Closing your eyes not to see the mourners' tears, shutting your ears to the sounds of the eulogies, changing the channel to avoid the news and video from the scene of the terrorist attack. We do this not because we do not care but because the soul is on fire. It is incapable of dealing with this sorrow any longer.
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We were there as youths when the buses blew up. We were there as parents who painted a picture to our toddlers of a safe and good world even when it was cruel. We were there as journalists reporting on the attacks and the mourning. We were there as the wives of reservists serving in Lebanon and in the Gaza Strip.
But having to listen to my young-adult children's anger with the government's failure to act, watching them dive deep into the subject of death, is the hardest. Knowing we can no longer conceal anything from them and trying to mediate the difficult reality for those aged 16 and over without provoking panic – is the hardest.
But the most important thing is to continue to allow our children to travel freely around our good and difficult country because under no circumstances whatsoever should we as citizens allow terrorism to dictate our routine lives.
It isn't easy. On Tuesday evening, my son and I decided he would take the bus alone from the Samaria community of Ofra to Jerusalem, and from there, take the light rail to meet me at the central bus station for a non-urgent health matter.
When the headline "11 murdered in a week" jumped out at me, I did more than wonder whether to postpone the appointment until the wave of terror had subsided.
I struggled internally and with my child, who did not show any concern over the trip, which he ended up taking as planned. When I picked him up from the light rail, he had a victorious smile on his face. As did I. If this is what helps us function better as citizens, then we are allowed to close our eyes and shut our ears to the horror. Heaven forbid our leaders to do the same.
The Israeli government is shutting its eyes to the illegal weapons in Arab society. There are elements in the government interesting in continuing to launder the situation with talk of violence on both sides. There is a minister who happens to be responsible for domestic security and who seeks out every opportunity to convince the world of the lie he tells himself: that the most serious problem in the Middle East is settler violence. His name is Omer Bar-Lev. There are also ministers in the Israeli government who, whether due to naiveté, ignorance, or malice believe Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' forced condemnations of the violence. In Hebrew, he condemns the attack. In Arabic, he continues to pay the terrorists' salaries.
Abbas invited the attack, according to Palestinian Media Watch. A month and a half ago, the Israel Defense Forces assassinated three terrorists from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, the Fatah party's terrorist arm.
"This is an intentional murderous action carried out by the oppressive Zionist occupier ... We will not remain silent in the face of these crimes … We must retaliate twice as hard," Abbas said.
The terrorist from Jenin was just doing as his boss, Abbas, the Fatah leader, told him when he murdered at least six Jews in revenge for the deaths of three terrorists.
The Facebook page of Fatah's Jenin branch was filled with praise for the shahid. "This is a message to the oppressive occupier that the Palestinian response to the occupation crimes will be twice as hard," one commenter wrote, clearly in correspondence with Abbas' words just one and a half months ago.
To restore peace to Israel's streets, the government must quit babbling, look reality in the eye, and start to deal with the terrorists and their supporters in the Arab sector and in the PA in depth.
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