By Ira Sharkansky, Ph.D
JERUSALEM — The latest round of violence in Israel began last week, when Israeli security forces killed 10 Palestinians in a raid on Jenin, said to be focused on Palestinians planning a raid on Israeli targets. According to Palestinian reports, one of the dead was an elderly woman.
On the eve of Shabbat, a Palestinian attack on a synagogue in the north of Jerusalem killed seven Jews. Then a day later Israelis were injured by a 13-year-old Palestinian shooter, this time near the Old City.
A special meeting of the prime minister with the Security Cabinet decided on destroying the home of the terrorist who killed Jews, taking Israeli benefits away from family members, and adding security personnel to key neighborhoods. Itamar Ben-Gvir called for adding arms to citizens living in sensitive areas. Commentators spoke of an intifada at work, and cited other attacks throughout the country.
Who started it? How to explain the actions of a 13-year-old?
Both questions challenge efforts. And both questions evade any efforts to end the conflict. Each side—Israeli and Palestinian—is marked by those who seek peace, and those who seek to expand what they control and to attack the other.
We’re stuck, with more or less peace that generally prevails, with upticks of killings that spark waves of violence and more violence in response.
And meanwhile we’re reading of several killed in Isfahan. Claims are that it was an attack by the United States, and one other country, not Israel. But later news claims that it was an Israeli attack. Said to be against Iranian efforts to create long range missiles.
Our American friends are troubled with frequent killings at schools or shopping centers. And Europe, with its harsher controls over weapons, is not free of onslaughts.
“Cycle of violence,” means that there is no moral distinction between a murderer and a policeman, between a society geared toward annihilating its victim and its victim’s actions to prevent that from happening.