Some are reacting to the news that Israelis were responsible for the murder of an Arab teen by issuing apologies on behalf of all Jews for the crime. Some go further and also denounce anyone who tried to call the Palestinians to account for their applauding the kidnapping and murder of Israeli boys. But some of those who are now talking about Jewish collective guilt generally don’t apply the same standard to the Palestinians.
Apologies for these crimes are in order. As our Seth Mandel wrote yesterday, the instances of anti-Arab incitement might not be as numerous as those of anti-Jewish rhetoric. Nor do they come from the organs of the Jewish state, as does the endless stream of hate that originates from official Palestinian Authority and Hamas sources. But they are nonetheless deplorable.
It doesn’t matter that what is rare among Jews is commonplace in the political culture of the Palestinians. If we have ignored or downplayed this virus, then it is appropriate at such moments to think seriously about where we have failed to sufficiently combat these awful tendencies. Even as we seek to place these views and the isolated actions of a few in the context of a conflict whose focus remains the determination of most of the Arab and Muslim world to destroy the Jewish state, there should be no downplaying the insidious nature of hatred expressed by Jews or, as our John Podhoretz noted earlier today, the profound betrayal of the Zionist enterprise that the actions of the killers of Muhammed Khdeir represent. If, while focusing so much on the behavior of Israel’s foes, we have, even unwittingly, given encouragement to those Jews who mimic the font of vicious anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic language that flows from the Muslim and Arab worlds, then we must hold ourselves accountable. As was the case when such things have happened in the past, this is the moment to say that we must be more vigilant in denouncing such expressions rather than ignoring or minimizing them.
But if our apologies are to be offered, is it too much to ask that both sides attempt to make amends? Is it offensive, as Bradley Burston says in a Haaretz piece, for Jews to have the temerity or the bad taste to mention the behavior of Palestinians during the two-week search for the three missing Israeli teenagers?
If Jews today feel ashamed about the murderers of an Arab teenager—and we are right to feel that way—is it really out of bounds to note the mainstreaming of hate and applause for terrorism that is integral to Palestinian nationalism?
Apologists for the Palestinians seem to think so. Palestinian identity has become inseparable not only from anti-Zionism but also from a sense of victimhood. It is true that the experience of the last two millennia culminating in the Holocaust has created a Jewish sense of victimhood that also tends to mire Jewish identity in purely negative history at the expense of more positive attributes. Yet the narrative of Jewish achievements and the triumph of the Zionist dream are able to mitigate the overpowering and lugubrious tale of woe. But for Palestinians, nothing is allowed to distract from their sacred “narrative” in which their martyrdom at the hands of wicked Jews is established.
It is not just that the Palestinian Authority has inculcated the youth of their country with hatred of Jews and Israel since they were given autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza. The problem isn’t just hate speech and the glorification of terror by official media and textbooks. It’s that there is no place in Palestinian culture for competing views in which their leaders’ historic rejection of compromise is discussed.
Palestinians cheered the ordeal of the three Jewish teens in much the same way that they have always honored those who committed acts of the most brutal terror against Jews. They feel no obligation to apologize for these horrible acts because they believe their victim status entitles them to inflict any possible cruelty on their enemies.
What we must come to terms with in this discussion is that the contrast between Israeli and Palestinian society is not that one side obsesses with the wrongs committed against them and a desire for revenge and the other does not. These sentiments are natural to all human beings and are just as present among Jews as they are among Arabs. The difference rests in that the Israelis have, thank Heaven, never allowed their self-absorption to overwhelm their cultural norms that act as a check against such behavior. The Palestinians have enshrined their sense of grievance to a point where they no longer have any perspective on it or their collective relationship with other peoples.
That is why Jews, from Israel’s prime minister and chief rabbis to pundits on both ends of the spectrum, are falling over themselves to apologize for Khdeir and Palestinians are, with rare exceptions, treating the suffering of Jews as a non-issue and cheering the terrorist missiles now raining down on Israeli towns and cities. To state this does not relieve Jews of the obligation to account for senseless hatred against Arabs. But those who think Palestinians need not apologize for terror and a culture that glorifies such crimes are not only wrong but also helping to make peace impossible.
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