building on the West Bank receives. But this particular atrocity got even less attention than usual because the world was focused on the terrible tsunami that hit Japan.
On Friday night, Palestinian terrorists slipped into a Jewish settlement, entered a home, and stabbed the father, the mother, and three of their children to death: an eleven-year-old, a four-year old, and a three-month-old baby.
In order to understand what those actions mean, a seemingly separate incident needs to be recalled: the prolonged sexual attack by up to 200 Egyptian men on Lara Logan, chief foreign-affairs correspondent for CBS News, in Tahrir Square, Cairo, a few weeks ago. It was reported that after stripping her naked and then molesting and beating her, the men kept shouting “Jew, Jew!”
The two incidents tell the same tale. In much of the Arab Muslim world, and some of the non-Arab Muslim world (such as Iran) today, “Jew” is not a person. “Jew” is not even merely the enemy. In fact, there is no parallel on earth to what “Jew” means to a hundred million, perhaps hundreds of millions of Muslims.
Think of any conflict in the world — Pakistan–India, China–Tibet, North Korea–South Korea, Tamil–Sinhalese. There are some deep hatreds there, and atrocities have been committed on one or both sides of each of those conflicts. But in none of those conflicts nor anywhere else is there something equivalent to what “Jew” means to millions of Muslims.
There really is only one historical parallel, and it, too, involved the word “Jew.” The Nazis also succeeded in fully dehumanizing the word “Jew.” Thus, for Nazism, it was as important (if not more so) to murder Jewish babies and children — often through as cruel a means as possible (being burned alive, buried alive, or thrown up in the air and impaled on bayonets) — as it was to murder Jewish adults.
The human being does not have to learn to hate. It seems to come pretty naturally. Nor does the human being have to learn to murder, steal, or rape. These, too, seem to be in the natural human repertoire of evils.
But the human being does have to learn to hate children and babies, and to regard the torture and murder of them as morally desirable acts. It takes years of work to undo normal protective human attitudes toward children.
That is precisely what the Nazis did and what significant parts of the Muslim world have done to the word “Jew.” To them, the Jew is not just sub-human, the Jew — and his or her children — is sub-animal.
Thank you Dennis Prager for your courageous article in which you call a spade a spade. Such a rare commodity in these days of mind boggling hypocrisy. I am the US born daughter of refugees who fled the Nazis in Europe and now live in Israel. Anti-Semitism is often called the oldest hatred. We Jews discuss the "why" ad nauseum and cannot fathom it. After what happened in Europe (and in Russia, and in Arab countries) why should we be surprised that it is still alive and well? And what can we do but to continue to defend ourselves? We're not perfect by any means, but we really don't deserve such dehumanization either.
One factor that hasn't (and, I suspect, won't) be brought up here is the civilian occupation of the West Bank.
Military occupation rarely makes you any friends. Just look at the US in Iraq. How many Iraqis who rarely gave Americans a thought now have cause to hate the US? I don't say that to condemn a war that I support. I'm just pointing out that if you drop a bomb on a wedding party, they've unlikely to react purely be reflecting on your noble motives for having done so, however accidentally.
Yet, while other countries (ours not least of all, and, again, with my full support) militarily occupy other countries, Israel is almost unique (outside of Western Sahara, to my knowledge is unique) in conducting a civilian occupation, directed explicitly at breaking off all or part of another land and making to part of the home country.
It's one thing to be occupied by a stranger who isn't making your country into his. How much more galling when he is (and has done so before)?
I understand why, in the wake of the Six Day War and the subsequent Arab refusal to negotiate a peace deal the Israelis started the civilian occupation. But it's not doing them any favors today.
Thank you Mr. Praeger. It just keeps getting worse. I wish there was something we could do to help, but I feel powerless against the re-emergence of mainstream of Antisemitism.
Someone had better realize that the terrorist bands touted as Israel's negotiating partners (this includes all Palestinian Arab political factions) are bloodthirsty savages, whether they wear nice suits or not. That someone is our "President".
Dennis Prager - Thank you. One thing, though: antisemitism is endemic in the Koran, so I am unsurprised about Arab hatred of Jews. There is also the problem of Dar-Es-Salaam which in the Arab's fetid minds, the Jews occupy part of. There can be no peace there until there is a top-to-bottom Reformation in Islam.
@blsdaniel: You're conveniently forget that the Arabs on the West Bank rejected Israel's offer of a state to them, not once, not twice, but seven times. There is a price to be paid for intransigience.
Bisdaniel, what is your point? Not many around the world or in Israel support the Settlers. They are on a "divine" mission to create a biblical Israel and should not be where they are, even if they are legally entitled and have often purchased the land on which they have settled.
The fact is that these children and a baby were butchered, not by collaterall damage done by Israeli trops in a war zone, or by US or British troops in Afghanistan or Iraq, but personally knifed, defiled and it seems, decapitated.
The BBC and CNN hardly bothered to report this incident, and in earlier reports created doubts about its veracity.
The fact that this barbarous act was celebrated in Gaza and the main focus of the report was on the iniquity of the Settlers' homes just demonstrates that for many, the heinous murder of children and infants is OK if the victim is a Jew not a Palestinian, and that a child's life is worth less than a political point.
By your comment you seem to endorse that view, in which case,shame on you.
Back in the 1930s, I am told, it was those on the right who tended to be isolationist in the face of Nazi expansionism, or to have anti-Jewish clauses in their clubs and neighborhood associations. Happily, the children and grandchildren of those very folks are among the strongest supporters of Israel and strongest defenders of the Jewish culture and religion.
What I do not understand is where, when, and why this virulent, mindless Antisemitism on the left arose; for as recently as the 1960s, it was the liberals who had the most sensitive antennae for spotting prejudice.
I think that the American left's terrible blindness on this issue grows out of their toxic, hopelessly-embedded anti-Americanism.
Woe betide any friend of America when the left is in charge.
blsdaniel: If this so called Jewish occupation of the West Bank is the cause of this hatred, please explain the Muslims killing of Coptic Christians in Egypt. The Copts are a small minority, who lived in Egypt long before Muhammed was even born.
The Palestinians and most other Muslim groups have declared over and over again that they will not rest until every Jew in the Middle East is dead. Then they will go after the Jews living elsewhere.
This hatred of Jews amongst muslims pre-dates the existence of the modern state of Israel, and should God forbid, they succeed in destroying Isreal, it will not abate, but will instead redouble.
I truely begin to wonder if it is possible for a true muslim, to live in peace with anybody.
You are absolutely correct about the Nazi party originating on the left and I did not mean to imply otherwise. Sorry I was not more clear; my point was that the American right was (mostly) isolationist and indifferent to anti-Semitism back then.
I do believe, however, that there has been a gradual but steady rise in American conservative support for Israel and Jewish causes in general, along with a fairly recent unfavorable sea change among American liberals.
When I was a Cornell undergrad in the 1960s, for example, there was widespread and very public support for both Israel and Jewish concerns. To be on the wrong side of those issues then was about as disqualifying as using the N-word would be today. My (admittedly few) visits there in recent years suggests the atmosphere is completely different (worse).
I would love to be wrong about this, but my impression is that left anti-Semitism is on the rise in America and worldwide.
The issue haunts Israel and is often cited as the most important sin (besides Israel’s existence in the first place, of course). But:
1. Judea and Samaria – the West Bank – were under Jordanian occupation since the first Arab-Israel war in 1948 and until 1967. Nobody cared about local Arab population, destruction of Jewish historical places and harassment of Christians. Gaza was under Egypt rule with nobody caring neither. War has consequences. You attack, you lose, you pay. But not in the case of Israel. There is no analogy. Nobody expects Poland or Russia to give back land to Germany, or Russia to give back some islands to Japan. Even Tibet is a symbolic issue only – nobody expects China to give it up. Even the Obama-God ushered Dalai-Lama through the White House’s back door. Israel was denied fruits of victory with Arabs 3 NOs and happy assistance by the Soviet Union, and acquiescence of the US who had a bigger enemy – USSR – to worry about.
2. The disputed lands are disputed by some Israeli Jews as well. It is normal in democracy not to have a uniformed opinion. There are Israelis who vehemently oppose the settlements. But because Israel is a democracy, it decides its issues in elections. And these elected officials, for better or worse, made some painful compromises and offered even more of them in Israel’s pursuit of the elusive peace. They gave up Sinai – a huge buffer zone with oil to boot. They gave up Gaza settlements - productive agricultural centers that Gazans promptly destroyed. They gave up control of the South Lebanon, abandoning some friends there and letting Hezbollah control it now. There is no uniformed opinion in Israel evaluating these sacrifices as worthy or not. But what we can tell from afar is that Israel gave up some real real estate for … cold peace (Egypt) or no peace (Hezbollah, Hamas).
3. Some “settlements” are population centers so close to the 1967 line that there is no serious talk to ever abandoning them and any final border will include them in Israel. Avigdor Lieberman offered to exchange them with Arab population centers inside of the pre-1967 line, giving them to any future Arab state (to a loud scream of his fascism – of course these Israeli Arabs don’t want to be subject to Palestinian authority).
4. Israel teaches Jewish kids tolerance. Palestinians brainwash theirs worse than Commies or Nazis ever did.
5. Somehow all talks about Jews living in the Judea/West Bank presume that they all MUST leave for Arabs to have a state there. Why must it be Judenfrei when Israel has a million and a half Arabs citizens?
Re: Nazis and the Jews
There were many genocides and democides, but killing 6 million of Jews somehow stands out (many claim unfairly). There is a simple reason: a soft bigotry of low expectations (that we can highhandedly dismiss, but truly practice all the time): Cambodia did not produce Beethoven or Goethe, Rwanda did not have Bach, Heine or Schiller, Russia and China had their great writers, poets and philosophers, but communists were after them right from the beginning, happily cleansing out alive ones and survivors had to keep the heads down. And anyway there were “bears walking Moscow streets” (its sarcasm, not my opinion) and China is too far...
But Germans – Germans’ contribution to science, philosophy, music, art, industry, cinema, architecture, technology is immense. After tragedies of the WWI and the Russian Civil war, population of the areas (including Jews) that changed hands between all the warring parties the most, remembered Germans as the easiest, the most "civilized" (one of the reason why so many did not believe rumors of German atrocities during the WWII and did not escape in time). And then they go from a great civilization to industrial scale killing of people who they consider worse than animals, while playing Mozart!! And all this with other "civilized" people of Europe quietly staying aside or happily assisting.
If the veneer of civilization is so thin – nobody is ever truly safe! On some level that is even more horrifying than Khmer-Rouge hacking their victims to death one head in a time.
Required reading. Required teaching. And required understanding.
When you kill a child, you extinguish the world.
CNN and other media should be examining this 'up close and personal', and better yet, Anderson Cooper should drop in at the West Bank home on his way back from Japan. But I don't expect that this will happen, this type of spot on reporting, which is why I largely discount most mainstream media and have done so for some time now. I don't know, but maybe it's that they have too hard time getting so close to the reality you expose, and looking at the truth straight in the eye.
I agree with Mr. Prager on most of this except that his "answers" just aren't "answers." Yes, "Jew-hatred is often exterminationist," and Jew-haters are particularly vicious, but... Why???
In the end, as Mr. Prager suggests, this latest tragedy is not about a territorial dispute; it's something much deeper. And, the truth is, as a Jew and a human being, I simply cannot understand it.
Anyway, what were those people doing on the West-Bank, it is not their land is it?
So, when you insist on making your home where you don't belong, sure you might encounter sometimes a spot of bother.
Yes, rather uncivil and all, but there you are.
Why does it appear that the Jewish community sides consistently with the leftie-libs who would sell out Israel in a heartbeat -- ?
Before the last presidential election, a long-time, thoughtful, close friend (who happens to be Jewish) inquired why I did not support Obama, saying mildly, "How bad could he be?"
I responded with the first objection that came to mind: "He will sell out Israel."
Sadly, I was correct. Obama has and will continue to sell out Israel. But my friend? My friend still supports Obama. I just don't get it.
Richard, I think during those times when Israel was new and in danger of being wiped out, many on the Left and Right were supportive of what they considered to be the underdog.
I do not think the religion of the country itself played a big part.
A small nation up against what were considered then as brutal kingdoms and dictatorships.
Once Israel began to show they could not only survive, but that the side effect of winning wars and never having a partner to make with, left them occupying certain parts of the Middle East they had no wish or intention to "occupy" but left people with the idea that they were trying to colonize the entire area.
This, coupled together with a slick PR job, and the influence of Oil rich Arab states, has meant that the Palestinians became the "underdogs" and Israel was perceived as the bully. From that moment it was easy to switch from demonizing Israel but at the same time taking swipes at world Jewry for supporting her and using its influence to make her allies like the USA, take her side.
There is a wonderful book written by Sir Martin Gilbert called "Letters to Auntie Fori" which traces the history of the Jewish peoples from Genesis through to today.
One of the enduring themes of this book is that during the history of the Jewish diaspora, Jews settled in many places, and for a time were "tolerated" and left in peace.
But the usual maximum time before trouble would start up again was around the 70th. year of their "residency" when suddenly the local population would turn on them and either kick them out, terrorize them to leave, or just kill them.
One has to ask what is it that makes the Jews such a target for thousands of years of this kind of abuse and persecution?
I wish I could give an answer that made sense, but I can't.
Possibly their passivism. Bullies love to pick on people who are civilised and unlikely to fight back.
I think the Left are the worst, because they are supposed to care about human values, but then Stalin was from the Left, and arguably killed more people than Hitler.
What this says about mankind in general is not very flattering.
