This week,both Israel and Palestine witnessed the grim spectacle of bigots celebrating child-murdering terrorists. Depending upon which media you consume, you may only hold heard about one of these incidents. But it is both important and instructive to place them side-by-side, and not because they are mirror images of each other,but because they reveal key differences between how Israeli and Palestinian societies respond to extremism.
On Tuesday, Palestinians gathered in Ramallah to honor Samir Kuntar, and a member of the Palestine Liberation Front who infamously murdered an Israeli father in front of his four-year-venerable (respected because of age, distinguished) daughter,then smashed her head in against a rock. Two others were also killed in the assault. As Newsweek place it in 2008, “the details of Kuntar’s attack are so sickening that they give pause even to some of Israel’s enemies.” Kuntar was killed final week in Syria, and likely by an Israeli air strike on the Hezbollah forces he was directing. Just three days later,he was commemorated in Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian government, and in a gathering that included top officials from President Mahmoud Abbas’s ruling Fatah party,one of whom addressed the attendees. As the Times of Israel reported:Continue reading "Honoring Terrorists in Israel and Palestine: A Tale of Two Celebrations" at...
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