Mohammed Abu Khdeir and Jewish Guilt's Double Standard

We, the Jewish people, are good at guilt. Gilbert Gottfried jokes that, in the Jewish world, the fetus is only viable after its finished law school. I’d add to Gottfried’s joke by explaining the reason for the degree: So that we may continue to expertly condemn ourselves in the court of public opinion.

This past weekend, Jews across the political spectrum rushed to denounce the murderous crime committed by radical Jewish activists in Israel. The fact that we live in a world where one must proclaim their disgust of such a vile act is a crime in and of itself. However, it is not their condemnation of the act, but the tone and style of their condemnation that I call into question. We don’t expect all Palestinians, nor all Muslims to apologize for the acts of radicals. Why, then, should we expect the entire nation of Israel, and Jewry’s worldwide collective, to apologize for the crime of 6 Israeli Jews?

Of the murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, Ben Shapiro rightly observed:

The world will apply Western standards of morality to the Jewish nationalists, as they should – they will not ask about their “root causes” or ponder their anger. They will then ignore those same Western standards, as they always have, when dealing with the Palestinians… Because Jew hatred is all about double standards and ignoring the facts.

We are all too familiar with the world’s double standard when it comes to judging Israel’s every breath. The Zionist nation has become the brunt for the Jewish burden established on Mount Sinai. We were called out to be different, to be a “light”, an example for the nations to follow, and we have been paying for being the “good student” ever since. Despite what our detractors would lead you to believe, we take our Biblical responsibility very seriously, and have no problem holding it over our collective head when even one of us fails to achieve the group’s objective.  This is why Jewish accusations against our people’s moral fiber are running at an all-time high. It is also precisely why they shouldn’t be.

People of Israel, world Jewry at large, stop your self-flagellation. Your enemies will make the most of 6 bad decision makers the way any disinformation operative makes the most of a good crisis. In the meantime, you think your best defense is a self-inflicted finger in the wound before the bullies can poke at it for you? Neither you nor I are guilty for the bad choices of others. They should and will receive the full punishment that the law allows. That is our testimony to our God, ourselves and to the world of who we are: a nation of laws, not terror, or as one Jewish Press writer so eloquently put it:

We didn’t destroy trains and infrastructure, we didn’t hand out candies in celebration, we didn’t post photos of praise on Twitter and Facebook, we didn’t provide support and succor to the killers. We won’t be giving them salaries in jail, we won’t be naming streets and schools after them, we won’t be demanding their release for peace. Our mother’s won’t be saying they are proud of them, our leaders won’t have photo-ops with them, we won’t parade them through the streets as heroes, they won’t be portrayed as role models for our children, and we won’t be painting murals of them on the walls of our schools.

If you really want a sackcloth and ashes moment, take a tip from the families of Eyal, Gilad, Naftali and Mohammed, children who were murdered by the kind of insane radicals whose stripe transcends any and every national identity. Spare me your incessant, neurotic, hot-air attempts at obtaining the forgiveness you don’t need and the approval you so desperately seek. Want to be respected? Stop equating 13.8 million Jews worldwide, 6.1 million of them Israelis, with 6 murderous lunatics.