Meretz To Settlers: Stop Attracting Pity By Getting Firebombed

“Choosing to die or sustain life-altering injuries in a manner that does generate sympathy is a demonstration of the lowest form of cynicism.”

Jerusalem, January 28 – Leaders of Israel’s political Left warned Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria today to cease getting rocks and Molotov cocktails thrown at them by Palestinians as a way of generating sympathy domestically or internationally.

MKs Zehava Gal-On and Tamar Zandberg criticized Jewish residents of the areas captured from Jordanian occupation in 1967 for having their cars targeted by rock- and firebomb-throwing Palestinians after paying respects to the family of a woman killed by knife-wielding Palestinian terrorists. Saying that being attacked was a cynical way of creating sympathy, the lawmakers called on Israeli living in those areas to stop getting stabbed, shot, run over, stoned, or bombed by Palestinians because they are not fooling anyone with such ham-fisted attempts at playing victim.

“We find it suspicious, to say the least, that being the target of such attacks generally results in sympathy for such a person, and that these radical settlers and their allies just happen to be made targets day in and day out, and happen to be our political foes,” said Zandberg. “There are ways of being killed, maimed, or just plain frightened that do not involve becoming a victim in the eyes of the populace, and choosing to die or sustain life-altering injuries in a manner that does generate sympathy is a demonstration of the lowest form of cynicism.”

Zandberg specifically cited the contrast with the deaths of seven Hamas fighters this week in the collapse of a tunnel excavated for an attack on Israel. “You didn’t see Hamas parading photos of their mutilated personnel all over social media and the international news,” she explained. “It was so much more dignified. I think we could stand to see Jewish settlers being crushed to death in a tunnel collapse, and see whether they gain sympathy that way.”

Gal-On added that a day after International Holocaust Memorial Day, it was doubly inappropriate for Jews to garner sympathy by being attacked for being Jews. “Our foremost concern must always be what the nations of the world think of us,” the Meretz chief said. “It makes me uncomfortable to consider that somewhere, a European or Latin American believes that Israel uses the Holocaust to gain sympathy, and the notion of a settler gaining sympathy because he was attacked for his identity looks like exploitation of that dynamic, if you ignore all the important differences, which is what we do while pretending not to be racist.”

Gal-On also characterized the current reaction to Im Tirtzu’s “moles” campaign, which sees the Left gaining sympathy, as “totally different.”