Today was one of those terrible days I’m glad I was traveling for.
That seems to be a pattern for me; I was traveling on the day of the Newtown, CT school shooting, and other incidents that I don’t have time to dig out of the archives.
Very early, before 5 a.m. Eastern (when I left the house,) I saw tweets about a firebombing of a house near Nablus in which a very young child, Ali Dawabsheh (one and one-half) was murdered.
While the perpetrators have not been captured as of this writing, the Israeli government and IDF are calling it an act of “Jewish terrorism.” The word “revenge” was spray painted on the wall in Hebrew. Ali’s father Saad and mother Riham, and 4-year-old brother Ahmad, are in the hospital in very serious condition with life-threatening burns.
The attack was condemned by all facets of Israeli society including the Prime Minister and political leaders, as well as Jewish organizations around the world. There is a lot of soul searching going on.
By the time my travel ended mid-afternoon, the internet was behaving as the internet does, with political gain and exploitation being sought all around.
When I heard the news, I recalled the 2011 murder of the Fogel family, in which five of seven family members were stabbed to death: Udi Fogel, 36, Ruth Fogel, 35, and their children Yoav, 11, Elad, 4, and three-month-old Hadas.
Two Palestinians entered the Itamar settlement, and killed the parents in a struggle and two boys (11 and 4) as they slept. They left, but returned when they heard 3-month old Hadas crying; they stabbed her to death in her crib. Two other children escaped and alerted authorities.
The attack was condemned by the Palestinian Authority.
When captured and put on trial, the terrorists expressed no remorse, and said they did it for Palestine.
When the terrorists who killed Ali are captured, assuming they are Jewish extremists they probably also will not express remorse, and will say they did it for Israel, or God, or something.
In writing about the death of Hadas Fogel, I asked: What Kind Of Person would do such a thing?
The same question can and must be asked as to the murderers of Ali Dawabsheh.
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