The JTA story you published, “Palestinian Teens Arrested in Fogel Murders” (April 22), lends a seemingly explanatory and obscenely unnecessary tone to the heinous crime. No less the comment that you attribute to the chief of the Arab village that was home to the 18- and 19-year-old murderers: “They’re children; it isn’t possible that they committed this awful act.”
Let us not forget that the only children in this story were the innocent victims of this barbaric act, and remember too that the Israel Defense Forces soldiers who fight daily to stay the hand of these barbarians were also 18 and 19 years old. Tragically, we play into the hands of the enemy every time we allow them to define the nature of the conflict.
Today, the victims have a name; tomorrow, we shall begin to forget and remember them only as part of a growing and never-ending statistic.
How tragic, indeed.
Meir Jolovitz
Brooklyn
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