What should we learn from Benjamin Achimeir?
Posted on April 13, 2024 by Forest Rain
Yesterday we were told on the news that 14 year old Benjamin Achimeir went missing. He left his home early in the morning to herd sheep. His home is in the Benjamin region, named after the ancient Jewish tribe of Benjamin who lived more or less in the same area during biblical times.
A missing shepherd could be someone who walking on the hills fell and was injured and unable to call for help. Or someone attacked by terrorists.
Today Benjamin’s body was found. He wasn’t taken hostage, he was murdered and thrown nearby. He was stoned, tortured, beaten, stabbed and his skull was crushed by a large rock. A 14 year old boy.
Now the reports are of “settlers” aka Jews who live in the region, “rampaging” in the closest Arab village, the place where one logically assumes the murderer or murderers came from. It is worth noting that the reported “rampaging” includes setting fire to houses and cars, not murdering people.
Those who live in civilized places will respond in horror “Oh, no, one mustn’t take the law into your own hands,” and “two wrongs don’t make a right.”
Which is true. I believe those things. The problem is that this isn’t a civilized area and there is a big difference between theory and survival.
Let’s unravel some of the complications here:
“Settler violence”
This term encapsulates multiple lies.
The first is that Jews living in their ancestral homeland somehow are settlers who don’t belong there. The idea that “settlers” are Jews who live in the Benjamin region and not the Jews who live in Tel Aviv is an idea born from elites who don’t listen to what the Arabs say about us. To them, every Jew living in Israel is a “settler”. We saw this on October 7th when Hamas called the people of Be’eri and other kibbutzim in Israel “settlers”.
The next lie is that Jewish violence against Arabs is a common occurrence. This is an absolute lie, supported by warped statistics that include instances of Jews defending themselves from terrorists trying to kill them. For example, terrorists that were injured in these instances were counted as a case of settler violence and if they subsequently died in the hospital, it was counted as a second instance of violence. Another example of these outrageous lies with statistics is that every Jew who ascends the Temple Mount is counted as an instance of “settler violence”
“Taking the law into your hands is wrong”
Israel is a nation of law and murdering people is not allowed. Obviously. The law is supposed to protect all citizens. The problem is that the law isn’t fully enforced to protect Jews, particularly those who live in Judea, Samaria and the Benjamin region – people who stand in between the Arabs of the PA territories who promised to repeat October 7th and the Israelis living in the center of the country. The Arabs of the PA territories have proven their desire as they have committed small scale attacks for years. Their culture and education are identical to that in Gaza. Elections in PA territories have been postponed for over a decade because it is known that the people would elect Hamas. Gaza is Hamas. So is the PA.
Further complicating the situation is the decisions and attitude of the IDF general in charge of the region. The residents living there have been crying out for help, for years. According to them, many of his decisions about how to manage the area are more focused on maintaining Arab rights to freedom of movement than protecting Jewish right to not be murdered. Most recently he was criticized for a military exercise that proposed a scenario where “settlers” kidnapped an Arab child and the army needed to intervene. A scenario that never happened, one that would never happen and is exactly the opposite of what actually happens – as we see in the murder of Benjamin Achimeir. So here we have a terrible situation where Jews are under attack and the State is not defending them. If you were in such a situation, what would you do? Sit and wait for the next attack or make sure your attackers know they cannot attack with impunity?
What will be reported?
Most of the media will focus more on the “settler violence” than on the fact that a 14 year old boy was murdered for the crime of being a Jew in his ancestral homeland.
For Muslims, Jews returned to our ancestral homeland are a problem because it proves their religion wrong. God did not replace Jews with Islam. We were exiled but we were also returned.
For Progressives (in America, Israel and Europe) Jews who are both religious and connected to the Land, Jews who are willing to be a “Nation alone” are the last major threat to the new world they are trying to create. People that still live according to biblical guidelines are in stark and violent contrast to those who say that there is no difference between man and woman, nations, facts and feelings or even right and wrong. THAT is why “settlers” are a red flag to so many.
The murder of a child should make everyone pause. The murder of Benjamin Achimeir should make us all consider what is necessary to enable Jews to live freely in our ancestral homeland.
24 notes
·
View notes
$15 bust sketch commissions for Palestine
Opening $15 Bust Sketch Commissions in support of Gaza. Yes, it's a flat rate! About $10.5 will be donated to CareforGaza for every bust sketch commissioned.
I have been meaning to do this for a while and now have more free time to do it! All donations will be shared with utmost transparency through a Trello board.
It's only a little but every bit helps. Commission me and help Palestine at the same time! DM me for more info.
34 notes
·
View notes
Hi. I want to preface this by mentioning I am a non Jewish supporter of Israel and of the Jewish people, but I have some serious questions that really bother me and make me rethink my position.
Reading up on the beginning of the Zionist movement and its leaders, I cannot help but think, how can they simply ignore that there are already people there, or that said people would be alright with becoming a minority? Did they really think Arabs and arabised people living there would just be alright with it?
I do believe that Jews are indigenous to the land and that it’s only just that they have their homeland back, but I think the way they went about it was wrong. It’s not the fault of the people living there that Romans exiled them after all. Some Zionists leaders admitted that the only way to establish a state was against the will of the native population and that some ethnic cleansing is necessary to achieve it.
I want to support Israel but I’m very uncomfortable with the idea that many innocent people who lived there for generations were kicked out after the lands were bought by Zionists, or ended up ethnically cleansed in the civil war even if they didn’t participate in the hostilities. It feels morally inconsistent to me to just ignore this or brush it aside.
What is your view on all of this?
My view is that it's fine to believe exactly what you said - "the Jews are indigenous, it's only just that they have their homeland back, but the way they went about it was wrong." Nothing in that construction justifies hatred or violence against Jews or Israelis, nor does it prevent building a better future for Palestinians.
Israel exists. It houses half the world's Jewish population and a majority of all Jewish children, mostly descendants of refugees from obliterated communities in the MENA or Europe (more the former). Those political realities matter far more than an essay debate published in 1928. You may have already encountered people who try to relitigate the Civil War by pointing out that Abraham Lincoln unlawfully suspended habeas corpus and didn't even really like black people anyway, so instead of a gruesome and devastating war led by a morally compromised man it would have been better to allow the South to gradually phase out slavery on its own, that it should have happened some other way. Well, it DIDN'T happen some other way, it happened and people well into the 21st century need to move on with life. If anyone in the world had an excuse to cling to bitterness forever, it would be the Jews of Israel vis-a-vis Jordan and Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Poland and Russia and Germany. So why are the Jews of Israel able to move on with having relationships with all those countries that persecuted and destroyed them? And if they can do it, shouldn't casual observers half a world away do it?
By all means, read up on early Zionist history, see what the ideas were and how they had to change when exposed to real events (and also see how they were specifically opposed to population removal). Some, like Martin Buber, urged a binational state formed cooperatively with Arabs. Ze'ev Jabotinsky warned that Arabs would never accept large numbers of Jews as their equals and that promises of shared wealth were a fantasy, therefore Jews would need to demonstrate military power and win respect and negotiations that way. Albert Einstein had initially hoped for a binational state, but once history happened the way it did, he accepted - and loved - the Israel that he got.
I also think you should look a bit more deeply into just why so many people departed Palestine in 1948, and just how many generations had passed since their own ancestors had in turn immigrated there.
Whatever you may read about the 1920s, or 1940s, you will find nothing that justifies hatred, harassment, violence, or genocide against Jewish people at any place or time, including Israel today. If you truly are a supporter of the Jewish people as you claim to be - and we would be happy to have you - by all means look at the true toll of history and keep speaking up for our protection and our lives.
21 notes
·
View notes
"According to an IPC report, roughly 210,000 people living in northern Gaza and Gaza City are likely already experiencing famine."
"The south and centre of Gaza, including Deir el-Balah, Khan Younis, and the governorate of Rafah, are classified as “emergencies” and expected to succumb to famine by July if no intervention or ceasefire comes."
" 'I’ve never known an area enter the IPC system so quickly,” Touma continued. “In Yemen, it took years before the IPC was activated. In Gaza, it took three months. Gaza is under siege.' ”
21 notes
·
View notes