Yesterday, a story that could have ended in tragedy took a surprising turn.
Five American yeshiva students were on their way to the Cave of the Patriarchs, a Jewish holy site located in the West Bank city of Hebron. The students were misdirected by their GPS, and ended up driving through a Hamas-affiliated neighborhood. The neighborhood was already engulfed in a riot, and as soon as the crowd saw the Jewish boys in their Israeli car they attacked.
The enraged mob surrounded the car and hurled rocks at the passengers. A firebomb found its target and set the vehicle ablaze, forcing the boys to evacuate. Two of the students were lightly wounded, and the crowd was determined to see them all killed.
But the story didn’t end that way. Unexpectedly, a few friendly faces appeared to help the boys escape. Some of the neighborhood’s residents saw the violence and decided to intervene. One Palestinian in particular, Fayez Abu Hamadia, lead the five Americans to his home and hid them from the angry mob until Israeli Security Forces could arrive.
When interviewed, Hamadia gave a simple but profound reason for helping the victims escape.
“We are all human, first and foremost. That’s how everyone should behave.”
What an encouraging statement from a man who is inundated daily with rhetoric from his religious and political leaders that intentionally dehumanize the Jews and urge people to instigate violence against them. If more people would reject the propaganda and exercise basic human decency, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would soon come to an end.
