Palestinian terror is straight-up terror, and murder is straight-up murder.
The majority of the Palestinian terror attacks on Jews in the last few days have fit that statement with nothing needing to be added afterward.
What happened on Friday was different.
On Friday, according to the IDF, a group of settlers illegally crossed into Palestinian Authority areas without coordinating with them.
From similar prior incidents in recent years, this was not merely an innocent hike, even if most of the hikers were innocent, but an intentional ploy to try to drum up some kind of an incident and an altercation.
Unclear sequence of events preceded deadly West Bank clash
What happened next is still hazy.
But from IDF sources and open-source video footage, it appears that at some point, nearby Palestinian villagers started to throw rocks and otherwise confront some of the settlers.
No one has a right to throw rocks at people simply because they have trespassed on one’s land.
But then again, Jewish settlers in Palestinian areas are not just your average accidental trespassers, but part of a movement to try to seize disputed West Bank land and destabilize the Palestinian Authority.
Still, rock throwing is obviously illegal and potentially dangerous, though it does not seem that any of the Jewish settlers were harmed at this stage.
It is unclear if the Jewish settlers could have just retreated back to their land or if they were cut off from doing so.
If they could have retreated, then they should have, and if they were cut off from doing so, then at some stage they would have had self-defense rights even if they were trespassing.
In any event, video footage shows some of the Jewish settlers pushing, kicking, and threatening some of the Palestinians with a gun.
Without the full picture, it is unclear whether this was entirely self-defense or whether some of these actions were violent, illegal actions by the Jewish settlers.
At some point, there is a scuffle, and one of the Palestinians steals the gun from the settler and murders him.
Questions remain over whether further killings were justified self-defense
Murder is murder, and so bringing that Palestinian to justice, preferably by trial, but if he was killed resisting arrest or in a chaotic scene in which it appeared he might kill more settlers, then his death would be justified.
In the chaos that followed, several other Jews and Palestinians were wounded, and there are reports that four more Palestinians were killed.
It is unclear whether these killings were justified self-defense or themselves murder.
The government’s response has been to crack down on the villages which supported the incident.
This is the classic Israeli response after a classic terror incident and is usually effective in finding others who knew about and maybe harbored the terrorists in question.
But it is unclear if that is what happened here.
If what happened here is that the Jewish settlers were trespassing illegally and many of the Palestinians were just trying to get them off their land and one of the Palestinians perpetrated murder, then who else really needs to be cracked down on?
Conversely, if there were a group of other Palestinians who also tried to wound and murder the settlers, more than just light rock throwing to scare them off, then maybe cracking down on the villages is appropriate.
Afterward, there were reports that Jewish settlers are attacking unrelated Palestinian villages.
Israel must prosecute violent Jewish extremists as well
Will those Jewish criminals be brought to justice or escape it as has occurred in the majority of cases in recent years?
This broader picture cannot be ignored.
The IDF, Shin Bet, and police are failing (or not being successful a sufficient amount of the time, even as they try sometimes) to prevent violent Jewish extremists from attacking Palestinians – IDF Central Command Chief Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth has repeatedly and publicly admitted this, including last week.
Palestinian terror should be crushed – full stop.
But Jewish violent and trespass actions also need to be prosecuted and crushed, or as the IDF says repeatedly, the price will not only be Palestinian victims, but also more Jewish victims, and more bleeding of support for Israel on all issues in the US and anywhere else the Jewish state still has some allies.
