RUTHFULLY YOURS

It happened again, this time in a crowded restaurant in Tel Aviv. Two terrorists opened fire on civilians with the intent of taking as many Israeli lives as possible before they would inevitably be stopped. The murderers were successful. They brought lethal weapons to a place of joy and celebration and gunned down the innocent, one by one. We now know that cousins Muhammad and Khalid Muhamra, both 21, carried out the attack. The terrorists were both from the village of Yatta, near the city of Hebron in Judea, and their peers celebrated their crime both on social media and in the city streets, handing out treats to honor the attackers.

Last night, Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai was asked by Army Radio to comment on the Palestinian celebrations following the terror attack in Tel Aviv that took four lives and wounded 18. The mayor responded by saying, “We might be the only country in the world with another people living among us under occupation, without civil rights. … You can’t keep people in a situation where they are under occupation and hope they’ll reach the conclusion that everything is fine.”

Not only is this an outrageous statement — the mayor chooses not to condemn the terrorists or the people handing out food and candies in celebration of what they refer to as “Operation Ramadan,” but rather the Israeli government and its policies — but Huldai’s words also reveal a deep and dangerous naivete.

To blame the murders on “a 49-year occupation” or to believe that giving up Judea and Samaria, or any other piece of land for that matter, would end the violence and the terrorism is to gamble with people’s lives.

I spent a good deal of time on social media in the hours after the Tel Aviv attack on Wednesday, as I do every day, and what I saw on Twitter was not calls for peace or even posts about how, once the Palestinians get the West Bank, they will build a country and create a state. No. What I saw under the hashtag #OperationRamadan were calls for the terrorists not to stop until the entirety of Israel was theirs. This is not a peace process or a protest, but a war that has very little to do with territory or borders, but rather the very existence of the Jewish State.

Everyone has a need to compartmentalize; it is often what keeps us humans sane enough to go about our business. But when we try to apply that skill to national security, or in this case even our existence, it has direct and dire consequences. It may be easier to say that this terrorism is due to “those people,” the ones on the hills and in the so-called settlements, but the terrorists are not exclusively targeting any of us, they are broadly attacking all of us, and they will not rest until Tel Aviv is as much theirs as Bethlehem, nor will they spare a single Jew, no matter how many times we speak in their favor.

The Israel I know is proud and united in solidarity, but Huldai spoke the words of the loud minority, often visible on the pages of the left-wing Haaretz newspaper and too many international publications to mention. The “If only we …” theory is their gospel, and they shout it from the rooftops, far from the villages housing the murderers waiting for the opportunity to act.

If only we give up Hebron.

If only we stop building homes.

If only we leave our homeland.

If only we …

If only we …

This Wednesday, we got even more proof that those minds are warped and that their gospel is false prophesy that would lead us into enemy hands. For it is not “If only we,” but only if and not until that this relentless terror will subside.

Only if we stop breathing.

Not until we are gone.

This is not a peace negotiation nor is it an uprising or a cry against an oppressing occupier.

This is murder. This is hatred. And we need to treat it as such.

Annika Hernroth-Rothstein is a political adviser and writer on the Middle East, religious affairs and global anti-Semitism. Twitter @truthandfiction.