Here's a big story you may have missed: On Thursday, a member of Israel's Knesset, a party head no less, was almost murdered. Religious Zionist Party head Bezalel Smotrich was heading back from an event in the Samarian community of Sa-Nur when the bus he was riding in was attacked with rocks and Molotov cocktails.
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Here's another major story you likely missed: Over the last three days, there have been at least 15 incidents of Arabs violently attacking Jews, including Haredim. It started with a Haredi having his hat knocked off of his head and deteriorated into rock-throwing that left a Haredi man bleeding in his Shabbat clothes.
If that wasn't enough, on Sunday, the head of a Jaffa yeshiva was the victim of a brutal attack. Had such images come out of Austria, France, or the US, they would have sparked far greater outrage.
For some reason, attacks on Jews in their capital don't garner much media attention. The police are making arrests. They managed to get to the people sharing videos of the attack online pretty quickly. Still, it's hard to shake the feeling more needs to be done.
When a handful of Haredim disgraced the entire Haredi public by attacking a police cruiser in Bnei Brak, Border Police sent entire battalions to patrol the city, trampled Haredi youth, threw stun grenades into yards, and woke sleeping babies to at best restore order and at worst exact revenge.
Is this the right way to act? I'm not sure. Can we do more? We should before it's too late. When marginalized, reckless youth set the bus in Bnei Brak on fire, images of the burning vehicle were plastered all over the newspapers. It was headline news. Politicians condemned the act, and Haredi leaders were told to do some soul-searching.
When Joint Arab List MK Ofer Cassif was brutally beaten by a police officer, however, the TV studios were only too happy to host him in his torn shirt and broken eyeglasses.
There have barely been any requests to interview Smotrich about what took place.
Every wacky statue placed at Habima Square garners media attention and a weekend interview with the tortured artist. Every anti-Arab graffiti is headline news. But when it comes to Haredim, the volume is turned noticeably down. Too far down.
Those who follow social media say this is something of a phenomenon, or worse, a "trend" taking hold among Arab youths. It will end in disaster. The events taking place in the streets of Jerusalem and Jaffa may very well end in murder.
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