We are doing nobody a favour when we call him a hero. The court says he committed a crime and even if you do not accept that verdict, there is a long long distance between being innocent and being a hero. Pardon me for saying so, but I really do not understand why anyone considers Elor Azaria a hero. Is the demonstration in Tel Aviv last night (Saturday, 7 Jan) a start in repairing the hate? Is Elor Azaria a Hero? If we, the people of Israel, can rise above this horrendous start to dealing with the Azaria affair, perhaps we can drag our politicians after us. Instead, they contributed to the fissure we are now experiencing, damaging the potential for productive debate and analysis among us, and making it hard to believe that the Azaria verdict was untarnished by political or diplomatic interests. They did this viciously and far too early on to have had any salutary effect. Niv Shtendel (Hebrew) and Jonathan Tobin believe that clarifying the distinction between the two killings - for soldiers and the general Israeli public - was behind the strong condemnations of Azaria’s act expressed by IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot and others. Remember, only one killing from that incident went on trial. I have no doubt soldiers in the field know the difference between the fatal neutralizing of the two terrorists who sought to stab our soldiers in Hebron that day: one a justified killing before the incident was contained and the other an unjustified killing that took place afterward. I am sorry Azaria killed him in a way that contradicted, according to the court, Israel Defense Force (IDF) Rules of Engagement (ROE). I am NOT sorry the terrorist was killed please do not misunderstand me. But even that depends on the circumstances. I think we have mostly, if not all, reached the point where we prefer terrorists to be killed in action rather than wounded and taken in for questioning and imprisonment.
I wish he had been there earlier and could have taken out his anger when the act was still in progress, something that everyone from top to bottom, right to left and front to back would have agreed was justified. There is nobody who is unaffected by seeing a young man handed down a harsh verdict for having killed a terrorist. Send in your petitions and demonstrate in the streets – I doubt this will have much, if any, effect but if it makes you feel good, then at least be careful you do not add coal to the emotional fires of our aching nation as I promise to be careful myself. There is now only one thing that can overturn that verdict and that is an appeal and it has nothing to do with the noise you are making in the streets or on the social media. Rightly or wrongly, three judges unanimously determined that Elor Azaria is guilty of manslaughter. That is what has become of their ordeal, an ordeal that should never, in my opinion, have reached the dimensions that it has. I can imagine (or maybe I cannot imagine) the overwhelming burden of carrying an entire nation on their shoulders. My chest aches when I see Elor Azaria and his parents, or even when I just think about them. Dear Armchair Quarterback / Backseat Driver: Will we let the Elor Azaria verdict tear apart our social fabric? We are struggling to define ourselves as a modern nation built on the ashes of our ancient homeland and how we come out from this latest challenge will play a part in that, for better or for worse.
0 kommentar(er)
