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| Aviram Ben-Uliel in court on May 18, 2020 (Ha'aretz) |
(Amiram Ben-Uliel) was found guilty of racially motivated murder by an Israeli court on Monday in a 2015 arson attack that killed a Palestinian couple and their baby in the occupied West Bank.
He and a group of his friends committed this crime in
retaliation for the murder of 3 innocent Jewish teenagers by Palestinian
terrorists. But killing three innocent people in
retaliation for a crime is not just. It is pure evil. And about as warped a sense of
justice as humanly conceivable. I can’t begin to imagine what dying in blaze of
fire must be like. Nor can I begin to image how their loved ones must feel when they think about it. I doubt the terror of such thoughts ever goes
away. They have to live with these thoughts the rest of their lives.
When I first heard about this crime, I was outraged. With the announcement of this verdict my sense of outrage has been reignited. For me,
it will eventually fade away. Not so for the family of those three victims.
What
kind of thinking goes into a heinous crime like that? What made this fellow decide that firebombing a home while people were sleeping inside was
a virtuous act? Looking at the large knit Kipa and the long Peyos that are typical of some of the more devout Religious Zionists leads me to believe that it was a warped religious sense of justice. I do not believe it would be far-fetched to say he was motivated by the rhetoric of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane.
That being said, I do not believe Rabbi Kahane would have done anything so
heinous as this. But he definitely believed in retaliation against Arabs as a
way of showing them that ‘2 can play at this game’. Meaning that if Arabs can
get away with spilling innocent Jewish blood thinking that we would never retaliate by spilling innocent Arab blood, then we ought to show that we can and we will. That - in theory - would prove to them that we
will not sit idly by while they spill our blood. He believed that if the Arabs understand
that, they might think twice about randomly attacking Jews again.
I would not be surprised that this was behind the thinking of Ben-Uliel. Much the same way Dr. Baruch
Goldstein was motivated to kill innocent Arabs praying at Maaras HaMachpela. He believed they were about to attack
his community. So he rose up first to attack them. The kind of thing Rabbi Kahane constantly preached. I believe that it was also Rabbi Kahane’s rhetoric that was behind Yigal Amir’s assassination of Itzhak Rabin.
The sad part of all this is that most of Rabbi Kahane’s
followers are highly motivated Religious Zionists that live eat and breath the Mitzvah of settling all
of Eretz Yisroel. It is practically their reason for living.
Taken to its extreme - anyone that gets in their way – even if it is their own
government – pays a price! They believe they are
fulfilling God’s will. Soldiers for God trying to re-establish His
will on earth. True
believers. What ever it takes.
Kind of like the Jewish version of ISIS. (Although
not quite as heinous as them – heinous nonetheless.) That is what the ‘Hilltop Youth’ is all about. That Rabbi Kahane’s teachings are what motivates them should be made obvious by
the fact that one of their leaders is (was) his grandson. No doubt Ben-Uliel is of that mindset.
I realize that my analysis will irritate many of Rabbi Kahane’s admirers. Most of which are quite sane and would never do anything like Ben-Uliel did. They might even condemn what he was
convicted of. But at the same time I have heard more than once - some of them claiming conspiracy theories. Saying that Ben-Uliel is innocent - framed by Palestinian terrorists who themselves committed the crime and made it look like settler Jews did it. Which is kind of the same argument made against Israel about 9/11 by Jew hating conspiracy theorists. Accusing Israel’s Mossad of being behind the whole thing.
This verdict should make us all be aware of the dangers of religious fanatics. It is not all that difficult to take a religious idea to a violent conclusion. It is no coincidence that Israel’s biggest enemies are the most religious of Muslims - like those running Iran.
It’s really too bad about Rabbi Kahane. He was a brilliant
man who was sincere. He cared about every single Jew. His analysis about the source of the Arab hatred of us was prescient. I believe that he understood their mindset long before anyone else did. I
recall reading his weekly articles in the Jewish Press - and rarely disagreeing with
him.
It was his violent way of dealing with it that was off. Way off. I am not aware of a single rabbinic leader of any stripe that supported him. I will never forget my own Rebbe, Rav Aron Solveichik’s condemnation of him during one of his Shiurim. How right they all were! Look at all the damage he has wrought.
