One man came to town and shouted on a megaphone: "Want to see me walking rope from building to building?" Everyone said, "Come on." The man walked on the rope from building to building, and everyone cheered for him. He jumped down, took his megaphone and shouted: "Now you want to see me walking a rope all the way down the street?" The townspeople said, "Come on cool, let's see!" The man walked the same tightrope all along the street, and the townspeople cheered him on. The man jumped, took a deep bow, took the megaphone and asked: "Now dear residents, want to see me walking a tightrope all along the street, holding a baby in my arms?"
"Wow!" the townspeople shouted, "let's see you." "Great," the man replied, "so who's volunteering to give the baby?" There was silence among the townspeople. No one volunteered. When it's your child - suddenly everything looks different.
Under fire: IDF completes repair of damaged sites and means in the fence area of the Gaza Division IDF Spokesperson
This is the parable that Shai Ben Yaish, CEO of the Sderot Conference for Society, a resident of Sderot and a candidate for mayor, told me when I consoled him this week over the murder of his sister, her husband and their young son in Kibbutz Kissufim.
Proportionate shock
We wondered what was new now, actually. After all, Palestinian cruelty is an old phenomenon that never stops knocking out performances. For example, in 2001, when a Palestinian sniper in Hebron saw the head of baby Shalhevet Pass through his rifle sight and fired a bullet that pierced her father's thigh as well; We also received a sharp reminder in 2011, when Palestinian youths came out of the village of Awarta, infiltrated the Fogel family's home in Itamar, and murdered them one by one, signaling little Elad and Yoav to shut up when they were stabbed, while reading a bedtime story in their beds.
After shooting the parents and just before they left the house, the murderers heard crying. They went back and stuck a knife in Hadas, two-month-old baby. The murderers were 18 years old, and in the IDF's too late search of the family's home in the village, they encountered patrols by left-wing organizations that sought to protect the "non-involved." In retrospect, it turned out that early intelligence reached the defense establishment, but there was a misunderstanding of the situation. Yes, that's what the March 2011 newspapers said. The shock from her 60-centimeter-long body was then less collective.
Eight months ago, Hillel and Yigel Yaniv were murdered in Huwara. Soldier and informant, brothers. Huwara, Awarta - neighbors. Education for murder from an early age, according to the Palestinian Authority curriculum that no one hides. Much has been said in these textbooks, it's almost boring already. Yagel and Hillel's mother said in her maternal instinct that unity must be maintained and everything must be done for the IDF soldiers.
The entrance to the Fogel family home in Itamar, after the murder, photo: Yoav Dudkevich
This, too, in the Israeli public, was almost boring at the time. Smotrich tweeted that the village, which constantly throws stones and issues shooting attacks on passersby, should be wiped out, and this created interest. "Why wipe out Huwara?" action at last.
A member of the Labor Party started a fundraiser for the residents of the Palestinian village, which within a day raised more money than was opened in memory of the murdered brothers. With recognition came appetite, here - six months and dozens of military assassinations later, a father and son who had gone in to fill up with gasoline with old friends from the village were murdered in Huwara. Uninvolved members, of course.
In comforting the mourners this week, we thought about the fact that we didn't really need the horrors in the south to know who we were dealing with, after all, we had already seen it in Judea and Samaria.
Did anyone really think there was a difference between the eighths of Huwara and the sixists of Gaza? If they are capable of stabbing a baby in Samaria and receiving protection by virtue of being occupied, they are capable of atrocities in the Gaza envelope as refugees. But Ilana Dayan said that no one imagined it, and she was probably right.
Perhaps her feed was shocked by Smotrich's statement to erase Huwara after Yaniv's murder, and not shocked by Gadi Yarkoni's statement to erase Gaza after the kibbutzim holocaust. The fact is that only after they kidnapped an elderly woman from a kibbutz in Hevel Shalom did the IDF dare to destroy a pizzeria in Huwara that ridiculed the kibbutz kidnapped in Gaza, contrary to the attorney general's opinion.
Human tissue
What is the conclusion? When a Jewish baby is murdered, every Jewish home should be in pain. If we had understood 12 years ago that Hadas Fogel is the baby of all of us, regardless of religion, politics or occupation, we would have erased Huwara long ago, and we do not want to erase Gaza now.
Entrance sign to Kibbutz Dune in the Yamit region, after the evacuation, photo: Moshe Milner
We scoff at the BBC that we don't understand. But until three weeks ago, we were too. We are all one human tissue, with dead and living cells. Sitting October 7th. And whoever doesn't feel it must understand by the power of intellect and history that they also burned down their home.
In Europe, we had to flee. But in the Land of Israel, flight is dangerous, and so are concessions.
We like to forget, so who even remembers that the settlements and kibbutzim Sufa, Dune, Prigan, Absalom, Dekel - were originally established in the Sinai region. For the sake of peace with Egypt, which does not want to absorb the Gazans, we uprooted them and rebuilt them in a place bearing the symbolic name "Hevel Shalom."
For the sake of peace with the Palestinians, the communities of the Katif region whose refugees were resettled in Bnei Netzarim, Shlomit, Beited, Yacrop and Neveh were uprooted, and evacuated this week, temporarily, because they became homeless again. The more we run, the more we will have to remember. "The forgotten ones that cannot be forgotten," wrote Leah Goldberg, "the losses from which there is no escape."
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