'Pogroms' and double standards

When young men riot in nearby communities it's a pogrom – unless they're Arab
Jackie Levy

As opposed to the manner in which the media handled the recent events in Akko, the main issue should not have been with the driver who drove on Yom Kippur or the hooligans who attacked him. Rudeness and hooliganism can be found anywhere. It's unpleasant, but it's certainly not fit for a headline story on the evening news. The worrisome development that took place in Akko was manifested through the fact that a moment after that local brawl, someone – and he wasn't Jewish – found it important enough to spread a rumor among Arabs that the driver was killed and that "the Jews are killing us."


We already saw cases, on Holy Days and on regular days as well, where people hurled stones at vehicles. Yet this time around, on Yom Kippur, in Akko, an hour and a half later the streets were teeming with young Arab men armed with sticks and axes.


The Arab spokespeople who brandish the feelings of discrimination that have been accumulated over the years, the lack of equality, and the economic distress are saying things that are true but irrelevant.


According to the same logic, the Jewish residents of Or Akiva were supposed to smash 100 cars in the upscale Caesarea ages ago. The young Arabs in Akko did not chant "death to the rich people." They were talking about the Jews, and in order to stimulate mass riots filled with hatred one needs methodical incitement and an organizing mechanism.


We must admit that destiny has a rather lowly sense of humor. It was destiny that prompted the Akko events to take place a moment after the word "pogrom" turned into a legitimate term among certain strata around here. After an attempted murder of a child in the settlement of Yitzhar (a genuine attempt, rather than a deliberate libel,) youngsters from the community headed to the nearby village and carried out the first "pogrom" in history that did not result in casualties.


Pogrom, therefore, is an incident whereby more than two young people enter an area where they don't live in, in order to express their anger using unfriendly means – as long as those guys are Jewish, of course. If, heaven forbid, they happen to be members of another national group, so we learned, we should immediately note that the word "pogrom" is a harsh term carrying grave historical and associative weight, and therefore it should not be cheapened by being used in this context, etc. etc.