An Orgy of Violence

"[Administrative detention without formal charges approved] to apprehend those responsible [for the Duma firebombing that killed a Palestinian infant]."
"Any method is kosher. Anything that is done when it comes to Palestinian terrorists, the same thing should be done when it comes to a Jewish terrorist."
Gilad Erdan, Israeli minister of Internal Security

"No urgent reason to arrest him [Meir Ettinger, ultra-Orthodox fanatic] arose yesterday except for a desire to show, 'We are doing something, we are arresting [him]."
"And of course, what could be better than the number one person of interest."
"[The Shin Bet] understands that all of these acts they are chasing after do not grow from an 'organization', but rather from the grounds and from the most simple and basic understandings, which drive people to feel like they need to act, to do something."
"Truth must be told. There is no terrorist organization, but there are many, many Jews, many more than they might think, who hold on to a scale of values that is totally different than those of the Supreme Court or the Shin Bet."
Yuval Zemer, lawyer for Meir Ettinger

Police arrest Meir Ettinger. (photo credit:TAZPIT)

Most Israelis, along with their government leaders are ashamed and horrified when a Jew resorts to violence, led by hatred against Palestinians. This, even while Jews are very well aware that they are all viewed as indiscriminate targets for hatred and violence by many Palestinians. Through their upbringing and education system young Palestinians are exposed to propaganda that identifies Jews as their enemies.

No such formal government-sponsored and widely-espoused propaganda gearing the population of Israel to hate Arab Palestinians reciprocates.

Both the government of Israel and its population at large take their outrage over Jewish terrorism seriously. The 'price-tag' attacks carried out furtively by the socially distorted venom felt by fanatical ultra-Orthodox Jews who claim that all of the Biblical heritage lands of Israel must return to Israel, and all Palestinians should be "dispossessed" of whatever claims they have to the land, mark them as the equal of the Palestinians who obsess over removing a Jewish presence from Arab lands.

The arrested man, 23-year-old Meir Ettinger, is the grandson of Meir Kahane the American-Israeli rabbi who, scarred by the Holocaust, vowed that Jews would never again submit to plans for their annihilation through an inability to muster a vigorous resistance. And that resistance would start with young Jewish men behaving as self-protective units; in other words like unofficial posses, vigilantes, taking the law unto themselves.

Violence ensued, and the Jewish Defence League that he started was viewed as an outlaw organization.

Meir Kahane was assassinated, another instance of those living by the sword dying by the sword; and his grandson appears to be taking up where he left off. Israel's internal security agency has long identified him as a problem. He was barred from entering the West Bank for a year, in recognition of his penchant for causing trouble. And the Shin Bet announced that he had been "detained for his activity in an extremist Jewish organization".

A day later another young Jewish extremist was incarcerated without charges or trial in a growing crackdown on militant Jews. Mordechai Meyer, an extremist from the Maaleh Adumim settlement, at age 18 is being held for "his involvement in violent activities and recent terror attacks", according to Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon. He is being held for being one of five arrested for the arson attack on a northern Israel church, and suspected of links to another church attack in Jerusalem.

Palestinians have been forming civilian patrol groups across the West Bank. Residents claim to feel  unsafe, and hope that these groups on patrol will be able to deflect attacks by Jewish extremists. In reality, Palestinians' concerns reflect in part the concerns of Israelis, who have experienced more lethal and far more frequent attacks by Palestinians on Israelis. Unlike Israeli authorities who dedicate their security resources to find and punish violence, the Palestinian Authority lauds such violence, calling it 'resistance'.

'Resistance' would not be required if the PA did not, to begin with, incite its citizens to violence against Israelis. Without violence emanating from Arab Palestinians who have been schooled to hate and to attack Jews, there would be no hated 'occupation', whose purpose is to quell the violence which the PA promotes. While Israeli authorities seek out those who promote and practise violence, for justice to prevail, the PA celebrates the success of violent attacks against Jews.

Streets and squares and public buildings are named in honour of the successful brothers-in-resistance whose exploits have extracted Jewish lives. Those men and women who have taken up arms and explosives to kill and to maim Jews are viewed as honoured martyrs, and the Palestinian Authority rewards their families with payment. There occur a never-ending series of 'lone-wolf' attacks by Palestinians seeking vengeance against Jews.

Palestinian motorists ram their vehicles into civilians or soldiers at crowded bus stops for maximum effect. Knives, guns, cars are used to exact maximum damage to innocent people, on the streets, in synagogues, wherever opportunity presents itself. Three soldiers were seriously wounded in another such incident on Thursday. The Palestinian car driver was seriously wounded and receiving medical treatment in a Jerusalem hospital.

news.yahoo.com  Israeli soldiers transport a wounded Israeli man to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem

The cycle of recrimination and threats, hatred and violence, death and destruction seems never-ending. The Palestinian Authority reaps what it has sown, and it doesn't seem to mind at all. It all becomes fodder for outrage against the brutal occupation which is in the hands of a determined PA to settle if they were serious enough about reaching a peace settlement with Israel, instead of accusing Israel of stalling, while they themselves demand impossible concessions even as they give none themselves.

The PA's public relations teams work overtime to savage Israel and its government to the international community, succeeding in portraying Palestinians as the oppressed and the Jews as genocidal oppressors.