Within a couple of days of each other, two disturbing events occurred.
First, a Golani soldier armed with a fully automatic rifle did NOT shoot at an attacker who attacked the soldier with a flaming Molotov cocktail. (Not sure, but it looks like the fire hit the soldier's legs, but quickly went out.)
You can see HERE in the bottom right corner of the still that it was a significant blast.
I'm not sure why the soldier—especially a Golani guy—did not shoot, neither as the attacker came at him nor as the attacker left.
Perhaps he unexpectedly froze under pressure.
Perhaps, when faced with the actual prospect of killing another human being face-to-face, he simply could not bring himself to shoot. (This happens to soldiers more often than people realize.)
Or maybe the soldier was one of these laid-back types & didn't perceive the flaming Molotov cocktail as so threatening. (There are people like this, believe it or not.) Like he saw it more as a game of chicken than an attack.
Perhaps, with all the mind-games of the high mucky-muck army superiors & government officials, plus the Leftist self-hating journalists, the soldier wasn't sure whether killing his assailant would bring unjustly harsh consequences against the soldier.
On the other hand, the attacker either did not mind being shot (why else would he carry out an attack with no defense that brought him such close range of a fully armed soldier?) OR the attacker relied on both the natural hesitancy of a decent man with a gun combined with the bleeding-hearted restrictions against soldiers' use of force.
IDF superiors removed the soldier from combat—which may be a wise decision if investigations show the soldier either froze up or could not bring himself to perform the necessary self-defense.
(After all, would you want to go to combat with a colleague who could not shoot to save his own life—or yours?)
Golani is understandably very upset about the way things turned out.
(Unlike the high mucky-mucks, the Golani guys actually understand that allowing terrorists to escape proper consequences makes Israelis look really weak & encourages further attacks.)
However, if the soldier felt constricted by the very real deliberation of whether shooting would be considered okay in this situation, then that's a very legitimate deliberation in our times.
And if that's the case, then the hesitancy isn't his fault, but the fault of his superiors.
After all, there was the rabbi at an isolated bus stop several years ago in Judea & Samaria who waited until the last possible second to shoot a terrorist, and the police still penalized him by taking his gun & keeping it for a very long time.
Other soldiers faced situations in which they killed an actual terrorist and were jailed for it.
When Elor Azaryah did exactly that in 2016, he actually acted according to halacha. He also likely saved lives because with Israeli's revolving door for terrorists, the terrorist (had he lived) would likely have been set free at some point to try murdering more Jews.
So if the soldier felt conflicted, he has every right because the Israeli justice system for both civilians & soldiers is so capricious.
Unfortunately, by allowing the attacker to both attack and then flee, this bolsters further aggression on the part of terrorists & their supporters by making Israelis look weak & ineffectual—in other words, even a trained man with a fully automatic rifle is an easy target.
Furthermore, by allowing the attacker to escape, this pretty much ensures that the attacker will attack again, thus endangering fellow Jews.
(Okay, yeah, they caught the attacker later. But again, there still exists the revolving door option for terrorists.)
So that's pretty disturbing.
All in all, the soldier should have blasted the attacker.
But he didn't.
Why?
We don't know yet, but knowing Golani, I'm leaning toward the soldier not wanting to face unsavory consequences, rather than him not having the guts or presence of mind to shoot.
So that's my lean, but we don't actually know at this point.
First, a Golani soldier armed with a fully automatic rifle did NOT shoot at an attacker who attacked the soldier with a flaming Molotov cocktail. (Not sure, but it looks like the fire hit the soldier's legs, but quickly went out.)
You can see HERE in the bottom right corner of the still that it was a significant blast.
I'm not sure why the soldier—especially a Golani guy—did not shoot, neither as the attacker came at him nor as the attacker left.
Perhaps he unexpectedly froze under pressure.
Perhaps, when faced with the actual prospect of killing another human being face-to-face, he simply could not bring himself to shoot. (This happens to soldiers more often than people realize.)
Or maybe the soldier was one of these laid-back types & didn't perceive the flaming Molotov cocktail as so threatening. (There are people like this, believe it or not.) Like he saw it more as a game of chicken than an attack.
Perhaps, with all the mind-games of the high mucky-muck army superiors & government officials, plus the Leftist self-hating journalists, the soldier wasn't sure whether killing his assailant would bring unjustly harsh consequences against the soldier.
On the other hand, the attacker either did not mind being shot (why else would he carry out an attack with no defense that brought him such close range of a fully armed soldier?) OR the attacker relied on both the natural hesitancy of a decent man with a gun combined with the bleeding-hearted restrictions against soldiers' use of force.
IDF superiors removed the soldier from combat—which may be a wise decision if investigations show the soldier either froze up or could not bring himself to perform the necessary self-defense.
(After all, would you want to go to combat with a colleague who could not shoot to save his own life—or yours?)
Golani is understandably very upset about the way things turned out.
(Unlike the high mucky-mucks, the Golani guys actually understand that allowing terrorists to escape proper consequences makes Israelis look really weak & encourages further attacks.)
However, if the soldier felt constricted by the very real deliberation of whether shooting would be considered okay in this situation, then that's a very legitimate deliberation in our times.
And if that's the case, then the hesitancy isn't his fault, but the fault of his superiors.
After all, there was the rabbi at an isolated bus stop several years ago in Judea & Samaria who waited until the last possible second to shoot a terrorist, and the police still penalized him by taking his gun & keeping it for a very long time.
Other soldiers faced situations in which they killed an actual terrorist and were jailed for it.
When Elor Azaryah did exactly that in 2016, he actually acted according to halacha. He also likely saved lives because with Israeli's revolving door for terrorists, the terrorist (had he lived) would likely have been set free at some point to try murdering more Jews.
So if the soldier felt conflicted, he has every right because the Israeli justice system for both civilians & soldiers is so capricious.
Unfortunately, by allowing the attacker to both attack and then flee, this bolsters further aggression on the part of terrorists & their supporters by making Israelis look weak & ineffectual—in other words, even a trained man with a fully automatic rifle is an easy target.
Furthermore, by allowing the attacker to escape, this pretty much ensures that the attacker will attack again, thus endangering fellow Jews.
(Okay, yeah, they caught the attacker later. But again, there still exists the revolving door option for terrorists.)
So that's pretty disturbing.
All in all, the soldier should have blasted the attacker.
But he didn't.
Why?
We don't know yet, but knowing Golani, I'm leaning toward the soldier not wanting to face unsavory consequences, rather than him not having the guts or presence of mind to shoot.
So that's my lean, but we don't actually know at this point.
Jews Held to a Different Standard
The other even more extremely disturbing occurrence was when a religious Jewish 17-year-old boy (Ahuvya Sandak) was killed & his friends injured directly because police chased them after merely suspecting them of throwing rocks at local Arabs.
Teenager Killed During a Police Chase in Shomron
Now, probably the police did not mean for that to happen. But probably they did not care very much about preventing it from happening either.
And just to be clear: I am against throwing rocks at random Arabs or anyone else unless you KNOW that particular individual deserves it.
I'm against it because, as far as I know, Jewish Law is against it.
But the police response was extreme.
And biased.
For example, we know that officials care very little about Arabs throwing rocks at Jews because they do it all the time with few repercussions.
For instance, I personally know people who point to rock-throwing Arabs in the newspaper and exclaim, "Hey! I know that guy—he works at Rami Levi!"
Rami Levi is a popular supermarket chain in Eretz Yisrael.
People go into the supermarket and see the same rock-thrower casually working the register.
Also, when I was a dati-leumi girl, a young man in our group told of when he served in the IDF, his unit faced an ongoing onslaught of rocks and they begged their commanding officer to let them shoot back.
(Also, remember that these are mostly boys of the ages 18-21.)
The commanding officer wanted to, but said he couldn't give the order because his IDF superiors ordered him not to.
Then one of the young soldiers got a rock his mouth and my friend watched as his friend's gums & teeth fell out.
The commanding officer still would not allow them to shoot back.
His friend survived, but needed several surgeries to repair his jaw.
Online, you can find video collages of Israeli soldiers under attack by rocks or with their posts on fire, and begging for backup or the right to defend themselves—but no dice.
So we know that no one cares much about Arabs throwing rocks at Jews—including Erev Rav-y "Jews" who don't care about rocks propelled at fellow Jews.
But when Jews throw rocks at Arabs?
Oh-ho!
THAT'S different!
Even just Jews suspected of throwing rocks—not that it's certain, but merely suspected!
Apparently, Jews merely suspected of throwing rocks must be hunted down & pursued as if—as if they were throwing flaming Molotov cocktails at extremely close range!
Apparently, double standards are okay as long as they discriminate against Jews—particularly religious Jews!
And also, just to put a personal spin on things: People from Bat Ayin are really nice!
My son who likes to travel all over the country once ended up at Bat Ayin for Shabbat.
He stayed with some Bat Ayin boys in an ancient ruin they'd made habitable. (The boys' families lived in regular homes nearby.) These boys knew & cared about all the Shabbat halachot for living in a ruin with some electricity, including keeping the food warm over Shabbat, etc.
One of the boys' fathers stopped by before Shabbat to make sure their electric wiring was fine.
It was a very cool experience—the experience of living in ancient Judea as our ancestors did in the same kind of structure constructed of local stones.
Also, my son is obviously a charedi yeshivah bachur and that was fine with these non-charedi-yet-religious Bat Ayin residents because Bat Ayin residents have a solid sense of achdut (unity) with their fellow Jews.
You keep Shabbat & learn Torah? Hey, you're one of us!
And that's just one nice thing to say about the Jews of Bat Ayin. There's a lot more good to say.
Teenager Killed During a Police Chase in Shomron
Now, probably the police did not mean for that to happen. But probably they did not care very much about preventing it from happening either.
And just to be clear: I am against throwing rocks at random Arabs or anyone else unless you KNOW that particular individual deserves it.
I'm against it because, as far as I know, Jewish Law is against it.
But the police response was extreme.
And biased.
For example, we know that officials care very little about Arabs throwing rocks at Jews because they do it all the time with few repercussions.
For instance, I personally know people who point to rock-throwing Arabs in the newspaper and exclaim, "Hey! I know that guy—he works at Rami Levi!"
Rami Levi is a popular supermarket chain in Eretz Yisrael.
People go into the supermarket and see the same rock-thrower casually working the register.
Also, when I was a dati-leumi girl, a young man in our group told of when he served in the IDF, his unit faced an ongoing onslaught of rocks and they begged their commanding officer to let them shoot back.
(Also, remember that these are mostly boys of the ages 18-21.)
The commanding officer wanted to, but said he couldn't give the order because his IDF superiors ordered him not to.
Then one of the young soldiers got a rock his mouth and my friend watched as his friend's gums & teeth fell out.
The commanding officer still would not allow them to shoot back.
His friend survived, but needed several surgeries to repair his jaw.
Online, you can find video collages of Israeli soldiers under attack by rocks or with their posts on fire, and begging for backup or the right to defend themselves—but no dice.
So we know that no one cares much about Arabs throwing rocks at Jews—including Erev Rav-y "Jews" who don't care about rocks propelled at fellow Jews.
But when Jews throw rocks at Arabs?
Oh-ho!
THAT'S different!
Even just Jews suspected of throwing rocks—not that it's certain, but merely suspected!
Apparently, Jews merely suspected of throwing rocks must be hunted down & pursued as if—as if they were throwing flaming Molotov cocktails at extremely close range!
Apparently, double standards are okay as long as they discriminate against Jews—particularly religious Jews!
And also, just to put a personal spin on things: People from Bat Ayin are really nice!
My son who likes to travel all over the country once ended up at Bat Ayin for Shabbat.
He stayed with some Bat Ayin boys in an ancient ruin they'd made habitable. (The boys' families lived in regular homes nearby.) These boys knew & cared about all the Shabbat halachot for living in a ruin with some electricity, including keeping the food warm over Shabbat, etc.
One of the boys' fathers stopped by before Shabbat to make sure their electric wiring was fine.
It was a very cool experience—the experience of living in ancient Judea as our ancestors did in the same kind of structure constructed of local stones.
Also, my son is obviously a charedi yeshivah bachur and that was fine with these non-charedi-yet-religious Bat Ayin residents because Bat Ayin residents have a solid sense of achdut (unity) with their fellow Jews.
You keep Shabbat & learn Torah? Hey, you're one of us!
And that's just one nice thing to say about the Jews of Bat Ayin. There's a lot more good to say.
It's All Very Telling
So this is what's going on and you can bet your bottom dollar it all means something.
It's no coincidence that these disturbing incidents occurred so close together, especially when they reflect each other:
Adult Arab brazenly attacks armed Jew with explosive at lethally close range & gets away with it vs. underage Jews only suspected of throwing rocks at Arabs are dangerously pursued to death (or injury) AND arrested.
(And that's not even getting to the horrific tragedy of the middle-aged Jewish mother found murdered in her car—pretty obviously an act of terrorism—or the terrorist killed when he shot at police officers in Yerushalayim's Old City. I guess that shooting at a police officer is bad enough to justify the liquidation of the aggressor. But others need more deliberation. Double standards and all that.)
Gee, I'm so glad we finally have our own country where we can finally live free of discrimination & persecution. Yeah, this whole Communist-inspired enterprise devoid of Torah is really working out for us!
A nation like any other! Groovy! [sarc]
It's no coincidence that these disturbing incidents occurred so close together, especially when they reflect each other:
Adult Arab brazenly attacks armed Jew with explosive at lethally close range & gets away with it vs. underage Jews only suspected of throwing rocks at Arabs are dangerously pursued to death (or injury) AND arrested.
(And that's not even getting to the horrific tragedy of the middle-aged Jewish mother found murdered in her car—pretty obviously an act of terrorism—or the terrorist killed when he shot at police officers in Yerushalayim's Old City. I guess that shooting at a police officer is bad enough to justify the liquidation of the aggressor. But others need more deliberation. Double standards and all that.)
Gee, I'm so glad we finally have our own country where we can finally live free of discrimination & persecution. Yeah, this whole Communist-inspired enterprise devoid of Torah is really working out for us!
A nation like any other! Groovy! [sarc]
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