world >> opinion
EVERY SUNDAY
May 4 thru October 19 • 9am-2pm
Located on N. Old Woodward
across from of Booth Park.
A Sobering Moment
For Complacent Israel
BIRMINGHAM
//A MIL\
Editor's Note:
Israeli police arrested six suspects in the
murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir on
July 6.
the case, it cannot be claimed by a people
that can produce a gang of thugs capable
of grabbing a random teenager and burn-
ing him to death for the "crime" of being
an accessible Arab kid on the day after
o, is this more shattering for
three Jewish terror victims were laid to
Israel than the assassina-
rest.
tion of Yitzhak Rabin, when
We Israelis knew we had nothing in
an arrogant psychopath decided, in a
common with those Hamas killers who
context that provided him
so callously ended the lives of
with no little encourage-
three innocent Israeli teenag-
ment, that God required
ers; we were wrong.
him to murder Israel's prime
We need to internalize,
minister in order to prevent
too, that while we rightly pro-
the relinquishing of divinely
test the constant incitement
promised land to the loathed
against Israel that is tolerated,
Palestinians?
often encouraged, by the
Is this more devastating
Palestinian leadership, our
I
than the mass murder carried
own house is not in order. It's
. ; . 7:
out by Baruch Goldstein, the
heartening to hear politicians
doctor who gunned down
and rabbis reaching deep
Da v i d
29 Palestinians at prayer
Hor ovitz
into their lexicons for words
in Hebron's Cave of the
Tim es of
of condemnation, but they
Patriarchs?
I sr a e I
ring a little hollow against the
Terrible, unthinkable
backdrop of hostility to Arabs
crimes, those — killings that stained us
displayed so routinely by so many policy-
all; that changed our history in this land;
makers and opinion-shapers.
that pushed our fragile democracy to the
I have often highlighted the toxic
brink of the abyss; that resonate, still, two environment in the West Bank that
decades later.
could make a killer of the 16-year-old
And yet, the murder of 16-year-old
Palestinian who murdered 18-year-old
Jerusalemite Muhammad Abu Khdeir,
soldier Eden Atias as he slept on a bus in
allegedly by a gang of Jewish extremists,
Afula last November. What, then, can we
shames us and stains us no less and rais-
say of the Israeli environment in which
es fresh and appalling questions about
a gang of youngsters can arise capable
our country and its course.
of brutally killing a Palestinian teenager,
If we are to heal this nation, last
having allegedly tried to grab a 9-year-
Wednesday's killing must rid us, once
old Palestinian boy the day before?
and for all, of the complacent illusion
They started it? They're worse? They
that we enjoy a distinctive moral superi-
all hate us? Well, maybe they did, and
ority over our neighbors. If that was ever
maybe they are and maybe they do. But
FARMERS # MARKET
S
Fresh Cut Flowers • Produce • Baked Goods • Kids Crafts
Prepared Foods • Live Entertainment • Annuals & Perennials
BirminghamFarmersMarket.org
les that kind of experience.
luigibruni
P.I.XlIVAIIONStiOMOM
Ye4xe
,
eadowbrook
ear 8 Grill
Obesity? Heartburn? Hernia?
A War Of Attrition?
I
Avi Issacharoff
Times of Israel
T
he first good news Tuesday
morning from the operation
that the Israel Defense Forces
has dubbed "Protective Edge" is that
Hamas hasn't launched any rockets
toward Israel's central Dan region and is
keeping a tight rein on its shooting.
The massive rocket fire on Israel
Monday, which penetrated up to but no
more than 40 kilometers inside Israel,
constitutes the real message Hamas
seems to be sending to Israel: It is not
interested in a further escalation. And
Israel feels the same way. Most of the
attacks Monday night in Gaza were on
open areas or specific houses that Israel
Let's talk about it.
Michigan Institute for 2
Laparoscopic Surgery
r.
Scott Laker, MD
248-255-4380
WWW,MICHIGANSURGERY.COM
1913390
26 July 10 • 2014
did not believe were inhabited.
The terrible news from Tuesday
morning is really only affecting residents
of the south. As long as Hamas doesn't
launch into the center of Israel, Hamas
and Israel aren't rushing to end the pres-
ent round of fighting.
Hamas may not want widespread
escalation, but it is making abundantly
clear at every opportunity that it will not
stop the rockets until its new demands
are met: Open the Rafah crossing with
Egypt; transfer salaries to Hamas' gov-
ernment workers; release all the prison-
ers from the Shalit deal who were re-
arrested after the kidnapping and killing
of the three Israeli teenagers; and return
to the cease-fire conditions drafted in
2012.