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A Note on the Itamar Massacre to a Future Historian
Today marks the seventh year since the Itamar massacre. For the most part, it’s faded from memory if, indeed, it was ever part of the public consciousness. Just some story of a home invasion and murder in Israel. Part of some ongoing noise between Palestinians and Israelis. Something we’ll always live with because these people have been at each other for thousands of years. Better to not get too twisted up about it.
Separated by nearly 10 years, the murder of the Fogel family at Itamar and the murder of Daniel Pearl in 2002 in Pakistan act as bookends to a decade that historians will spend centuries unwinding and trying to understanding. Historians will postulate this and postulate that about the decade. Both executions will be largely footnotes to the era if they’re mentioned at all. This angers me.
Maybe as I get older I lose my taste for nuance. Maybe having seen things bluntly, I tend to understand things bluntly. Daniel Pearl was slaughtered because he was a Jew in a section of the world where being a Jew carries a death sentence. A simple fact not hard to understand. This is what he was and he was executed because of it.
The slaughter of the Fogel family is equally simple to understand. Oh, I know, it was an Israeli settlement on the West Bank and that brings its own level of complexity to the situation. Yes, yes, their executioners were young Palestinian males who felt that they had a grievance to express. Oh, for sure, the Israelis and Palestinians had been at each other over Itamar; this wasn’t the first attack. Being in a contested area the compound could have, should have, been better secured. And, given all that, what the heck was in the parents’ minds taking their children into that environment to live.
Some historian in the future will no doubt sit down as part of some broader study to gather up the facts of the incident on their way to some broader idea of what was happening during the decade. So here in the moment, contemporaneously, I’ll help Mr. Future Historian out and gather up the facts that he needs to know. There will be a few facts that I’ll outline but, like Daniel Pearl, it all comes down to one fact that you need to understand.
Fact: The Fogels were a family of eight; two parents and six children.
Fact: The parents and three children were executed.
Fact: The victims were the father Ehud (Udi) Fogel, the mother Ruth Fogel, and three of their six children — Yoav, 11, Elad, 4, and Hadas, the youngest, a three-month-old infant.
Fact: Itamar was not armed compound, it had a wall around it, but it was no more a deterrence than a wall around a gated community in Arizona or Georgia or North Carolina
Fact: Their executioners were two Palestinian males that came from a nearby village.
Fact: The family was killed in their sleep.
Fact: Their executioners at first denied their act, then admitted it, then ultimately reenacted it for the authorities after their arrest.
Fact: One of the executioners stated that he was proud of what he had done. (Note to Mr. Future Historian: this is important, but it is not the central fact.)
Fact: One of the executioner’s lawyers tried to mount a defense that his client lied about participating in the execution so that he could be part of the “glory.” (Note to Mr. Future Historian: this also is important but is also not the central fact.)
Fact: While the acts of the executioners were condemned broadly, the condemnation was not universal. Some groups and nations applauded them. (Note to Mr. Future Historian: Again, this is important, but not the central fact.)
Fact: The Israelis’ showed far more grace to the executioners than the executioners showed to their victims; they are both serving life sentences.
Fact: Motty Fogel, one of the older brothers of the victims, was not at home that night and wrote the following on his wall: “My brother was murdered last night, anything else I can write would be Cliche.” (Note to Mr. Future Historian: I’ve never met this child, but because of this one comment I love him deeply, I couldn’t provide you with these facts without also letting you know that the surviving members of the family showed grace and strength.)
Given all that, there’s still only one last fact that you need to know, Mr. Future Historian, and like Daniel Pearl’s execution, it is the only fact that you need to know.
Fact: The infant was decapitated.
So, Mr. Future Historian, taking in all that I’ve given you, here is what you should write about this era: “There were vile, filthy, evil, Satanic monsters that walked the world during the first decade of the century and the Israelis, who were a good people of faith, stood up against them.”
Published in General
The Palestinians need to be defeated by overwhelming military force until they realize it was wrong to oppose Israel in the first place. I have no sympathy at all for the Palestinian people and their culture is an abomination. They celebrated 9-11, remember.
What a beautiful little family. How could this be?
Well done.
Thanks for being our “memoratician”, @mountie! May their names be for a blessing!
@omegapaladin, please be mindful of the dwindling number, also at risk, of Christians among these people…Thanks!
There was an interesting aftermath to the Fogel murders.
The family were sitting shiva (mourning) in a nearby settlement, when a car raced up to the settlement entrance. A Palestinian woman was in the back seat, in labour, but the umbilical cord was round the baby’s neck.
An IDF paramedic managed to help deliver the baby safely.
You can read about it here:
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4043536,00.html
My favourite quote was:
Gadi Amitun, who heads the Magen David Adom team at Neve Tzuf, said this was not the first time settlers assist Palestinians in distress.
“They know we have a skilled medical team here, and in any case of accident or injury they arrive and we help them,” he said.
The article makes the point that many Palestinians celebrated the Fogel family murder with fireworks; but I also remember seeing a poll that showed that many Palestinians were very disapproving of the murders.
I also like that the Palestinians were going to name their baby girl (the one who was rescued) Jude.
So maybe there is hope yet.
Maybe light cannot live with darkness after all.
There is One who did, and does, yes? (John 1:1-5)
Thanks, @mountie. I have no other words.
As the events mount, the remembering gets harder, just from the sheer numbers.
One caveat: They were not “executioners,” they were murderous thugs. Execution is a death sentence applied to a person who commits a capital crime, only after due process and all legal appeals have been completed. This does not apply to any of the victims.
Well written. Thank you.
Mordechai Kedar, who spent his career in Israeli intelligence specializing in Arab political discourse and mass media has this to say about what “peace” means to Israel’s neighbors:
I used to think a “culture of evil” was the exclusive domain of badly written children’s fiction.
Then this happened.
Palestina delenda est.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. May these things never be forgotten. Be they graven upon our hearts. God help His people Israel.
@josepluma I get your point, but I use the term executioner with intention. This family, as was Daniel Pearl before them, were tried by radical Islamic extremist of the crime of being Jewish, found guilty, and were executed accordingly. Make no doubt about it, that’s what happened. Until we understand that these people are being sent out into the world to execute other individuals for being “guilty” of being of a particular religious faith then we’re not going to understand the problem. @nandapanjandrum reminds us that guilt in their eyes isn’t limited to being Jewish, Christians get the sword as well. So my point is this: At least a murderer knows he is guilty of some crime. These monsters are proud of what they have done. They have no guilt nor does the wretched community that they came from.
Itamar massacre?
When I saw the name, I assumed that you meant the Khitomer Massacre, the Romulan attack on the Klingon colony on Khitomer in 2346. About 4,000 Klingon colonists were killed there, including Worf’s father Mogh.
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Khitomer_Massacre
(Normally, I only know trivia from the original Star Trek series, but sometimes I get lucky and remember a phrase.)