Israel Surpasses Everybody in Loving Their Enemies
Examples of public generosity and decency may be rare in conflict zones, but they abound in Israel. When an Arab Israeli was wrongly beaten by police in May, the Israeli public raised money for the victim's college tuition and legal fees, a story that went totally unreported by the mainstream media. Last August, a Palestinian girl whose bicycle was taken and broken by Israeli border police received a new bicycle donated by an Israeli man
The EU routinely criticizes Israel for its relations with Muslims, yet Europe is far less tolerant of Islam in many respects. Last summer, three French cities — Corsica, Cannes, and Villeneuve-Loubet — banned "burkinis" from the beach. Germany's interior minister called for a partial ban on burkinis, and a German public swimming pool reportedly prohibited them. By contrast, Israel allows burkinis, a fact highlighted in a New York Timesvideo that went viral.
Four European countries — France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and now Bulgaria — ban full face veils in most public places. Israel imposes no such restrictions on Muslims.
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Last summer provided an even more positive testament to how Israeli Muslims are treated, when Israel's smartest high-school student was an Arab named "Mohammed" and the captain of Israel's goalball team at the Rio Paralympics was a 26-year-old, Muslim woman. (Goalball is a sport created for blind athletes.)
But stories of Israeli decency and the relative prosperity of Israel's Muslims rarely appear in the mainstream media or get acknowledged by the EU, the UN, or human rights organizations. World leaders routinely call for Israeli restraint, as if Israelis weren't already exercising extraordinary restraint, a fact demonstrated by this graphshowing how each of Israel's last three wars with Hamas (in 2008, 2012, and 2014) was preceded by hundreds, and more often thousands, of Hamas rocket attacks against Israeli civilians. What country would tolerate thousands of deadly projectiles being fired on its civilians before responding with enough force to stop the attacks?
Similarly, when it comes to stabbings, car rammings, bombings, and other forms of Palestinian terrorism, world opinion reflexively calls for Israeli restraint and/or attempts to justify the attacks.
Last October, EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini called for Israeli restraint after four Israelis had been murdered in a total of 19 terrorist attacks during the first 12 days of the month. Secretary of State John Kerry tried to blame that wave of Palestinian terrorism on Israeli settlements. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon tried to justify Palestinian terrorism as a rational response to "occupation." Such reactions would be unthinkable in response to similar terrorist attacks in the EU or U.S. World leaders and the global media seem unaware that Arab Muslims have been killing Jews for more than a century — long before any occupation, settlements, or even a Jewish state.
Palestinian terror attacks don't reflect some miserably unfair existence — they are the product of raw hatred and incitement. Dozens of Israeli Arab Muslims have committed terrorist attacks even though they are not under occupation and enjoy better freedoms and living standards than most of the Arab world has. Like so many Palestinian terrorists, they are driven by the same hateful incitement that rejects any state for the Jews.
The next time Western politicians, human rights groups, and journalists feel tempted to critique Israeli conduct, or demand more restraint from Israelis, they should ask themselves: "How would we respond if there were 411 jihadi terrorist attacks per day here? Would we also provide medical treatment to terrorists and their relatives? Would our society be nearly as tolerant and kind towards Muslims? Would our laws similarly protect Muslim rights and allow Muslim political groups to support organizations that want to destroy our country? How often would our headlines and news coverage present a neutralized terrorist as a victim?"
Reprented from investigativeproject.org.
