No moral equivalence

The cycle of violence in the Middle East seems so endless and so pointless to most Americans that it produces a natural tendency to feel disgusted with both sides – attaching equal blame to Israelis and Palestinians for the tragic bloodshed. On occasion, however, the region goes through a spasm of killing that highlights the essential contrast between the combatants.

On Jan. 17, just after 11 p.m., a 24-year-old Palestinian named Abdul Salaam Sadek Hassouneh walked into a banquet hall in northern Israel rather grandiosely known as "David's Palace." Inside, more than a hundred guests joined 12-year-old Ninia Kardashov in celebrating her Bat Mitzva – the milestone when a young girl wins religious recognition as an adult. The intruder immediately began firing at random with a semi-automatic weapon, first killing the security guard and then spraying the hall with bullets.

Six people died, including the grandfather of the Bat Mitzva girl, with 25 more wounded. After a few moments of horror, the attacker's weapon jammed and a guest hurled a chair at the terrorist, beating him into submission. Shortly thereafter, police arrived and seeing the injured attacker waving his arms, suspecting that he might detonate a bomb on his body, they shot him dead.

The Palestinian group known as the al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade, a faction of Yasser Arafat's own Fatah movement, immediately and proudly claimed responsibility for the assault on the Bat Mitzva. A spokesman identified the killer as a hero, martyr and recent bridegroom. In the Palestinian town of Tulkarm, just a few miles away from the site of the attack, celebrants streamed into the streets after midnight when they learned of the terrorist incident, shooting guns into the air and kissing one another in jubilation.

According to Palestinian sources, the Bat Mitzva massacre represented "just revenge" for the death four days earlier of Raed al-Karmi, a commander of the al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade. The militant leader perished when a bomb exploded in his car, and though Israel never acknowledged responsibility for the assault, the victim's name had appeared on lists of most-wanted terrorists. After all, al-Karmi had boasted of directing a long series of attacks that claimed the lives of at least nine Israeli civilians.

In this context, weary outsiders might view this latest exchange as just another round in a brutal, deadly game: The Israelis kill a Palestinian leader, then the Palestinians strike back and kill six Israelis.

But where is the balance? Where is the symmetry? Raed al-Karmi was a self-proclaimed warrior, an unashamed combatant in the ongoing struggle to take as many Israeli lives as possible. The victims at the banquet hall were old men and children and innocent guests at a religious ceremony. Killing harmless civilians is not morally equivalent to the elimination of an active terrorist kingpin.

Is the bombing of al-Qaida caves in Afghanistan equally reprehensible to the attack on the World Trade Center? Is the execution of a mass murderer like Timothy McVeigh similarly despicable to the horrendous crime he committed in Oklahoma City?

Even purists who oppose killing in every form must see the obvious distinctions in these cases. Killing in self defense is not the same as murder – one act serves an arguable purpose, and the other does not. In fighting a defensive war, or executing a convicted killer, or shooting down an armed intruder in your home, we take lives in order to save other lives.

One can debate the effectiveness of the decision to kill in every case, and question whether a given death will actually spare lives, but when it comes to random murder there is no argument. That is particularly obvious when it comes to suicide killers: In these instances, the murderer attempts to save no lives at all, not even his own.

The recent horrors from Israel became all the more appalling with the proud announcement by the Palestinian militants that the Bat Mitzva attacker happened to be a newlywed. In other words, his twisted Islamic logic suggested he could help his people more by killing Jews from the current generation than by joining his wife in raising a new generation of Palestinians.

The Israeli policy of "targeted killing" – going after known terrorist murderers wherever they can be found – may be misguided and ineffectual (as I believe it probably is), but it is impossible to say it's evil or immoral. No, the death of Raed al-Karmi didn't end Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians, but at least it ensured that one particular terrorist will enjoy no further success in his career.

Meanwhile, his followers celebrate their achievement in covering the marble floor of a tacky banquet hall with gallons of innocent blood. There's murderous insanity, and obscene illogic, behind the very idea that such brutality at the party of a 12-year-old girl represents appropriate revenge for the death of a terrorist commander.

The asymmetry in the situation highlights the imbalance in the entire conflict. Palestinians view all Israelis, including children and the elderly, as their deadly enemies – Israel targets combatants and terrorists. Palestinians want the killing to continue, and revel in the suicidal sacrifice of their own sons – Israelis, like most horrified observers from abroad, yearn for the butchery to end.

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