More terror, more silence

An Israeli father-of-six was murdered in a West Bank terror shooting on the eve of Yom Kippur, yet you won’t hear about it in the mainstream media, which obsesses only over violence committed by Israeli residents of the territory.

You won’t hear about it from Australian government ministers. Foreign Minister Penny Wong will not be putting out a joint press release with her British and Canadian counterparts. They too obsess only over settler violence. In the case of Canada, you can bet its government will draw no link between its rhetoric on Israel and the Palestinians and the terror shooting outside an Ontario synagogue on Yom Kippur.

As for Britain, which has taken the extraordinary step of boycotting all Israeli companies over the green line, it is so lost to extremism and antisemitism that Jews are considering leaving en masse to Israel.

We do not excuse violence that is committed against Palestinians. It is real and abhorrent. Its perpetrators should face justice and be named and shamed. Its cheerleaders within the extremist right fringe of the Israeli ruling coalition are equally repugnant.

But focusing obsessively on it while ignoring the real and ongoing threat of Palestinian terrorism has no positive effect on advancing peace in the region – in fact it has the opposite effect – and makes Jewish communities in the Diaspora unsafe.