Last night's lynching of an innocent man in Be'er Sheva

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As much as we are all horrified by every terror attack, we aren't shocked by the fact of the attacks. We know those terrorists want to kill Jews. Evil is evil.

But I must admit to being shocked by the lynching (yes, that's what it was) of the Eritrean man in Be'er Sheva last night. I'm trying to avoid passing judgement on the lynch mob. After all, they were terrified, they'd just been subject to an attack, and they genuinely thought the man was a terrorist as well. Still, it's horrific that people blocked police access to a man who was already down and yelling "Mavet LaAravim!" beat him, threw benches and chairs at him, kicked him, spat on him and cursed at him. Shouldn't we be better than that mob mentality? Aren't we better than the terrorists?

I'm sitting here in the US, safe and sound. As much as I fear for my family and friends, I have't been personally subjected to the existential fear that Israelis are going through day after day for the last month. So as I wrote above, I will try not to judge the mob itself. But we should all deplore that it has come to this, that the terror has worked and turned a crowd of normal, everyday Israelis into something akin to the historic lynch mobs of the US deep south.

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