The Jewish equivalent of ISIS

December 28, 2015

“Yes, there is a Jewish equivalent of the Islamic State” declares Moshe Arens in his latest Haaretz article (27 Dec 2015).

To think that even the infamous Moshe Arens, the right wing apologist for the Netanyahu’s regime, is now writing about this new Judeo-ISIS terrorists of the settler movement.

But of course, Arens is trying also his best to make it sound like these are only a very tiny fringe group and Israel, over all, is still a wonderful democracy etc, etc. Yet still, it’s a sign of change of time when writers such as Moshe Arens, Asher Schechter and Ari Shavit begin to panic about the future of Israel and the Zionist enterprise. Schechter was at least more direct and honest in saying that “the malignant tumor that is Judeo-ISIS did not grow in a vacuum.” (Dec 24, 2015)

Arens, who served as Foreign Minister and Defense Minister in the past, went to length to inform readers that this criminal hooliganism is not part of the settlement movement but rather the religious fanaticism. Regardless it’s an interesting article to summarize here:

Yes, there is a Jewish equivalent of the Islamic State… It is a small group of Jewish rowdies who go around murdering Arabs and celebrating their own barbaric activities. They are on the margins of Israel’s Jewish community, but the effect of their nefarious actions is far from marginal. They constitute a mortal danger to the victims they target, and a danger to the State of Israel. Like ISIS, they believe they are following God’s commands, and disregard the law of the land and the moral standards of the society in which they live.

They reject the State of Israel and its laws, but then demand the protection that Israeli law provides for its citizens when they are apprehended and interrogated. They spit in our face, yet insist that the state stands by the rights guaranteed to all citizens — even suspected criminals.

Are they a “ticking bomb” that justifies “intense” interrogation methods by the Shin Bet security service? They are “ticking bombs,” undoubtedly. The continuation of their criminal activities will lead to the death of innocents and damage to the State of Israel, and could very well set off a cycle of violence between Jews and Arabs that will be difficult to stop. Everyone in Israel, Jews and Arabs alike, anticipates that those guilty of the murder of the Dawabsheh family in the West Bank village of Duma will be apprehended, judged and punished, and that their supporters will be tried for incitement to murder. And that the “price-tag” phenomenon of anti-Arab hate crimes will vanish from our land.

They are like the followers of the Islamic State with their belief that God has commanded them to kill. ISIS kills the “infidels,” and they kill Arabs. But they and the followers of ISIS are brothers under the skin.