A random murder in a pizzeria was used by the media to portray Israel as a violent society. Here are the real facts.

The horrific murder of the young man, Yemeno Binyamin Zelka, at the pizza shop where he worked in Petah Tikva on the eve of Independence Day rightly shocked all of Israel. But we must not use this tragedy to unjustly defame Israel and portray it as a violent society—because that is simply not true. And yet, that is precisely what parts of the Israeli media have done.

Journalist Shai Golden, for example, wrote on the front page of the “Israel This Week” supplement in Israel Hayom a passage that amounted to unfounded defamation. According to Golden:

“Violence cuts diagonally across all communities and groups in Israel. It is present in every street, road, and neighborhood, and both its victims and perpetrators come from everywhere… It is terrifying to walk around the streets here in general. People are killed over parking spaces. It doesn’t matter which ethnic group. These are not just thugs—this is Israel. This is us. And violence is a very prominent line in the portrait of who we are.”

“Violence cuts diagonally across all communities and groups in Israel. It is present in every street, road, and neighborhood, and both its victims and perpetrators come from everywhere… It is terrifying to walk around the streets here in general. People are killed over parking spaces. It doesn’t matter which ethnic group. These are........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)