opinion

DC Jews honor Palestinian terrorists

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As Israelis took refuge in bomb shelters (again), and Palestinians celebrated in the streets as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad rockets flew overhead, one of the oldest synagogues in Washington — the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue — spread the calumny that Israeli victims and Palestinian aggressor are one and the same.

On the evening of May 7, when Jews around the world commemorated Yom Hazikaron (Israeli Memorial Day), which honors the memory of the thousands of heroes who have died defending the Jewish state, Sixth & I — a “non-denominational, non-membership, non-traditional Jewish synagogue” in downtown Washington — sponsored a very different memorial event: the “Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day Ceremony” for Israeli and Palestinian “victims” of the Israeli/Arab conflict.

This alternative Memorial Day requires the Jewish community to mourn its tormentors, threatening to destroy a commemoration that expresses our unity in respect and gratitude for those who made the ultimate sacrifice so we could live. Among the Palestinian dead that Sixth & I believes we should mourn are terrorists, suppliers of terrorists, enablers of terrorists, those who celebrate terrorists, and those who do nothing more than quietly approve of and vote for terrorists.

The program at Sixth & I placed Palestinian aggressors on the same moral plane as their martyred victims.

Would Sixth & I hold a ceremony honoring the memories of the 9/11 terrorists together with their victims? Honoring the Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorists who educated, trained and equipped the 9/11 terrorists and have since died fighting our soldiers in Afghanistan? After all, they, too, left families behind. When Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is executed, should we mourn him, too, along with his victims?

What about the Nazis who died fighting the Allies in World War II? Would Sixth & I hold a memorial ceremony for them on Remembrance Day?

What on earth is the matter with us? What kind of demons are the leaders of Sixth & I trying to exorcise?

What this synagogue is doing is akin to what the young Jewish miscreants in IfNotNow did when they recited Kaddish for Hamas terrorists.

Arabs have started every war against Israel in the past 71 years, and Palestinian Arabs have perpetrated countless terrorist attacks against civilians. More than 24,000 Israeli Jews have given their lives to establish a Jewish homeland in Israel and safeguard it for all Jews. We are the recipients of this gift that is Israel — this gift that came at such a heavy price.

The hundreds of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip last weekend were fired at civilian targets with no military objective, and thus constituted war crimes. To equate the Israeli victims of such attacks — both those who died fighting to protect their country and those who died because they were not able to make it to bomb shelters in time, and those who died trying to murder Israelis, or who in some measure celebrated, encouraged or enabled the murder of Israelis — is depraved.

Judaism is all about making distinctions: between the impure and the pure, between right and wrong. The Sixth Commandment says: “Thou shalt not murder.” It does not say “thou shalt not kill.” There are many examples of moral killing, and Israelis are forced to confront them virtually every day: killing to protect the Jewish homeland from attack or killing to prevent an innocent person from being murdered are just two examples.

The spiritual leaders at Sixth & I, both of whom are on the J Street Rabbinic Council, have responded to criticism of their program by saying that of course they support Israel. But words are cheap. The fact that they have not scheduled any programs to celebrate Israel’s 71st anniversary, but hosted this Israeli-Palestinian memorial program, is telling. That the program was sponsored by the New Israel Fund (NIF), an NGO that funds organizations that demonize Israel, supports anti-Israel boycotts and delegitimizes Israel, is even more telling.

Both J Street and the NIF constantly insist that they are pro-Israel, but rarely, if ever, support actions taken by Israel to defend its people or find anything praiseworthy to say about America’s only democratic ally in the Middle East.

The spiritual leaders at Sixth & I Synagogue stated that their memorial program was designed to end conflict in a just and peaceful way. They have not explained how equating victim and aggressor accomplishes that. They have not explained how equating right and wrong makes for a more just and peaceful world.

Carol Greenwald is the treasurer and Robert Samet is the chairman of Coalition of Pro-Israel Activists.