After the Oct. 7 massacre, our nation burns physically, our hearts scorched alongside it. This is Hezbollah from the north, the government's failure and helplessness – but not only that. It is also the Palestinians among us, from within the West Bank, setting the landscapes of our homeland ablaze these days. Whoever torches this land does not love it, proves themselves unworthy of it. The trees, greenery, and landscapes going up in flames – this is not their cherished homeland but the scenery of the land they despise.
Abundant signs suggest this arson wave, like those of 2021, 2019, and 2016 before it, represents another mutation of Palestinian terror. There are Palestinians whose hearts swell watching forests, fields, cypresses, pines, and olive groves consumed, reduced to layers of ashen gray. Many revel at the sight of their "stolen lands" immolated into scorched black fields.
Some Palestinians have been gripped by a deranged, maddening spirit – the sight of trunks and verdure turned to charred skeletons fills them with sick satisfaction. I've known some like this. They struggled to conceal their pyromanic glee, leaving traces online. While for most, hearts sour watching homes incinerated, residents fleeing ruin, theirs raced with twisted excitement and joy. They are of the "if I can't have it, neither will you" ilk, like the mother in Solomon's judgment willing to have the baby cut in two, thus revealing she was not its true mother. Mere pretenders, they.
Whoever immolates this land's landscapes proves themselves not its rightful child. So did those who years ago lobbed stun grenades into West Bank springs to attack bathing Jews. Precisely this zero-sum mentality animated some Arab Israelis three years ago in Operation Guardian of the Walls, adamantly refusing to condemn Hamas rockets killing Khalil Awad, 52, and his daughter Nadine, 16, in Lod. Arab students at Jerusalem's David Yellin College behaved likewise, refusing to denounce the murders of peers from Triangle villages in a bus bombing years before.
Perhaps the Palestinian Authority will again offer firefighters to combat the flames ravaging and wounding the land. Do not be overly impressed. The poison and hateful bonfires it stokes in students' hearts, textbooks, and official television prove far more inflammatory.
One who genuinely loves this land and its native vistas, Jew or Arab, does not reduce them to cinders.
The blood of burnt trees cries to the heavens, wrote poet Anda Pinkerfeld Amir of Arab arsonists during the 1929 riots torching forests, vineyards, and orchards.
With mangled fists
Each blackening flame howls its grievance
Oh, what did you do, wrongful hands
Deaf and blind hands?
Sometimes, no argument over rightful ownership is needed. Whoever burns this soil testifies loudly enough about the nature of their bond to it.
