'If a man comes to kill you...'

Had the murderers of the three teenage boys, Marwan Qawasmeh and Amer Abu Aisheh, come out of their hideout in a Hebron carpentry shop with their hands up, white flag raised and weapons tossed aside, the IDF soldiers would have detained them. It is better that Qawasmeh and Aisheh opened fire and were killed in the ensuing gunfight.

Naftali Frenkel's mother expressed the proper sentiment, saying that after the difficult mourning period she would not have wanted to see them grandstanding in court or cope with an extortionist demand to release them in exchange for an Israeli hostage in a few years.

It is clear that had they surrendered, they would have been arrested. This is what the law, and rules of engagement, stipulate. But from any humane and conscionable point of view, the killers did not hold their fire when they shot the three innocent boys at point-blank range, and the entire country heard their voices.

Had the IDF shot first on Tuesday, I would have considered it a direct and justified continuation of the shooting on that cursed night in June, on the road between Halhoul and Gush Etzion.

Yesterday we were told that a circle was closed. A few circles were closed. Whether between Israel and the murderers or between the bereaved families, who will never fill the void, and the Qawasmeh and Abu Aisheh families, which dragged Israel and their own people into a 50-day war in Gaza. Primarily, however, we have closed the circle with ourselves, for not giving those boys the protection which could have saved their lives.

Ever since the massacre at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Israel has adopted a policy of retribution against murderers. Not only has this policy been applied to those who aided and abetted them, or to their commanders and leaders, but to them personally. Mike Harari, the legendary former Mossad commander who died this week, was one of the greatest implementers of this policy, which originated in the unforgiving worldview held by former Prime Minister Golda Meir.

Israel does not kill innocents, not purposefully. It does, however, refresh its commitment to instilling a sense of dread in the hearts and minds of terrorist murderers and their dispatchers. At the height of Operation Protective Edge, Meretz MK Tamar Zandberg issued a statement opposing a pinpoint assassination of one of Hamas' senior terrorists. How can it be, she asked, that we targeted him without a proper trial? Her comment was so bizarre and ludicrous, that it could have been countered in a similar vein: Does she recommend knocking on the terrorist's door and handing him the subpoena, or, heaven forbid, should we have unlawfully abduct him and brought him to Israel-

Pre-emptive shootings against Palestinian murderers do not fall under the category of being "light on the trigger." It is actually the implementation of a Jewish precept -- "If a man comes to kill you, rise early and kill him first." This is precisely what transpired, rightfully, in Hebron on Tuesday, even if late -- after they rose to kill us and succeeded.

A pained and grieving Israel has wished for this news for three months. That it came to fruition on the eve of Rosh Hashana allows the Jewish state to receive the new year with the knowledge that the world is cruel but not without hope. This is merely another small reminder that we have overcome the anguished cries of poet Uri Zvi Grinberg, who wrote: "What did the Jews have? / Millions of men, not one sword."

We transcended this long ago. How wonderful it is that this new, opposite reality, is now the norm. May a blessed new year be upon us.

טעינו? נתקן! אם מצאתם טעות בכתבה, נשמח שתשתפו אותנו