On March 14, Islamic Jihad fired rockets at Tel Aviv.
The Islamic Jihad charter, it is important to note, calls for the ethnic cleansing of Jews in Israel, which it refers to as “Jihad against the Jewish existence in Palestine.”
This stated objective says nothing about Israel or Zionism. It speaks only of killing the Jews who insist on living in territory they want Judenrein. Territory that according to a reasonable reading of international standards is Jewish indigenous territory.
The sole motivation for the attack on Tel Aviv, in other words, is pure antisemitism.
On March 15, a white supremacist killed dozens of Muslims at prayer in two mosques in Christ Church, New Zealand. The Jews of Pittsburgh seemed to rise from their somnolence, from their indifference to their brethren in Tel Aviv, rushing to supporting the people they saw as their Muslim counterparts, victims of an atrocious xenophobic attack on people of a certain faith. The Jews shared memes on Facebook and set to raising funds.
They probably didn’t even know about Tel Aviv. Or about all the nights my grandchildren have spent in a sealed room, waiting for the missiles to stop. They probably don’t know about the balloonsthat tempt my grandchildren with their bright colors, attached as they are to incendiary devices with the intent of maiming or better yet, murdering the smallest, most innocent Jews in Israel, who “occupy” only a fragment of land, and only because they live where their parents live.
Two incidents, only one day apart. One incident a crime against Muslims, the other a crime against Jews.
An outpouring of support for the one, silence in response to the other.
In part, the Jews of America, of Pittsburgh, are not to blame. The media doesn’t care about the Jews of Israel except to demonize them. So the attacks on Tel Aviv, if they were covered at all, were not covered in the same sort of emotional language as the attacks on the Muslims in Christ Church.
Then too, we could say that the attacks on Tel Aviv didn’t actually kill anyone. But there is damage, nonetheless. There always is. And it is collective, and cumulative. And we surely could use the support of the Jews of Pittsburgh, every bit as much as the Muslims of New Zealand.
The thing is, the Tel Aviv attacks were a big deal here in Israel. It is rare for the city to be under attack. Also, Tel Aviv is the big city. It has a liberal zeitgeist. Tel Avivians see themselves as an island of normalcy. They see themselves as living on uncontested land. They aren’t settlers occupying someone else’s land, so they don’t expect, or as they might put it, deserve to be targeted.
My son and his wife and children, on the other hand, live under fire in the town of Netivot, which is located in the “peripheria” as Southern Israel is known to Israelis. The people of the periphery are poorer. They receive fewer services. They are, in some respects, perceived as second class citizens even to their own people: the rest of the people of Israel.
The periphery has seen many more attacks than Tel Aviv. But when Tel Aviv is hit, it makes the headlines.
My daughter in-law wrote a poignant and sympathetic post in the aftermath the attacks on Tel Aviv. She wrote her post from the perspective of someone who lives in the periphery.
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