Published: 20 October 2023
Last updated: 5 March 2024
Angry about the failure of Muslims to condemn the Hamas massacre of civilians, Jewish leaders in the US and Australia are determined not to make the same error when innocent Palestinians are killed.
A six-year-old Palestinian-American boy was killed in Chicago on Saturday in a stabbing attack by a man yelling, "You Muslims must die".
More than 500 Palestinian patients and medical staff were killed in Gaza this week, in an explosion at the al-Ahli Arab Hospital.
Given the appalling failure of Muslim leaders in condemn the murder of 1300 civilians in Israel on October 7, it would not have been surprising if these events had passed without comment from the organised Jewish community.
With increasing antisemitism globally, widespread fear and deep grief as the death toll in Israel continues to rise, the Jewish community might feel it has its own battles to fight.
Fortunately, Jewish leaders are clinging to their humanity in the face of hate crimes and civilian deaths, whether the victims are Muslim or Jewish.
When Wadea Al-Fayoum, aged six, was killed after being stabbed 26 times and his mother was wounded in the same attack, Jewish groups were quick to condemn the killing, which is alleged to have been conducted by the family's landlord, Joseph Czuba, 71.
The Anti-Defamation League said in a statement on Sunday that it was “disgusted and horrified by the murder. “We express our condolences to the Muslim community and categorically reject all anti-Muslim hate.” The Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a national public policy group, also released a statement in conjunction with Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist umbrella bodies and two Orthodox groups have released their own statements.
It is easier to condemn hate crimes in the context of a peaceful society than it is to find empathy in wartime, particularly when your own grief at your civilian dead has been largely ignored.
But the Zionist Federation of Australia also demonstrated empathy with Palestinian victims this week. After the deaths of more than 500 people in the hospital bombing, it was quick to put out a statement mourning the deaths of innocent civilians.
The statement identified Islamic Jihad as the cause of the hospital bombing. “Not only are Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian groups directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Israeli civilians, but they are also directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians,” it said.
The source of the blast was disputed when the ZFA released the statement, with the Gaza Health Ministry blaming an Israeli air raid and Israel attributing it to a misfired rocket launched by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). US intelligence later determined that Israel was not responsible for the blast, so the ZFA was right - this time.
But we must also accept that this war, started by the appalling massacre of innocent Israeli civilians by Hamas, will inevitably result in Israel killing some Palestinian innocents, however carefully it is conducted.
The question is whether the ZFA would have mourned Palestinian civilians so generously had the missile been fired by Israel and landed, one hopes inadvertently, on a hospital.
To retain our own humanity we must find it in our hearts to grieve for innocent Palestinians, whoever holds the dagger or fires the missiles. Even when they do not extend the same decency to us.
Photo: Six-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoum, killed in a hate crime (Hela Yousef)
