After the arrest of six Jewish suspects for the abduction and murder of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir in East Jerusalem on Wednesday, Prime Minister Netanyahu said: “We do not distinguish terror from terror.”
Well done to the Israeli authorities for acting impartially and promptly to apprehend these suspects.
If Netanyahu’s statement means that from now on the Israeli government will take Jewish terror against Palestinians every bit as seriously as Palestinian terror against Jews, and act as firmly to root it out, that is indeed welcome.
Haaretz reports:
Contact was established Sunday between the Israeli and Palestinian bereaved families formed on Sunday, during a condolence visit by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat at the Nof Ayalon home of Naftali Fraenkel, one of the three Israeli teens kidnaped and murdered in the West Bank.
During the visit, Barkat called Hussein Abu Khdeir, the father of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, a 16-year-old Palestinian whose body was found in the Jerusalem Forest last week. Barkat offered his condolences, and at the end of the call asked Hussein Abu Khdeir and Yishai Fraenkel, Naftali Fraenkel’s uncle, if they wish to speak. Fraenkel Expressed his condolence, and added that he was horrified to learn that Khdeir’s murderers were Jews.
The two agreed that the families of the three Jewish victims would soon pay a condolences visit to Abu Khdeir’s family over the death of their son.
Sometimes simple acts of decency can arise from the most terrible tragedies.
Update: It’s worth recalling the words of then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin after Baruch Goldstein‘s murderous rampage in Hebron in 1994:
I am shamed over the disgrace imposed upon us by a degenerate murderer. You are not part of the community of Israel. You are not part of the democratic camp which we all belong to in this house, and many of the people despise you. You are not partners in the Zionist enterprise. You are a foreign implant. You are an errant weed. Sensible Judaism spits you out. You placed yourself outside the wall of Jewish law. You are a shame on Zionism and an embarrassment to Judaism.
