“Whoever tries to attack us, we will hurt him,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thundered into reporters’ microphones at the start of the Sept. 20 Cabinet meeting. Four days later, members of the Cabinet translated this sentence into a resolution affirming easing the rules of engagement for security forces to open fire on stone throwers. The resolution, focused on stopping rioting in East Jerusalem and cracking down on stone throwers as criminals, also includes imposing minimum-sentencing guidelines. Netanyahu's position, allegedly anchored in the amended open fire rules, can be found in the Jewish teaching that “if a man comes to kill you, rise early and kill him first” (Talmud, Sanhedrin 72a). The death of Alexander Levlovich, a Jerusalem resident who lost control of his car on the eve of the Jewish New Year, Sept. 13, after a stone cracked his windshield, was a reminder that a stone can kill. The stone killed an innocent Jew. Levlovich was not on his way to seize a Palestinian house. All he wanted was to arrive home safely.
In the contemporary world, there is no symmetry between young men born under an occupation lasting almost 50 years and having lost all hope of freedom and armed soldiers born into a free country. The international community relates to a stone in the hand of the weak completely differently than a rifle in the hands of the strong. What should a Palestinian youth from East Jerusalem be feeling when he throws a stone at a Jew who chooses to set up house in the heart of a Palestinian neighborhood?
