Here’s a story that probably passed under your radar. Last weekend four rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel. They were launched by a Salafist group that opposes the Hamas government. The rockets landed in open areas, hurt no one and caused no damage. In retaliation, the Israel Air Force attacked a Hamas training facility in Beit Lahia. One of the missiles hit a nearby shack, killing Yassin Suleiman Abu Khoussa, 10, and his sister Israa, 6. A third brother, aged 13, was moderately wounded. The army defined the target as part of the “terrorist infrastructure” and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon announced that “we responded with determination and a heavy hand, targeting Hamas assets – we’ll know how to respond even more harshly.”

The children who died were approximately the same age as my young children. A girl and a boy, just like in my house. As a law-abiding and tax-paying citizen I’m an accomplice in their killing. A passive or an active one, it makes no difference. Once, apologies were issued in my name for the deaths of innocent children. Not anymore. There are no expressions of remorse because there isn’t any. During Operation Protective Edge in Gaza hundreds of children were killed. One of them was an Israeli, Daniel Tragerman, whose heart-rending photo refused to let go. All the rest were nameless and photo-less Palestinians.

Open gallery view Daniel Tragerman, 4, killed by mortar shells fired at a kibbutz near the Gaza border on August 22, 2014. Credit: courtesy

In the current intifada, this week marking its six-month anniversary, dozens of children have been hurt, killed, wounded or blinded. Not all of them were murderers or terrorists. However, most Israelis don’t care about dead or wounded Palestinian children. In any case their parents are less sad, as we were informed recently by our defense minister and police commissioner at meetings of bereaved parents. In the Israeli mainstream there are also those who argue that these children are programmed to die. Terrorist infrastructure indeed.

Earlier this week, Yedioth Ahronoth, the paper calling itself “the country’s newspaper,” devoted its front page to marking six months of the current intifada. The 39 dead were counted, as were the wounded. The heroism of soldiers and civilians was lauded. This was all on the Israeli side, obviously. However, in order to correctly assess a civilian-military confrontation one must examine its effects on both sides. On the Palestinian side there are already more than 200 dead. Not all of them were murderers or terrorists. In any case, some of these killers were youths running away from home after a quarrel, armed with a knife, or young girls waving around some scissors. Some of these terrorists were children who threw stones at demonstrations.

Yedioth Ahronoth has a private business dispute with Netanyahu (not an ideological one, not with his government). This is why they ended their coverage with a defiant question addressed at our leaders – when will all this stop? Well, under present circumstances it won’t. Netanyahu has already explained this: We will live by our sword forever, all we have to do is erect even higher fences against these predatory beasts.

The truth is that it won’t end until we start seeing the Palestinians again. The dead and the living ones. Currently they are invisible. Effaced. Neutralized. There is no such creature, explained MK Dr. Anat Berko.

This is the only searing of our consciousness that the right has managed to inflict over the last decade, with the help of its collaborators and lackeys. In his new book “A Land Beyond the Mountains”, author Nir Baram does something revolutionary – he travels through the occupied territories and sees Palestinians. Lots of them, as well as lots of settlers. He thereby, before stating any political stance, belongs to a minority group. His insights evoke many thoughts and his conclusions are often surprising. Some of his impressions were published as columns in Haaretz, but only a small minority of Israelis read Haaretz. In fact, only a minority read Yedioth Ahronoth. More Israelis read Israel Hayom, Russian and ultra-Orthodox newspapers or synagogue pamphlets. There are no Palestinians there.

Masses of Israelis trample through the fields of manure and hate published by people such as the rapper-blogger “The Shadow” and his ilk. There one can find only dead Palestinians, or ones who should be dead. From time to time an Israeli is stabbed in the street by an invisible Palestinian from Qalqilyah. Occasionally one runs to a secure area when another war breaks out with invisible Palestinians in Gaza. In such cases people don’t understand where all this is coming from.