Kibbutz Metzer: 5 killed, among them a mother and her two children (4 and 5 years old).

Yes, let’s talk about Israel’s obligations
The comparison of the harsh interrogation of dangerous murderous terrorists, for the sole purpose of preventing further murders, to the torture of Jewish Iranian tradesmen is not a fair one. Can you really compare torture in Iran to what happens here? Are these societies that you can compare so easily?

You agree yourself that those Iranian Jews probably posed no threat to anyone. We’ve seen what happens when Israel eases up on the terrorists. Israel has an obligation to uphold the human rights of the Palestinians. But Israel also has the obligation to protect its innocent civilians going about their lives. No, Israel has an obligation, first and foremost, to protect its innocent civilians going about their lives. Terrorists, who would readily give up their lives to kill Israelis, are hardly going to spill the beans if we ask them nicely.

I have two young daughters. They are sweet and innocent. They have never harmed a soul. My husband lovingly gave my eldest daughter a nickname connected to Mahatma Gandhi, because she is such a peaceful child, who from a very young age served as a mediator between friends who were quarrelling. We have helped them learn to honor those different from them and that the Palestinians are our honored neighbors and friends. They draw doves and sing peace sings.

But their lives are constantly in danger. Tell me, would you not shake terrorists, and worse, to save their pure blameless lives? Are their lives not worth protecting? Would you have us all slaughtered as the mother and her children in Kibbutz Metzer, last night?

By any standards, in the situation Israel finds itself in, whatever your views are and however you think it should be solved, Israel has dealt with terrorists far less harshly than all her neighbors. And I do believe that if any Western European country found itself in the exactly the same situation as Israel, it would be far harsher in it’s dealings with terrorists.

If you call Israeli interrogation tactics atrocious, you have no words left to describe what happens regularly (even with regard to criminal offenses) in the prisons and interrogation rooms of every Arab country and many other countries the world over. The Palestinians themselves have proved to be far, far crueler to their own people than the Israelis ever have been.

Palestinian parents readily turn their sons over, by the dozens, to Israeli security forces, to prevent their perpetrating suicide bombings. They know they will be better off in Israeli prisons and interrogation rooms, than at the hands of their Palestinian commanders, if they fail to carry out their missions. Of course, they would be better off in Israeli prisons, than dead. That goes without saying.

Many say, that if we had done to the Palestinians what the Syrians and the Jordanians and Egyptians and the Libyans and the Iranians and the Saudis (Not to mention the Iraqis), and even the Palestinians themselves, have done to their own people, and continue to do on a regular basis, we would not have a problem of terrorism at all.

OK, you say, but you judge us with different standards. You expect more of us. That, sir, is pure racism. Are you implying that Arabs are not capable of behaving like human beings?

You blame alleged Israeli torture as pushing the tortured Palestinians to become terrorists, increasing their hatred and incentive. But Palestinian terrorism began long before 1967, even before 1948. Even before the Palestinians existed as a separate entity, in fact, and refused to see themselves as anything but Syrians. The horrific suicide bombings, as we now experience them, nearly daily, began when the Oslo Accords where at their highest point; when Israel was retreating from large parts of the territories; when Palestinians had more hope than they had ever had and had not yet learnt that Palestinian rule could be much crueler than Israeli rule. And you forget, The people we interrogated so atrociously, as you claim, were already terrorists, when interrogated.

It always “amuses” me that people say: “you cannot do such and such because it will increase the Palestinians’ hatred”. So they don’t already hate us? So they didn’t already hate us in1929 when they massacred the Jews of the ancient Jewry of Hebron? We weren’t torturing them then. So if we don’t do anything to protect ourselves so as not to infringe on anyone’s human rights, will they love us then? If we unilaterally cease the occupation; dismantle all the settlements; give in to all the demands we already gave in to in 2000 and more, meaning: let all the Palestinian refugees come back to the long-gone houses that their grandparents once occupied in Haifa and Yaffo; make sure not to build any fences so as not to prevent anyone getting into Israel freely and so as not to hurt anyone’s feelings, will they love us then? Do you promise? And what if they don’t? Will you come from America to save my girls? Who will save my girls then? Who will save other mothers sitting in their homes in the Kibbutz, their little children sleeping in the other room?