The original title of this post was an expletive*

Received by email:

Brace yourselves, but don't spare yourselves. See here photos of what Tamar found when she entered her home [in Itamar last Friday night]:

https://picasaweb.google.com/picsyesha/Itamar

When there have been terrorist attacks here in Israel it has not been the norm to put out photos like this because of a sensitive desire to protect mourners. But these pictures were released by the Yesha Council with the permission of the family, because it's time to take off our gloves. It's time for the world to "get it" with regard to what Jews here endure.

I don't agree with the message in the email, but I do agree that Yesha was right to release the pictures. See, the world doesn't have to "get" anything, and this uniquely Israeli concern about "what the world thinks" has always struck me as childish and beneath the dignity of a great nation. (and never mind that the world isn't a monolith that speaks in one voice, but a collection of billions of  individual people, a great many of whom do "get it".)

So why do I agree that Yesha was right to release the photos, and why am I sharing the link here? Because the pictures remind us of the horrors of war, of the suffering of innocents, and of the injustice and the misery and the wickedness people inflict on each other often for stupid, pointless reasons....  all of which called to my mind the famous words spoken by Yitzchak Rabin on September 13, 1993: Enough of blood and tears. Enough.

--
* an expletive directed at the murderers, by the way
And for the record, the photos made me weep.