Israel to Jewish Extemists: Killing Babies 'Not Us'

JERUSALEM, Israel -- Israeli security has been stepped up following two recent arson attacks allegedly carried out by Jewish extremists.  Authorities are on guard for further acts and the possibility of violence in the form of Palestinian revenge. But the incidents have also forced the country to examine its own society.

When an apparent Jewish extremist hurled a firebomb into an Arab home, killing a toddler and his father, it led to outrage from Israeli leaders and citizens. 

"Every society has extremists and has murderers," said Itamar Marcus, director of Palestinian Media Watch. "The test of the morality of a society is how it responds to those extremists and how it responds to those murderers."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin visited the family targeted in the attack and rabbis prayed for their recovery.

Israeli leaders also quickly condemned an arson attack on the historic Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes in the Galilee in June.

Hebrew graffiti scrawled at both sites led authorities to conclude that Jewish extremists were behind the attacks.

And the violence continued Thursday when someone set a Bedouin tent on fire near the West Bank city of Ramallah, where the Palestinian Authority has its headquarters. 

"We're talking about a youth culture that is in opposition to the Israeli state as it is, to Israeli society as it is [and] would like to change Israeli society to something else," said Dr. Shlomo Fischer, an expert on Jewish extremism at the Jewish People Policy Institute.

Fischer says these extremists believe they are carrying out God's will.

"They say they would want to have more biblical law, more biblically oriented, more religiously oriented -- maybe change some of the governing arrangements," Fischer told CBN News. "They talk about a monarchy."

That means inviting a king to rule Israel and ridding the country of idolatry as they see it.

"They would not want what they consider to be idolatry, which does include Christianity, especially eastern Christianity," he said. "The rabbinical establishment does not accept that definition."

While this phenomenon isn't new, Fischer maintains it's on the fringe of society.

"Israel does have a self-image that it is [a] democracy, that it's committed to humanistic values, that it values human life of everyone who's created in the image of God," Fischer said. "And when incidents happen that threaten that, Israelis, all Israelis get very uncomfortable. That's not us. That's not us. Killing a baby is not us."

For Israel, the other consequence comes in the form of revenge from Palestinian Arabs; yet that violence receives no condemnation. On the contrary, when Israelis are killed or wounded in this form of terrorism, Palestinians rejoice.

"Israel loathes, ostracizes and actually prosecutes any Israeli who would dare to kill a Palestinian," Marcus told CBN News. "The Palestinian Authority does just the opposite. They honor, they even reward with financial rewards Palestinians who would kill an Israeli." 

Marcus says the Palestinian Authority makes role models and heroes out of terrorists.

"There are 25 schools we have found, and there are probably more, that are named after terrorists -- schools named after terrorists like Dalal Mugrabi, who was responsible for the death of 37 in a bus hijacking," Marcus said.

"They name sporting events after them. They build memorials and name town squares after the terrorists," he added.