Child Murders and Rabbi Lerner

By Israel Shamir

November 21, 2002

 

Rabbi Michael Lerner published a letter (see below) containing an attempt to attach collective guilt for a single crime to the whole Palestinian people, and to shift the blame for the bloodshed to the victims. The Metzer murder, a revolting crime committed by a deranged individual, is (mis)presented by Michael Lerner as an act of Arafat’s (and Palestinian national) policy. Moreover, it is described as a “Palestinian act of terror”. It is an unacceptable lie. Would we refer to yesterday’s murder of two Palestinian toddlers in Khan Yunes as to “Jewish child-murders”, or even to Mark Rich’s deeds as to “Jewish fraud”, Rabbi Lerner would certainly call it “anti-Semitism”. That is why his letter should be condemned as an incitement to hate.

The deranged criminal from Metzer acted alone, and his action was met with horror by Palestinians and Jews alike. If and when he will be apprehended he will certainly be punished. On the other hand, the murderers of the Palestinian children in Khan Yunes remain at large; they are protected and their crimes condoned by the Jewish state. When a Palestinian girl child was murdered by a Jewish fanatic near Nablous, the witness for defence, Rabbi Yitzhak Ginzburg, claimed a Jew may kill a Goy with impunity. It appears his opinion won the day: practically none of the Jews who murdered three hundred innocent children in Palestine was brought to justice. Hilmi Shusha, a Palestinian child from Husan, was murdered by a settler Naum Korman in the eyesight of the entire village, but the Jewish judge Ruth Orr has sent Nahum Korman, the child murderer, for six months of public service in the old folks house.

Friends of Palestine won’t stoop as low as the late PM Golda Meir, who proclaimed “I can’t forgive the Palestinians that they force us to kill their children”. We won’t lie as the late PM David Ben Gurion who tried to attach blame for the Deir Yassin Massacre to ‘Arab irregulars’, and for Sharon’s massacre in Kibie to the relatives of ‘Arab terror victims’. We won’t try the line of Madeline Albright who thought the murder of Iraqi children was worth its while. Instead, we call to bring to the International Criminal Court every Jewish murderer of Palestinian children.

Rabbi Lerner should pay heed to a recent letter to Haaretz newspaper by Dr Miriam Reik, who wrote:

“Killing kids gets to be routine.

Israel is, in many ways, unique. It is the only country in the world in which a child, throwing a stone, is considered to have committed a capital crime, and a soldier can kill him with a bullet with impunity--no questions asked.

Haaretz reported the death in this fashion yesterday of Mohammed ali Zeiz, a 15 year old, without comment. It is the only country in the world in which the occupying army does not hold its fire when an innocent child is on the scene, much less rush to protect him.
Ibrahim al-Madani, 12 years old, died in this way yesterday, as reported by Haaretz, without comment. We all know of dozens of such incidents, which led Amnesty International to characterize the current conflict as one in which the lives of children are treated with "utter disregard," a charge met with cynical protestations of innocence by the IDF.

However, it is also a sad comment on the general deterioration of standards in Israel, that Haaretz can report such incidents, time and again, without editorial comment. Anything, I suppose, can become routine.

Miriam M. Reik, PhD”

Rabbi Lerner writes: “There is never any moral equivalence between one act of murder and another”. He is absolutely right. That is why, while mourning the dead of Khan Yunes and Metzer, we observe the vast difference between a one-man-crime and an act of the Jewish state-condoned and sponsored child murder.