Jerusalem Shooting

The news about the shooting which killed 8 students at the Rav HaCook Yeshiva in Jerusalem spread throughout Israel quickly. The first rumors I heard were that the perpetrator of the killings was actually a suicide bomber from East Jerusalem that blew himself up. The man who opened fire in the yeshiva library was in fact from East Jerusalem, but he had a rifle and not a bomb apparatus.

There are a few things about the incident to which I have an ongoing reaction.

In every article from "peace" or "alternative" news sources, I find an effort to contextualize the situation, to allow the reader to understand how and why it is that a man could go into a library in which students are studying Torah and murder them in cold blood, knowing full well that his own life was at stake. Before the contextualization however, comes several sentences iterating the horrific, inexcusable nature of the crime. I believe Barak Obama called it a "cowardly" act and others called it heinous, some British media labeled the incident as the moment the peace process died. Condemn the act strongly before offering analysis that seeks to educate the public before it is slammed back into the black and white comprehension of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Is it necessary to lend adjectives to the shooting that reassure the reader that in fact, this media source is not justifying the incident in order to keep them reading?
Are not the facts of the event shocking enough-- a Palestinian East Jerusalemite who drove to the yeshiva, got out of his car, shut the door, cocked his gun, went into the library and sprayed bullets at students whose blood filled the floor of the library, the books they were carrying and, as some news sources showed pictures of Jewish prayer shawls soaked in the blood of the victims?

Why is it necessary to condemn an act of terror in so many words, in order to be allowed a platform, or rather, hope for listeners to a platform that explains the between-the-lines of a story?

How about we swallow the facts, as bitter, huge and nasty a pill or pill-cocktail as they may be? One people's villains are another's heroes and vice versa. I believe this is a fact both the people here and those involved internationally have to understand and really integrate into their approach to life here, living in conflict and hoping for an end to it.

What would happen if a news article read something like -- brave Palestinian citizen sought justice by single-handedly attacking a yeshiva today, sacrificing his own life to draw attention to the continued control of the Palestinian people by Israel. Families, teachers, friends and the people of Israel are shocked and bereaved by this incident. Hopes are low for a continued peace process as the event illustrates once again how superficial the Middle East peace process really is in the consciousness of the people -- Israelis and Palestinians.

And what if the story continued to relay more facts -- the young Palestinian man found hope and sustenance in the teachings of Hizbollah and Hamas whose cry for a free Palestine from oppression of the Zionists and America allowed him to find a purpose for his short life. In an act of selflessness he took matters into his own hands in what he must have believed was his contribution to the struggle for nationhood and an end to the oppression about which he has learned and lived since his birth.

In the aftermath of the shooting, the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem are becoming more and more difficult. Palestinian residents of the Old City are not being allowed into their homes as a result of the security restriction keeping men younger than 45 from going to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Delays at the checkpoints have been increased and general harassment of Palestinians is continuing at heightened levels.

Meanwhile, back at the yeshiva and the massive funeral processions to bury the teenage victims of the shooting, rabbis and community leaders are declaring the just cause of Israel's occupation of the West Bank. One mother of the victims demanded that eight new settlements be built in memory of the eight youngsters killed while studying in the yeshiva. The stereotypes are proven true-- they want to kill us and they do and we want them to be pushed out, so we will.

Nearly a week later, news of Prime Minister Olmert's consent to continue settlement building in the West Bank is surfacing. Defense Minister Ehud Barak snubs a joint meeting with a Lieutenant of Defense from the United States and Mohammed Abbas' Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in Jerusalem as part of the ongoing peace talks agreed to at Annapolis in November 2007.

On Facebook I'm receiving requests to join the "Remember the 8 Who Died at the Yeshiva".

I speak to my co-workers in East Jerusalem and I hear heaviness and an unwillingness to talk in their voices.

Events such as this polarize the publics both near and far. Any moment of clarity that accepts that a drastic change on the ground must occur and quickly becomes fogged over in the re-experiencing of a story line lived too many times before.

In these situations everyone is losing, no one is safe, the well-being of all parties are at stake.

A crime was committed against children in a yeshiva and I'm not even willing to call them innocent because at this yeshiva they are taught of their god-given right to the land of Israel and therefore their right to remove Palestinians from the land.

Conversely, an act of terror was committed to upturn any sense of stability and to reinforce the fragility of the safety of the Israeli public, by a Palestinian.

The action and the reaction perpetuate the violence cycle here and if you take a side, you too -- I also -- perpetuate the cycle. In the end we all lose-- our sense of security for the Jewish State, our hope for a free Palestine, our dream of coexistence, our dream of dominance, our dream of justice.

The only thing that endures is the fighting.