Cowards

I am sick to my stomach about the cowardly bomb attack this morning on Zeev Sternhell, the Israeli professor and winner of the Israel Prize whose "crime," apparently, was being against West Bank settlements. The Times reports that the police found (Hebrew) fliers in his neighborhood offering $320,000 to anyone who killed a member of Peace Now.

Way to get into the spirit of Elul, you cowards.

To my readers: remember all of those starving children in Israel to whom you're supposed to donate before Rosh HaShanah? I get e-mails about this constantly. Do you have any idea how much food $320,000 can buy?

I hope you will join me in posting your condemnations as well. I'm not naive enough to think this will change anything in real life. But I wouldn't be surprised to see some aspects of the J-Blogosphere talking about how we have to understand what the poor bomber was going through (see, Baruch Goldstein, "heroic martyrdom" of). Those 12 of us who are still moderates (two-state solution, Arabs need to stop terror, Israelis have to stop settling the wrong side of the fence[not that #2 and #3 are comparable, but both stand in the way of any kind of solution in which the demographic problem can be prevented from turning us into South Africa in 20 years]) should make our voices heard, at least in the blogosphere.

Yesterday, some frum bloggers I read, including Dov Bear, whom I greatly respect, expressed admiration for a certain post by West Bank Mama called "A Tale of Two Sons." I was really mad when I read it and didn't want to comment, but I'm ready now. Hey, Westbankmama and other yishuv-niks: Want to know why the Arabs are angry? BECAUSE YOU'RE ON THEIR LAND. Get on the right side of the fence. (P.S., I don't know for sure if West Bank Mama lives on the wrong side of the fence, but I strongly suspect that she does, since she says she lives in Shomron). I realize that large, established settlements such as Maaleh Adumim are going to be part of Israel in any peace solution, and that's fine. But that doesn't mean it's okay constantly to set up a new illegal settlement on the next hill. The Israeli government is partly to blame, too, since they don't throw these law-breakers out immediately. Have you noticed that the settlers don't mind accepting protection from the government's army? It's just the rest of the government and its pesky laws that bothers them.

Another note to the Israeli government: When you catch the bomber, don't let him get married to the president of his fan club and have conjugal visits in prison, like you did with Yigal Amir.