Good for the Gander

By Steve Kramer

KFAR SABA, Israel — Some of my readers are no doubt upset by Jewish Israelis’ recent attacks on Palestinian villages. Though I admit that there may have been some overreaction by Israeli villagers living beyond the 1949 Armistice Line, there is ample reason for Israelis taking action into their own hands. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

Let me explain…So far this year, Palestinian Arab attacks in Israel and Judea and Samaria have killed 28 people and left more seriously hurt. In 2022 alone, according to  Spokesperson Orly Goldschmidt at Israel’s U.K. Embassy, Israelis suffered from over 5,000 Palestinian terror attacks, including car-rammings, shootings, stabbings and bombings targeting innocent men, women and children on the streets of Israel. This year, the frequency of attacks against Israelis hasn’t diminished but their ferocity has increased.

On June 19 four Israelis were killed and four injured when two Arab terrorists opened fire in a hummus restaurant at a gas station outside the community of Eli. Israelis were outraged when U.S. Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides commented on Twitter: “Deeply concerned about the [Arab] civilian deaths and injuries that have occurred in the West Bank these past 48 hours, including that of minors. Praying for the families as they mourn the loss of loved ones, or tend to those injured.” Nides was referring to the “vigilante” attacks by Israelis on Palestinian Arab villages from where attacks on Jews have emanated.

There had been no such statement by Nides about the lunch time attack in Eli which led to the revenge attacks. Following intense criticism, Nides issued a new tweet in which he wrote: “I condemn in the strongest terms the senseless murder of four innocent Israelis today — my heart is with their grieving family members.” (Source)

What’s wrong with this situation? Yes, Israel is forced to conduct nearly-nightly raids by the IDF in Arab cities against terrorists. Sometimes terrorists are killed, sometimes arrested, while there has been a minimal number of civilian deaths. (The IDF has an incredibly low incidence of civilian deaths compared to comparable actions by other armies, including the U.S. army.)

Meanwhile, the terrorists are rewarded by the Palestinian Authority with monthly payments to their families, payments which are increased if Israelis have been murdered. The money for these payments comes from the U.S. (such payments are forbidden by the Taylor Force Act), by individual European countries, and by the E.U. At the same time, the U.N. treats the Palestinian Authority as its most important (quasi) member, devoting an incredible amount of time to pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel matters, including mandated condemnations against Israel, to the extent that anti-Israel events at the U.N. total more than all censures against other countries combined.

It’s a fact that the upsurge in terrorism against Israelis is connected to U.S. largesse in funding the PA government and Palestinian Arab NGOs, especially the windfall of billions of dollars released, thanks to the Biden administration, to Iran from Iraqi sequestered funds.

True, it’s not “nice” that innocent Arabs in their villages have recently had their cars torched and buildings damaged: “The death of the 27-year-old [Arab] man followed mounting violence in the area, with dozens of Israeli settlers running riot through a Palestinian town and nearby villages Sunday night [6/18], burning homes and cars and killing a Palestinian man. Sunday night’s hours long rampage through the Palestinian town of Hawara, the worst such violence in years, followed the shooting death of two Israeli settlers [Two brothers, 22 and 19 years old, Hillel and Yagel Yaniv, were shot dead at point-blank range while sitting in their car in a traffic jam in the town of Huwara.] by a Palestinian gunman earlier in the day. Israeli security forces immediately began a manhunt in and around Hawara.

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the incidents in a video statement posted to Twitter on Sunday. ‘A terrible tragedy occurred today,’ he said of the settlers’ [intentional mistranslation of Israeli civilians] killings, adding that Israeli soldiers were in pursuit of the gunman. ‘I ask even when the blood is boiling, not to take the law in one’s hands.” (Source)

Contrast the government’s downbeat response to civilians taking matters in their own hands to the Palestinian Authority, and to the majority of  Palestinian Arabs, who fervently approve of and support financially, and every other way, the murderers who attack Israelis on a daily basis. Not only that — the PA celebrates the terrorists, treats them as heroes, names streets after them, pays them, and trains their youngsters to emulate them.

This terrorism has led Israelis themselves to seek revenge in Palestinian Arab towns. “The town of Hawara is the center of Jihadists in the Shomron. Yes, there are some nice and innocent people living there, but most of the 8,000 residents are vicious, violent antisemites who advocate, support and celebrate the spilling of Jewish blood. It’s important to note that ‘stoning cars’ is not what you think. None of the violent Jew-haters are throwing pebbles. They are throwing bricks and dropping cinder blocks from rooftops.

“[Attacks] happen every day and the murder of brothers Hillel and Yagel Yaniv was something that Hawara residents live for. After the brutal murder, candies and sweets were handed out, cake was distributed, and people were singing. When did all this stop? When did the Jew-haters of Hawara finally run, hide and shake in fear? When the Jewish young men entered the town and taught them the Jewish lesson of vengeance. Since that day, not one rock has been thrown at Jewish cars.” (Source)

When the Western world decries Israeli retaliation against Palestinian Arab homicidal attacks on Israel, but only issues rare, mild criticism of the Palestinian Authority — while generously funding rewards for the terrorists – Israelis will react. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Israeli citizens will fight back, even if the Israeli government feels constrained against fighting fire with fire.

NOTE: Netanyahu says, “We need the Palestinian Authority. We cannot allow it to collapse. We also do not want it to collapse. We are prepared to help it financially. We have an interest in the Palestinian Authority continuing to work. …In the areas which it manages to act, it does the work for us. And we have no interest in it collapsing.”

In my opinion, this is wrongheaded.

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Steve Kramer is a freelance writer based in Kfar Saba. He may be contacted via steve.kramer@sdjewishworld.com