A few years ago, Moshe Feiglin appeared on a panel with Brigadier General (res.) Giora Inbar. A morning show, another such debate about Gaza. Feiglin asked the retired security guard: "Who is the enemy - the tunnel or Hamas?" Inbar delayed answering, and after a short thought answered decisively: "The tunnel."
The tunnel was the enemy a few years ago, and now, almost without a choice, we have defined that the enemy is Hamas. Again we are missing out.
We miss out because once again we refuse to listen to the other side. It's hard to listen to the truth, and I'm writing this without a shred of cynicism. To know that there are human monsters next to you is a painful realization, that there is no light at the end.
But so that we don't live in the pastoral and one day wake up to cries of devastation, it's worth listening - and redefining the enemy. We will listen to the heads of the Palestinian Authority, we will listen to those who demonstrate, we will listen to the preachers in the mosques, we will listen to what they educate about. Right now we're repressing.
The Nazi graffiti that appeared a few days ago in Huwara, for example, is nothing new. In the village of Beit Ummar, not far from my parents' house, the Nazi flag has been raised several times in recent years. So is the mockery of our murdered or abductees. Not long ago, after the murder of the Yaniv brothers, the official Facebook page of the Huwara municipality mocked their perforated car. And we suppressed.
We looked at it dismissively, a kind of condescending attitude that says: Let the kids vent some nerves, they can't hurt us too much anyway. After the shocking murder of Uri Ansbacher we moved forward, giggling "what did they do there" about the Yaniv brothers who were murdered in Huwara and about Shai Nigerker and his son Aviad who were massacred in the same place.
We don't care why they educate their children in schools. We turn a blind eye when even the verbal problems in the account turn into a war against the Jews, calculating when the missile will fall on Tel Aviv. We don't bother to check what they publish in their official media, in the Palestinian Authority, and look dismissively at the Goebbelsy anti-Semitic caricatures that are published there every day. It just doesn't interest us.
We don't listen to them again. They say black - we see white; They say war – we are convinced that this is a partner for coexistence. Ahed Tamimi, the poster girl for Haaretz newspaper and the cultivation child of the Israeli left, wrote an anti-Semitic post this week: "We will slaughter you, and you will say that what Hitler did to you was a joke. We will drink your blood and eat your skulls." In the streets of Ramallah, Hebron, Nablus and Jenin, mass demonstrations of support for Hamas are held, chanting "Whoever has weapons and hides them for weddings should shoot a Jew or give them to Hamas."
It's not just the street, it's also its captains. "The world that wants to see the day after [the war] needs to know that Hamas is a central component of the Palestinian political landscape," PA Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said.
The Nazi graffiti that appeared a few days ago in Huwara, for example, is nothing new. In the village of Beit Ummar, not far from my parents' house, the Nazi flag has been raised several times in recent years. So is the mockery of our murdered or abductees
Hanan Ashrawi, the PA's most senior diplomat, defends Hamas, calling the allegations of rape and beheadings "nonsense." "Why do they insist on labeling them as a terrorist organization, and not understanding the larger context?" asks Ashrawi, "They are a large percentage of the Palestinians." The friendly partner, Mahmoud Abbas, also declared yesterday that "all the crimes and massacres against our people will not cause [him] to wave a white flag... In his determination to remove the occupation, establish his independent state with Jerusalem as its capital, and bring about the return of the refugees." He, too, of course, never condemned or acknowledged the massacre perpetrated by Hamas on that Black Saturday.
There is no difference between Jew-haters in Khan Yunis or Ramallah, there is not much difference between Yahya Sinwar and Mahmoud Abbas, between Hamas and Fatah. There may be a tactical difference, but certainly not an ideological one. The problem is with us, those who refuse to listen. So the government of Israel, who is the enemy?
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