The Lunacy of Vengeance

The Lebanon-based Islamic Jihad, which appears to exist only to engage in murder, kidnaping and terrorism, says it was behind this week’s bus tragedy in Israel and hails as “heroic” that revolting act of homicidal lunacy. Newspapers in a number of Arab countries have similarly rushed to salute the supposed courage of the Palestinian Arab who forced the commuter bus off the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway, killing 14 and injuring more than a score of others. In Israel, meanwhile, in the aftermath of the crime, a few hundred followers respond to Rabbi Meir Kahane’s usual demagogic oratory with cries of “kill the Arabs,” while elsewhere in Israel Arabs come under random attack in a mindless spasm of vengeance. And so the cycle of hatred and intolerance is freshly renewed, and so the innocent die and suffer in a war that shows no signs of abating.

Islamic Jihad may well be lying about its connection with the unnamed suspect in the bus attack. But, taken together with the suspect’s cry of “God is great!” as he sized control of the vehicle and Kahane’s notion that to drive the Arabs from all of historic Palestine is to do God’s will, its claim dramatizes the inescapable religious component in the Arab-Israeli war. The long and bitter battle waged over this small piece of the world is not only a clash between competing nationalisms but a conflict involving religious extremisms as well, adding greatly to the difficulties of resolving it.

Israeli papers report that the suspect in the bus attack wanted to avenge a beating suffered by a relative at the hands of the Israeli army. The government has so far said only that he is a Muslim fundamentalist from the occupied territories, implying that he may have acted out of religious fervor. Identifying the wellsprings of his behavior may have relevance for legal purposes, but motivation is of course beside the point when considering the appalling consequences of the crime. Not for the first time innocent people were made to suffer horrible deaths. That it happened is bad enough. That there are some who openly exult in it is infinitely worse.