I’ve driven all over Israel.

When you drive through the country, among the many things you notice is the huge number of rocks.

It’s a rocky country.

You might find the same thing in Italy, or Mexico, or Morocco.

But what you won’t find in those countries is an army of rock throwers. As in, those who try to harm other humans.

In Israel, scores of Palestinians throw rocks at Israeli troops and civilians alike. They’ve been doing this for decades.

The Palestinians’ bleeding-heart friends counter that they have no other recourse, for they “are face-to-face with tanks and artillery and a large standing army.”

It sounds somewhat plausible. Unless you know the facts.

For 100 years, the Arabs have rejected a Jewish presence in what was Palestine. Arab rejectionism is far and away the main factor for violence in the Holy Land.

Imagine driving one afternoon with your family and a rock comes through the windshield. Can you imagine this happening in Denver? Or Peoria? Or Huntsville?

No. But it happens routinely in Israel, and while there are larger problems, you never hear the media make anything out of this. The fact is, Israelis have been killed for decades by Palestinian demons who throw rocks, aiming to kill and maim.

Last weekend, an Israeli, Alexander Levlovitz, was murdered by a rock thrower as he drove through Jerusalem.

Jerusalem!

I once decided to drive up to the Mount of Olives. About halfway up, through an Arab neighborhood, I glanced right and left and didn’t like the way things felt. I turned around and went back. One never knows when Palestinians will become inflamed with this or that rage, and decide to take it out on anyone who isn’t a Palestinian.

So long as the world looks on, disinterested, Jews will continue to be murdered in this “bland” fashion.

According to the Jerusalem Post:

“Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, vowed late Tuesday ‘to use all necessary means’ to ‘combat stonethrowers, those who hurl Molotov cocktails, and those who detonate pipe bombs and shoot fireworks with the aim of doing harm to police and civilians.’”

“’On the eve of the Jewish new year, we once again saw how throwing stones can kill,’ Netanyahu said in a statement. ‘These kinds of activities will be met with a very fierce punitive and deterring response. We will institute a system-wide change and set a new standard of deterrence and prevention.’”

Of course, many will scoff and mock, saying, “Hey, come on. You’re carping about a few tossed rocks.”

Try driving in such an environment and see how you like it. If you make it out alive.

Rightly, the Israeli cabinet has reviewed the rules of engagement, working out what justifies using live ammo in combatting the stone throwers. I for one hope they shoot to kill. We live in a morally soft world, in which Jewish life is cheap. Some will take me to task for the shoot-to-kill view, but I stand by it. Individuals do what they have to do to protect themselves from intruders. What thinking human wouldn’t move to defend himself against danger?

Therein lies the vapid nature of the liberal/leftist view that embraces pacifism. It’s easy to lament the IDF response to stone throwers — when the lament comes from an ivory tower in the Ivy League — but on the ground, where real people are being murdered by goons who can’t control their own emotions, and who won’t lay down hate, the real world demands justice.

Levlovitz was returning from a Rosh Hashana dinner, around 11 p.m. on Sunday, when Palestinian youth threw rocks at his vehicle. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat got it right:

“’The murder that took place on Rosh Hashana is further proof that stone-throwing is a terrorist attack like any other,’ he said. ‘It is not plausible that there is no deterrence for stone-throwers who are caught, released and continue to carry out terrorist attacks.’”

Good for him for calling it what it is.

Terrorism.

Would that the international community would value Jewish life. That moment is still a ways off, awaiting the reign of the One who values all life.

Reprinted with author’s permission from Rapture Ready: Israel Watch