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Hirsh Goodman: Confusing Times
Hirsh Goodman

Suddenly the kitchen help at your favorite restaurant and the mechanic at your garage take on a different hue. You don�t want this to happen, but those terrorists from Silwan were so much like them.

The security services recently arrested four Palestinians from East Jerusalem, three of them from the Silwan neighborhood and all Israeli residents, for being part of one of the most heinous terror cells to have operated against Israel these past two years. Among other things, they were responsible for attacks on the Moment Caf� in March and the cafeteria at the Hebrew University on July 31. In all, they are accused of killing a total of 35 people.

They used their Israeli identity cards to freely move about Israel, spending hours collecting intelligence on Moment, learning exactly when and where to send the suicide bomber. The terrorist who placed the bomb in the University's cafeteria worked at the university in maintenance and knew many of his victims personally. He had painted the office of one of them just days before he planted the bomb that killed her.

On September 1, the first day of school, I meet some friends who seem to be down in the dumps. They are feeling terrible. They had decided that this year they would have their son brought home by a school bus, the logistics of car-pooling having become too much. The mother, being cautious, decided to go to the school on the first day and make sure her boy found the right bus, then followed the route to ensure that the driver let him off at the right stop. To make a long story short, the driver was new on the job, did not know the city and insisted that the child get off the bus two kilometers from where he was supposed to. The driver also cannot speak a word of Hebrew, only Arabic.

The parents are upset about two things: that their child was let off at one of the busiest intersections in the city, far from home; and that the driver is Palestinian. Having an irresponsible driver is one thing. That he may also be part of a terrorist cell is something else.

Both parents are liberals, consistently vote left of center, supported Oslo and work hard at being politically correct. They are not comfortable with their own discomfort about the driver being a Palestinian, but this is their child and the gang from Silwan is still very fresh in their minds. Their solution: back to car-pooling. Doing anything else would be politically incorrect.

It is a truism that the longer this war goes on, the more moral dilemmas will emerge. Nice people will find themselves, more and more, having emotions and thoughts they thought were foreign to them. Suddenly the kitchen help at your favorite restaurant and the mechanic at your garage take on a different hue. You don�t want this to happen, but those terrorists from Silwan were so much like them.

And herein lies the danger. It is precisely this type of atmosphere that allows hard-liners to begin to set precedents for doing things that democratic Israel would not have tolerated in the past. Internal Security Minister Uzi Landau wants to blow up the houses of Israelis convicted of terror, which usually means that several families will be left without a roof over their heads. He also wants to banish the terrorists� families. Interior Minister Eli Yishai wants to take away Israeli citizenship from those citizens found guilty of terror acts. Both ministers intend the measures to be applied exclusively to Israeli Arabs. Neither remotely considered that the measures they were proposing would apply to Jews convicted of terror as well, and both are offended when asked the question.

Not that Landau and Yishai are necessarily wrong in their recommendations. There is something obscene about using the guise of citizenship to kill fellow citizens and, if it helps deter terror, then perhaps we should blow up houses and exile families. But whatever measures are applied have to be applied equally to all the country�s citizens. Adopt whatever measures are genuinely necessary for the country�s defense. Do not use the situation as an excuse to let racism creep into our society.

That a parent should be worried about a Palestinian driving the school bus home these days is perfectly reasonable. Over the past two years, terrorists have shown no compassion in the targets they choose. On the contrary, they seem to prefer their victims young and to include as many members of one family as possible. If frustrated by guards at every mall and restaurant, it is entirely probable that a terrorist from one of the Jerusalem suburbs would try to do something terrible to a school bus. But being worried is not being racist. And the two should not be confused, even in these confusing times.