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| Knives, axes, meat-cleavers: Not a movie scene but Palestinian Arab reality |
Too often, it produces bad decision-making by political decision-makers. Sometimes it evokes visions of one-slap solutions (in Hebrew, we call this the zbeng-ve'gamarnu approach) when in reality the hatred and violence stem from passions that have huge sticking power. And far too frequently it brings out silliness, superficiality and befuddlement on the part of reporters and their editors. And we're not speaking of terror in Israel specifically; in great measure, it's a universal phenomenon.
The op-ed below appeared four days ago in Times of Israel. It speaks of terror from the perspective of those to whom it's being done. That's a vantage point with which we are too familiar. David Horovitz, who founded Times of Israel, expresses his message with his customary eloquence. We don't agree with every word, but sincerely hope readers readers will share it widely. (The accompanying pictures were selected by us, not Times of Israel.)
What do you do when the people trying to kill you live around the block? | Ultimately, the only way to thwart people bent on murder, with their minds poisoned by racism and religious extremism, is to curb the flow of toxicity
David Horovitz | Times of Israel | October 14, 2015
What do you do when the people who are trying to kill you live in the neighborhood down the street?
Or
when they live in the same village as that lovely man your son’s been working
with?
Or when they work for the phone
company?
When they try to kill anybody - uniformed
soldiers and police, ultra-Orthodox Jews, all the passengers - on a
city bus?
When they target men and women and children.
When they are
men and women and children?
When their leaders - politicians, spiritual leaders, teachers - lie
to them about us, lie about our history, lie about our ambitions?
When some of their leaders tell them they will go to paradise if
they die in the act of killing us?
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| Palestinian Arab religious leader, October 2015 [Image Source] |
When they (sometimes) lie to themselves about who it is they are
killing, falsely claiming in widely circulated social media exchanges, for
instance, that Na’ama Henkin,
gunned down with her husband in the West Bank two weeks ago, was deliberately
targeted because it was she who had insulted the prophet, calling Muhammad a
pig, on a visit to the Temple Mount this summer?
When all they need in order to kill is a knife or a screwdriver and
a mind that’s been filled with poison?
And when that poison pours into them from most every media channel
they consume, and from the horrendous Facebook
postings of their
peers and their role models?
What do you do?
First,
acknowledge the scale of the problem.
After decades relentlessly demonizing and delegitimizing the revived
Jewish state, the Palestinian leadership has produced a generation many of whom
are so filled with hatred, and so convinced of the imperative to kill, that no
other consideration - including the likelihood that they will die in the act - prevents
them from seeking to murder Jews.
The false claim pumped by Hamas, and the Northern Branch of the
Islamic Movement in Israel, and Fatah, and many more besides, that the Jews
intend to pray on the Temple Mount - a place of unique sanctity for Jews, but
one whose Jewish connection has been erased from the Palestinian narrative - has
all too evidently pushed a new wave of young Palestinians, urged to “protect
al-Aqsa,” into murderous action against any and all Jewish targets, using any
and all weapons.
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| Instructional poster designed by Waleed Zohid [more of his blood-lusting graphic work here]. The self-delusion in such incitement is that it urges the killing of soldiers and police, but Israeli civilians know better |
Second,
tackle the problem in all the spheres where it is exacerbated.
In the short term: Arrest the preachers who spout hatred. Ask
Facebook to close down the pages that disseminate it, and find the people
behind those pages. Monitor hateful sentiment on social media more effectively;
several of this month’s terrorists made no secret of their murderous
intentions.
Make plain, via every mainstream and social media avenue, in Arabic,
that Israel has no plans to change the status quo at the Temple Mount. Involve
King Abdullah of Jordan. Involve anybody else who can credibly address that
incendiary lie about Al-Aqsa.
Boost security, of course, as Israel is doing, but know that there
can be no hermetic prevention of these kinds of attacks.
Efforts at more strategic change, inevitably, run into the 48-year
dilemma of what Israel wants and needs to do about East Jerusalem in
particular, and the Palestinians in general. It is unforgivable that Arab
neighborhoods of the city lie decades behind the Jewish neighborhoods in
everything from city services to education to job opportunity. But in some
neighborhoods, addressing such inequalities is impossible. Physically
impossible. As in, Jewish city officials would be taking their lives into their
hands to set foot in Shuafat refugee camp.
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| "Moderate" PA president, Abbas: His overt support for terrorism and concrete encouragement of its practitioners is a matter of record [Image Source] |
Only
“resistance” will liberate Palestine, Hamas has always argued. In fact, it is
“resistance” that keeps the Palestinians from statehood
Ultimately, the only way to thwart people bent on murder, with their
minds poisoned by racism and religious extremism, is to curb the flow of
toxicity. Different lessons at school; different priorities and values from
spiritual leaders; different messages from political leaders; different
approaches on mainstream and social media.
But all that, of course, is far easier said than done. A different
tone, a different approach, from the Israeli government, might have helped
until recently. Then again, we’ve tried different tones and different
approaches. As former prime minister Ehud Barak once said, it’s doubtful, when
the Jews in their exile through the millennia prayed for a return to Jerusalem,
that they were thinking of Shuafat refugee camp. But Yasser Arafat rejected
Ehud Barak’s peace terms in 2000, and opted instead to foment the Second
Intifada. And Mahmoud Abbas, eight years later, failed to seize Ehud Olmert’s
offer to withdraw from the entire West Bank (with one-for-one land swaps),
divide Jerusalem, and relinquish sovereignty in the Old City.
And so we still run the lives of millions of Palestinians, hundreds
of thousands of whom are on the “safe” side of the barrier we built to protect
ourselves from what has now evidently morphed into yet another phase of
vicious, futile bloodshed.
Only “resistance” will liberate Palestine, Hamas has always argued,
proudly citing the prisoner releases it extorted when kidnapping Gilad Shalit,
and the control of Gaza it achieved when expediting Israel’s withdrawal via
terror attacks and rocket fire. But in fact, it is “resistance” that keeps the
Palestinians from statehood. Most Israelis want to
separate from the Palestinians — want to stop running their lives, want to keep
a Jewish-democratic Israel. “Resistance” in each new iteration tells Israelis
that they dare not do so. Had Gaza been calm and unthreatening after Israel’s
2005 withdrawal, the late Ariel Sharon would likely have withdrawn unilaterally
from most of the West Bank. The Hamas takeover in Gaza, the incessant rocket
fire and the frequent rounds of conflict told Israel that it could not risk
another such withdrawal — that it could not risk another Hamas takeover in the
West Bank.
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| Education, Palestinian Arab style [Source: MEMRI] “I will shoot the Jews!” the little child says. “All of them?” the host asks. “Yes,” the girl says. “Good,” the host answers. |
There are two peoples with claims to this bloodied land. Neither is
going anywhere. Only conciliation, however reluctantly achieved, is going to
enable either and both of these two peoples to live normal lives. And that’s
what anybody truly interested in addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
should be working for.
What do you do when some of your neighbors are trying to kill you?
Protect yourself. Stop them. Do what you sensibly can to help create a
different, better climate - to moderate your enemies.
Meanwhile, hang tough.
Refuse to be terrorized. Get on with living. That, not killing, is what people
were born to do.
