The 6th of Adar II will remain seared in the conscience of all who possess a soul. During that Shabbat evening the community of Itamar became a murder scene so gruesome in its violence language is inadequate to fully convey its scope. Five members of the Fogel were murdered in their home some while they slept or in bed.
Glenn Beck whose style is to indulge in over the top hyperbole was indeed spot on when describing the carnage as being beyond the twisted visions of Charles Manson. The images Mr. Beck referenced to are truly too intense, too horrific, too chilling to be shown even to those well acquainted with death.
Mr. Aaron Klein during his March 6, 2011 WABC radio broadcast interviewed a Fatah spokesman who focused on the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria as being an usurpation of Arab lands that “ . . . they didn’t even pay for . . . .” apparently as justification for the attack. The ordinarily reserved Mr. Klein could not contain himself at this callously absurd assertion.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has approved the building of some 500 new housing units in Judea and Samaria in response. Further the Prime Minister in a statement noted how quick world opinion condemns Jewish building projects and how slowly world opinion responds to the loss of five Jewish lives in manner that belies the murderers’ brutish, soullessness.
Mr. Abbas sort of expressed a condemnation of the murders in a Saturday night phone call to PM Netanyahu and made a further condemnation of the murders in Arabic during an interview carried by Israeli radio. However as reported in the March 14, 2011 edition The New York Times reported that despite these words by Mr. Abbas the attitude expressed through the actions of his administration towards anti Israel incitement and the esteem in which terrorist are held and from whose ranks terrorists emerge belie something quite the opposite.
Secretary of State Clinton and echoed by the Quartet condemned the murders as Ms. Clinton’s press statement concludes “The murderers must be found and brought to justice. Israeli security forces have launched a thorough investigation and we look to the Palestinian authorities to assist in every way possible.”
Ms. Clinton, in Gaza Arabs were celebrating by distributing candies. Mr. Abbas’ office issues a statement that ““ . . . stressed his rejection and condemnation of all violence directed against civilians, regardless of who was behind it or the reason for it.” Ms. Clinton, Mr. Abbas seems to equate the accidental death of civilians amid the fog of war or as the victims as terrorists’ human shields to a murder that lies beyond Helter Skelter. Madame Secretary, the notion that the perpetrators be treated like criminals and not like combatants engaged in an act of war exposes a worldview based on a worldview absent of absolutes where good and evil become relative terms and lose any serious meaning. Ms. Clinton, when engaging in negotiations a shared sense of good faith and fair dealing between the parties is essential how then can Mr. Abbas be seen as any type of peace partner let alone a serious and sincere one?
As to any criticism about Jewish settlement in places like Itamar understand if Jews have no business in Itamar the where do the Jews belong? Should the Jews return to Europe? to Poland? Hungry? France? Iraq? or Yemen?, as suggested by Ms. Helen Thomas. If one claims that Jews do not belong in Itamar then on what basis do Jews belong in Jerusalem, Paris, London, Brooklyn or Lakewood New Jersey?
The danger is the Itamar atrocity in its psychotic levels of violence may be lost as an aberration and not as symptomatic of an underlying evil that deserves no recognition or tolerance among civilized persons.
”
Maybe time for words has ended. Maybe time has come to call out evil for what it is and stop its advance.
