“When I say that terrorism is war against civilization, I may be met by the objection that terrorists are often idealists pursuing worthy ultimate aims — national or regional independence, and so forth. I do not accept this argument. I cannot agree that a terrorist can ever be an idealist, or that the objects sought can ever justify terrorism. The impact of terrorism, not merely on individual nations, but on humanity as a whole, is intrinsically evil, necessarily evil and wholly evil”.
–Benjamin Netanyahu, 2008.
The Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly claimed that Jewish and Arab terrorism “cannot be compared” after Israeli wedding guests were filmed celebrating an arson attack that killed a Palestinian child. He was questioned on the speed of the investigation into the deaths of 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh and his parents in July.
Extremist graffiti and the word “revenge” was found scrawled on the side of their home after it was set alight by masked men armed with Molotov cocktails in the West Bank village of Duma. It is clear that he sees terrorism as only as an attack on his country and people, rather than the rest of the world. The lives of those Palestinians, ended by systematic terrorism, it seems does not fit into his framework of what constituents as being evil.