Israeli Palestinian Citizens in Martyrdom Mode

"The events of the last few days show a deeply alarming trend: Three or more Palestinians, mostly East Jerusalemites, are daily attacking Israelis — knowing that they are likely to die in the attempt. These are a kind of suicide attacks. They are far less devastating than the bus and restaurant and market bombings of the Second Intifada, but they are motivated by the assailants’ desire to become martyrs. The upsurge of these kinds of attacks is all the more disquieting given that the overwhelming majority of them are not organized by a terror group or known orchestrator, but rather are carried out by “lone wolf” terrorists."
Avi Issacharoff, The Times of Israel

Palestinians pray as Israeli policemen watch in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Wadi al-Joz, October 9, 2015. Israeli police declared an age limit on Friday for Palestinians wanting to enter the Old City, only allowing males above the age of 45 and all females to enter. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The dreaded threat of a Third Intifada looms large in the fears of Israelis. An epidemic of young Palestinians, some from the West Bank, others Israeli Palestinians appearing suddenly besotted with the idea of becoming martyrs in defence of Islam against the perceived persecution of their faith by the Jewish authorities of Israel are suddenly inflicting death on Jewish Israeli citizens and soldiers. The incidents of stone-throwing have increased, as have attacks against people going about their business on the streets, in their vehicles.

Where attacks originally took place in the West Bank, with throngs of Palestinians surrounding Jewish settlers in their cars with stone-throwing events occasionally resulting in death, the spread to Jerusalem with knife-wielding assassinations and further within Israel, to Tel Aviv and Central Israel has civilians fearful and on guard. Israeli Jews have always sensed danger, real or imagined surrounding them in a sea of Arabs outside their borders, but now Arabs who share citizenship with them are also appearing spontaneously to ignite in a furore of hate and vengeance.

Vengeance based on the belief that Israel plans to dispossess Muslims of their third most sacred site in Islam at the Noble Sanctuary where the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque sit, and where Jews venerate the site of the Temples of Solomon on the Temple Mount, where though it is the most sacred site in Judaism and an integral part of the Judaic heritage and Biblical history they are not permitted to pray lest Muslims be enraged.

And so, Jews do not pray there, praying instead at the Western Wall, removed from the areas where Muslims congregate. And even though the State of Israel won a series of wars inflicted on them by combined Arab military coalitions attempting to destroy their presence, they discipline themselves of necessity to avoid aggravating volatile Muslim sensibilities by refraining from worshipping at their holiest site. Despite which they are unable to avoid conspiracy theories firing Muslim imagination.

And this, for a well enough recognized reason; that the Palestinian Authority has orchestrated a situation where schoolchildren are taught to hate Jews as their occupying enemy, and young Palestinians are encouraged to view their duty as opposing the Jewish presence by violence cloaked in 'resistance' to the Jewish presence. A presence necessitated by the violence directed against Jews by Arabs since 1948.

Those who succeed in their mission to destroy Jewish life are considered heroes and have streets and squares named in their honour by the Palestinian Authority and their families are paid heroes' pensions.

Jewish authorities must be cognizant of and careful not to inflame Muslim passions, already inflamed by the incitement of their leaders. The political leaders have taken corruption to new heights, abusing and using the charitable funding allocated them through the United Nations, the European Union and Western countries generally to inflate personal bank accounts. While they support the fixation that Palestinians are perennial victims, suffering refugees incapable through the trauma they live, of being proudly independent and self-supporting.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas claims he will not permit his suffering people to be "dragged" into violence with Israel, even as he incites them to violence as their duty. He is committed, he claims, to "peaceful popular resistance", in which cause he fully supports protesters clashing with Israeli police at the Al-Aqsa mosque. That would be the 'protesters' who bring concrete blocks, incendiary devices and stones into the mosque, barricading themselves there, and throwing the rocks and molotov cocktails at Israeli police.

The Palestinian President speaks venomously of "dirty" Jewish feet polluting the sacred precincts of the Noble Sanctuary, approving of young Palestinians sequestering themselves in the mosque, defiling it with their raging hatred and hurling projectiles at police and military personnel stationed there for the purpose of protecting peaceful visitors from the violence inflicted upon them by the 'protesters' who strike terror into the hearts of non-Muslims.

The mayor of Jerusalem, a former military officer and licensed gun owner, has taken to carrying a weapon when visiting Arab neighbourhoods. "One of the advantages Israel has", he stated "is that there are many veterans of military units with operational combat experience. Having a weapon increases the resident's confidence." A pathetic and poignant condition of citizenship as a Jew in a Jewish state existing in a majority-Arab geography, where only the Jewish state offers equality to all its citizens.