In Praise of Allah

"To see Jews wearing tefillin and wrapped in the tallit lying in pools of blood, I wondered if I was imagining scenes from the Holocaust."
"It was a massacre of Jews at prayer."
Yehuda Meshi Zahaf, neighbourhood leader religious emergency-response team

"I saw people lying on the floor, blood everywhere."
"People were trying to fight ... but they didn't have much of a chance."
Yosef Posternak, Kehilat Bnei Torah synagogue worshiper

Israeli forces rushed to the scene of the attack, which happened during morning prayers

Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack, while Hamas representatives had other words, praising the massacre as a "heroic operation", arranging celebratory candy handouts in Gaza, matching the activities of the family of the perpetrators in their Jerusalem neighbourhood, celebrating the heroic efforts of their now-deceased family members, repeating how proud they are of their defense of Islam, and joyfully handing out sweets in jubilation.

While Jews and Druze grieve, Palestinians wonder what all the fuss is about, and congratulate one another over a job well done. Jews may not pray on the Temple Mount, sacred to Muslims who name it the Noble Sanctuary. Only Muslims may pray where Jews hold in reverence the site of their ancient Temples of Solomon, their most sacred site in Judaism. We now see that Jews may not even pray in their synagogues in the expectation that they will be safe there from the violence that Palestinians perpetrate upon them on the Temple Mount, and at bus stops.

Emergency services clean the site outside the Jerusalem synagogue

"We are in the midst of a terrorist assault focused on Jerusalem", Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated on Tuesday as he called up reserve units of border police to respond to the threat level, with promises to "respond decisively". He would "restore law, order and security to the streets of Jerusalem", stated the Prime Minister, and the family homes of Ghassan and Udai Abu Jamal the Palestinian cousins who slaughtered four rabbis and an Israeli police officer, were to be demolished.

This is a family with a long history of criminal activity, violence and terrorism; the uncle of the two cousins had been incarcerated for terrorism, and released as part of the bargain that freed Cpl. Shalit from Hamas.  The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine was anxious to claim responsibility for the attack that took place in Har Nof, a mostly ultra-Orthodox neighbourhood in west Jerusalem. Joy suffused areas of the Palestinian Territories, and east Jerusalem as well.

The escalating violence in the Old City has captured the resolve of ten- and eleven-year-old Palestinian children who vow they too will commit to defending the Noble Sanctuary and express their fury just as their elders do, those who throw rocks and firebombs at Israeli police and military. They are being groomed and have been since childhood as future martyrs who will ascend to Paradise through the noble pursuit of jihad.

Mahmoud Abbas warns of a "holy war" should Jews 'contaminate' the holy site of Islam. Palestinian leaders praised the attack on the synagogue as a response to the 'threat' to their holy site. Responding as well to the hanging death by suicide of a Palestinian bus driver in Jerusalem whom an autopsy found to have committed suicide but whom Palestinians and the driver's family insists was a lynching by Jews.

Arab hatred, victimhood and paranoia transcend reason, responsibility, civility, humanity. In Gaza City great celebration as guns were shot into the air and God was praised, for God is Great!, while from mosques, loudspeakers also praised the heroic actions of the Jerusalem attackers on the synagogue as a great work of religious piety in adoration of Allah.

In the Gaza Strip, Palestinians distributed sweets in celebrations, some holding aloft an image of the attackers