Yotam had left the house to buy what he needed for a romantic meal with his wife to honor their love. A terrorist murdered him in the name of hate. Assaf left his house for a cycling trip; he was forced to use his pistol to someone (the terrorist) to defend his life and the lives of his children.
A terrorist entering a community and carrying out a stabbing attack on a doorstep of a home is a threat on many levels. Think about a person's body being unwillingly penetrated – rape – how it shakes up the person whose boundaries have been trampled, sometimes ruining their life. When someone who intends to commit murder appears inside a protected, fenced settlement, the streets are filled with fear. We don't feel that anywhere is safe. Our homes include the neighborhood, the street, the nearby alley. And suddenly, a man with a knife can appear on a well-known path. A terrorist could be hiding by the trash cans. Steps echo on the sidewalk and a chill goes down the spine: Am I being watched?
The literal definition of terror is fear. Terrorists seek to sow fear and disrupt our routine. If that's the goal, it's succeeding: The bloodshed in Adam really is scary. Is that all they want, the scum? To scare us for the sake of scaring us? Like a kid who yells, "Boo!"? It seems to me that Islamist terrorist has other aims – to drive Zionism out of the land of Israel; to eradicate the "heretics," to control; to establish a worldwide caliphate. Are they succeeding in any of those things?
Terrorists, you've managed to take a life, destroy a family, leave a widow and orphans, frighten a sunlit suburb of Jerusalem, to burst a tranquil bubble. Yes, you've managed to sow fear. In the meantime, the Israel to hate only grows stronger. You find ways of breaking into settlements and we find ways to catheterize hearts (even yours); water orchards in a drought; develop computer programs; build cities and airports. You teach your children to stab Jews and we teach our children to love people, to get an education, to try and make the world a better place. We know how to avenge our blood. And that revenge includes hopped-up Zionism: more construction, more aliyah, more Jewish communities.
In the battle between Yotam and the monster who killed him, the monster won. But the monsters won't win the war. Your ultimate goal will never be fulfilled. You won't control global caliphates. Your twisted redemption, one of murder and blood, will never come. And ousting us from Israel? We know you're dying to do it – in every sense of the word.
