Will It Be Different This Time

I had been thinking about writing this posting all week. I was going to describe my impressions of the coming peace talks from my new Israeli lens. I was going to talk about complexity and complication. And then last night, sitting here in Israel on the eve of the first meaningful direct peace talks between Jews and Palestinians in years, terrorists murdered four Jews while they were driving their car near Hebron.

A terrorist attack. Four innocent lives stolen in an instant. There have been so many over the years. But being in Israel, being here with my family, it just felt different this time.

I spent all morning reading and rereading the responses from the various parties:

Israel’s leadership declared their anger at attempts to derail the peace talks, and further declare the IDF’s and Shin Bet’s commitment to “get their hands on those who perpetrated the attack.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged settlers in the West Bank to show restraint and respect the rule of law in Israel in the wake of the fatal attack that took place near Hebron on Tuesday that left four Israelis dead.

The Palestinian Authority expressed their “outrage over the attack and accused Hamas of attempting to thwart the negotiations.” Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Prime Minister, said measures would be taken to prevent further attacks. “We condemn this operation, which goes against Palestinian interests,” he said in a statement.

Hamas issued its remarks drenched in the evil of its own complicity with this barbarous act; “we praise the attack and consider it a natural response to the crimes of occupation.”

Those on the right described their insistence that; “the leaders of Israel wake up from their delusions of an imaginary peace...Netanyahu must at once freeze the talks and concentrate on securing peace for the citizens of Israel.”

While the left reasoned, “The shooting attack in the Hebron Hills yesterday could not have been a surprise. Palestinian opposition groups, especially Hamas, were highly motivated to embarrass the Palestinian Authority on the eve of the start of direct talks in Washington.”

President Obama said, “I want everybody to be very clear: The United States is going to be unwavering in its support of Israel’s security and we are going to push back against these kinds of terrorist activities.”

And, I saved the most pernicious response for last;

The US State Department, whose spokesperson P.J. Crowley offered the following remark; “Any time one human being takes out a weapon and fires and kills other human beings, it’s a tragedy. We just don’t know the circumstances under which this occurred.”

As I read and thought about all of these reactions it jumped out at me; not one reflected on the individuals whose lives had been stolen. Not one mentioned the families whose brother, sister, mother, father, daughter, son, and grandparent had been erased from the earth. The replies are all so banal and predictable. The claims are all so hollow. Has politics dehumanized us so far that no one even bothers to mention the individuals who were slaughtered?

At the end of the first chapter of the Torah, Bereshit 1:27 it says:

“And God created man in his image (B’tselem Elohim), in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them...”

There are no political sides in the Torah. There are human beings, male and female, each created in God’s image. Four images of God had their lives taken from them yesterday. Yitzhak and Tali Ames, parents of 6 children from ages 5 to 24 and grandparents for just six months. The other two have not yet been named though one was said to have been a pregnant woman.

As these direct talks begin, my prayer is that the individuals responsible for leadership accept each other as B’tselem Elohim, as being in the image of God. That way, this time it really will be different.