U.S. ambassador to Israel Tom Nides, dared on Tuesday, 30 days before the end of his term, to tweet something true. He mentioned in one breath – hard to believe such courage – the victims of the Israeli attack on the Jenin camp and the victims of the terror attack on the West Bank settlement of Eli.
The hue and cry in Israel was immediate. Ambassador Mike Herzog, who isn’t heard from much, stated from Washington that “a balanced condemnation does not honor the victims.” Yedioth Ahronoth called the ambassador’s statement “an outrageous comparison,” as though it were a fact rather than a questionable position, while the right screamed as usual.
The ambassador’s backing down wasn’t long in coming. The following day Nides denounced separately the “senseless murder” in Eli, putting an end to the forbidden – in Israel – mixture of those who are sacred and those who are impure. In Jenin they were terrorists, in the Eli settlement they were pure souls; in other words, Jews.
Sedil Naghniyeh, 15, was standing on the roof of her house in the Jenin refugee camp with her father Adnan to watch the goings-on. An IDF soldier shot her in the head as her father looked on and on Wednesday she succumbed to her wounds. Why can’t the U.S. ambassador mention her in the same breath with the settler Nachman Shmuel Mordoff, who was two years older and was killed in Eli? Is his blood redder? Is killing him more villainous? In what way? And why did ambassador Herzog think the comparison between the two doesn’t honor the victims? Because of mixing Jewish blood with other blood? Sedil fell victim to a reckless, unrestrained IDF attack. The army is convinced that during its “arrest roundups,” most of which are worthless and illegitimate, it is permitted to commit any wrong, including shooting anything that moves.
Sedil was killed in the course of the Jenin camp’s combatants’ resistance against the IDF invasion and their attempt to protect themselves and their camp from the Israeli attacks, which involve snatching people from their homes and sowing incessant terror in the camp. Not every killing of a Palestinian is legitimate, not even during a military action, even if it’s an IDF action, and not every resistance is illegitimate.
Nachman was a victim of a violent operation carried out by Palestinian combatants in revenge for the killings in Jenin, and as an act of resistance against the settlement of Eli, the restaurant and the gas station that were built on robbed Palestinian lands.
It would be better not to split ethical hairs and ask which killing was the most nefarious. We should rather state that both Sedil and Nachman were shocking, inevitable victims of an intolerable reality, which must be ended.
Israelis of course were only interested in the Israeli victims and ignored the seven Palestinian victims in Jenin, who had no name or life story, no photo or human face. They were all “terrorists” and that was that. Dago, the IDF dog that was injured and hospitalized beside sergeant major Y., underwent advanced imaging procedures, had his picture published and won more attention than Sedil did in her death.
Sedil was a pretty girl, born and raised in the Jenin camp. Her father is the maintenance director of the camp’s Freedom Theater. The theater’s former director, Jonathan Stanchek, an Israeli now residing in Sweden, mourned Sedil on Wednesday. Her family had been his close neighbors during the 10 years he and his family lived in the camp. Only last summer he had hosted Adnan on his farm in Sweden.
Stanchek says he never heard the father utter an angry word at the Jews or the Israelis, even though three times they tore down his house, his brother had been killed, his son is in prison and on Wednesday his daughter died. Sedil was a friend of Yasmin and Yemiro, the Stanchek children. She used to play Lego with Yasmin and look after Yemiro. Stanchek wrote that Sedil was a wonderful girl. Sometimes, playing with his daughter, the two girls simulated sitting in a café – the kind that doesn’t exist in the Jenin camp, and is hard to even dream about.