Right Points, Wrong People

In the last few days, we have seen two awful tragedies - the murder of Shira Banki and Ali Dawabsha. In the aftermath, a lot of important points have been made. Unfortunately they have been made by the wrong people.

"The murder of Shira Banki should not be seen as expressing a murderous tendency in the charedi world. The killer was not a typical charedi person, not even a typical extremist charedi person. He was mentally deranged. The typical attitude of the charedim to the Gay parade was simply to ignore it."

That's an important argument - but one that should be left to non-charedim to voice. When charedim say it, it just gives the impression that they are more concerned about the respect they want than about a girl being murdered.

"There is a problem of dangerous rhetoric in the charedi world. Words like "Amalek" and "to'evah" are loaded terms that lead to wrong thoughts, words and even actions towards people. There needs to be a deliberate effort to counter this and increase respect of other people."

That is very true - but there is little point in non-charedim saying it to a non-charedi audience. It doesn't accomplish anything and it can lead to demonization.

"There no evidence that Ali Dawabsha was killed by Jews. The content of graffiti is atypical of right-wing nationalist zealots. Besides, Arabs have deliberately killed so many more Jewish civilians, and they praise the killers!"

All true, but right-wing Israelis should not be saying it. After all, there are certainly some Jews who do this kind of thing, and if we are going to claim any moral superiority over the Palestinians, we have to be vigilant about addressing it and uprooting it.

"There is serious problem of extremism in the fringe elements of the right wing of religious Zionism."

Yes, there is. However, there is great danger in left-wing Israelis saying this to a non-Jewish audience, since it is greatly exaggerated and taken as indicative of some kind of ridiculous parallel between religious Zionists and Palestinians.

Unfortunately, the more that the right points are made by the wrong people, the greater the problems become.