The Logic of Terror

By: Edward Miller, Esq.

On August 4th as the bus from Haifa pulled into Shfaram, Israel, army deserter Eden Natan-Zada opened fire and murdered four Israeli Arabs (two Muslim sisters and two Christian men).

Natan-Zada’s goal was to trigger riots in northern Israel to draw the police and army up from Gaza.  The Israeli army braced for riots, diverting hundreds of soldiers from Gaza to the Galilee area.  However, there were no riots,….quite the opposite. 

At the funerals Sheich Raed Salah urged calm.  During the days of mourning traffic clogged the road to Shfraram.  Long lines formed outside the homes of the bereaved.  Among the Muslims, Christians and Druze standing silently waiting their turn to enter and offer condolences, were Israeli Jews from all walks of society.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar, Professor of Arabic at Bar Ilan University, spoke with the family of the murdered sisters, Hazar and Dina Turki.  The devastated parents told him that they understood the murderer was not representative of Israeli society.

Inside of Israel almost all citizens of all religions felt disgust, anger and sadness.  The Israeli army and the mayor of Rishon Lezion refused to have Natan-Zada buried in their cemeteries.  When the mayor was overruled on legal grounds, the neighbors of the cemetery petitioned the High Court of Israel to block the burial of a murderer in their midst. 

The Jewish terrorist did not succeed in his goal.  Shfaram’s sorrow was shared by Israeli Arabs and Jews alike.  Rather than inter-communal rioting in Israel, there was communal mourning.

Cruelly, as the days of mourning concluded in Shfaram, settler Asher Weissgan seized a gun from a security guard in Shilo and shot four Palestinian workers dead.  When terrorists strike at a time of political compromise, their strategic purpose is to provoke a violent response from the other side and derail the political process. 

Remember, it was in February, 1994, on the eve of Arafat’s return and the first planned Gaza pull out, that Baruch Goldstein murdered 29 worshippers in Hebron and “succeeded” in fanning the flames of hatred between Arabs and Jews, pushing compromise that much further out of reach.  In this regard, Weissgan seems to have “succeeded” where Natan-Zada “failed,” for after the Shilo killings Hamas vowed revenge, meaning that somewhere in Israel sometime soon, Jews will be killed.  Compromise will be pushed a bit further away.

  Dr. Dirks has written of the “dance” of Bush and Bin Laden in which “each movement of one dancer inevitably reinforces the position of the other.”  So too, Natan-Zada and Weissgan’s logic and language of terror speaks to those on the other side who also believe political compromise must be blocked.

It is a violent dance of those on both sides praying the withdrawal from Gaza will be a prelude to more violence rather than a step towards compromise and political resolution of the conflict,…..those who in their quest for total victory are perfectly willing to open fire on a bus full of people.