Even if it had until the end of time, Israel and the Jewish nation will never be able to compensate the Palestinian nation for all the harm they have done to it. Not for the material harm nor the intellectual harm, the physical harm nor the spiritual harm. Not for the plunder of their land and property, nor for their trodden freedom and dignity. Not for the killing and bereavement, nor for the people who were injured and disabled, their lives irrevocably ruined. Not for the hundreds of thousands of innocents who were tortured and imprisoned, nor for the generations who were denied a fair opportunity for a normal life.
There is nothing like Yom Kippur to express this. Israel has of course never even considered entering a process of compensation, reparation and taking responsibility. Nothing can be expected from an occupier that calls itself the victim, that blames everyone but itself for every injustice that it does. But even this isn’t enough for it.
Occasionally, another record is broken: The state, organizations or individuals in Israel and the Jewish world sue the Palestinians for damages caused by terror activities. For example, Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center, a nonprofit organization that calls itself a “Jewish human rights organization,” moves heaven and earth in Israel and abroad to sue Palestinian individuals and organizations on behalf of Jewish victims.
This despicable and contemptible act, according to which the victim is the criminal and only Jewish blood is red and thus deserving of redress, occasionally has its successes, mostly in public relations. While Israel avoids paying any compensation for its systematic destruction and killing in the Palestinian territories since 1948, there are those who still have the unbelievable audacity to demand compensation from the Palestinians. The Gaza Strip was destroyed by Israel time after time, horrifically, but Israel has never lent a hand to its rehabilitation. Israel killed tens of thousands of people, including innumerable innocent people, including children, women and elderly, over the years and the Palestinians are asked to pay compensation.
As part of this madness, homes owned by Jews before 1948 are returned to their original owners through the Israeli legal system, dispossessing people who lived there for decades. At the same time, stolen or abandoned Palestinian property from 1948 has never been returned to its legal owners. In Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem and in other places, Israeli flags multiply, together with the hundreds of Palestinians left homeless after being kicked out of their homes in shame, on the order of the egalitarian and just courts of the State of Israel. If someone has it in their heart to understand how afflicted the Israeli legal system is with moral rot, and how far it is from the fundamental principles of equality and justice, here lies the proof.
But all this is not enough. This week a new record was set. Jerusalem District Court Judge Moshe Drori ruled that a Jew who was injured in a terrorist attack is entitled to additional compensation, because he is a Jew, without proof of any damage, based on the nation-state law, which states that the government will strive to protect the well-being of Jews.
The circle has been closed, completed and perfected. Now it is a real race law, according to the unavoidable interpretation of the court of the nation-state law. From now on, two types of blood exist in Israel: Jewish blood and non-Jewish blood, on the law books as well. The price of these two types of blood is also different. Jewish blood is priceless, it must be protected in every possible way. Non-Jewish blood is terrifyingly cheap, it can be shed like water. A situation that existed until now only de facto, with different standards and punishments for Jews and others, is from today by court decree.
Seventy years of nationalism and racism toward the victims is now receiving its appropriate legal backing. The nation-state law, which they said was only declarative, in the correct interpretation of Drori, has earned its true meaning: The basic law for the superiority of Jewish blood. From now on, Israel has race law.
