The Israeli Scientific Mind

By Gilad Atzmon

Israelis and Palestinians differ on autopsy results of Palestinian minister.

Palestinian official says medical examination shows Minister Ziad Abu Ein died from being struck and inhaling tear gas; Israeli source: He died from a heart attack.

I am not surprised by this emerging dispute. Israelis are not very good in handling causality unless Jewish pain is detected. In the Jewish universe the Jew is always an innocent victim. But in this case of Minister Ziad Abu Ein, it is a Palestinian person in his prime, who was physically and brutally attacked by a young Israeli policeman. When such an event happens, the Israelis prefer to stick to forensic evidence – they remove any responsibility.

It would be amusing to apply the same approach to ‘anti Semitism.’ Instead of searching for anti Jewish sentiments in every act that may result in Jewish suffering, why don’t we just stick to forensics – the dry meaningless facts. Such an approach may even  reduce the Shoa into an arbitrary list of tragic events. Nothing to dwell upon - Jews would then be liberated from their victim obsession, they may even decide to let their exceptionalism evaporate, once and for all they join humanity for real.

Monitoring the Israeli-Palestinian battle for most of my adult life, I have learned to search for the positive aspect in every tragedy.