Terrorism Everywhere But Israel

"The terrorists are attacking in California or in Israel, or for that matter in Paris. They are attacking the very values that we hold dear -- freedom, tolerance, diversity."
"We are standing on the front lines against terrorism, that is increasingly being transformed from Palestinian nationalistic terrorism to Islamic terrorism."
"An attack on any one of us should be seen as an attack on all of us."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

"The stabbings are unorganized. They come from hopelessness, from rage."
Mustafa Barghouti, Palestinian National Initiative

"[Netanyahu] is cynically exploiting the pain of the innocent victims [of terrorism in Paris] in order to create a misleading linkage and to justify Israeli state terror against the Palestinian people, while presenting Israel as the victim."
Hanan Ashwari, Palestinian Authority leader

Aftermath of 18 November attack in a day that saw five people killed in a series of attacks: still from video

Israel's military and domestic intelligence and the Shin Bet identifies the assaults against Israelis that have been taking place for months are being committed by "lone wolf" assailants. Not that their attacks come completely out of the blue. Incitement by social media and tacit approval by the Palestinian Authority which speaks of the assailants as loyal Palestinians expressing righteous rage against the 'occupiers' present the background.

Identifying these assaults as "spontaneous, popular" actions without examining where they're coming from is to ignore cause and effect. And while the Palestinian authorities speak of cause relating to the presence of Israeli military and police and straitened movement, they deliberately sidestep the reality that without the presence of the military and the alert reaction of police, Palestinians have proven time and again that they will engage in brutal atrocities against Jewish civilians.

And nor does the Palestinian Authority have any interest in broadcasting abroad their domestic encouragement to Palestinian youth through school curricula, through television programs and the honourable elevation to hero-status of attackers that their culture imposes as an obligation of 'resistance' against the presence of a Jewish state in their midst. The maps in official and school publications are completely absent Israel, showing the entire area as Palestinian geography.

The attacks on the Temple Mount on visiting Jews who are not permitted to pray at Judaism's most sacred site for fear of provoking a violent backlash by Muslims, have been propagated by the same authorities who encourage that violence against Jews, while citing Jewish oppression and intentions to destroy the Islamic presence on what they name the Noble Sanctuary. The Palestinian Authority lays claim to Old Testament prophets as Muslim and denies that Jews ever had a heritage presence.

While the daily Palestinian knife, gun and vehicular attacks against Jewish Israelis may not be linked as yet to organization by terrorist groups, what is Hamas but a terrorist group, which lauds and promotes those attacks? If the only terrorist group deemed to be sufficiently instructional to Palestinians is Islamic State, to qualify in the eyes of the West as reason for Israel to declare its situation being no different than the attacks mounted in Paris and the United States, to deny that ISIL has been influential among Palestinians is to deliberately bypass the obvious.

Europe seems to find it useful to link the Israel-Palestinian conflict to the growing and intensely disturbing violence and prevalence of attacks by what they call 'extremist' elements in Islamist jihad. But they will go out of their way to deny any linkage between terrorism and Palestinian atrocities committed against the State of Israel and its civilian population, far preferring the Palestinian version that they are provoked by Israeli intransigence in failing to agree to Palestinian demands inimical to Israel's survival, to reach a peace agreement as the cause of violence.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that among Arab and Islamic populations, including those who live under strict Salafist Sharia law, the incidence of violent abuse against women thrives, and the incidence of crime at all levels distinguishes Muslims in any society they inhabit. Societies for whom violence is a common occurrence, where tribal and sectarian hatreds leading to criminal activities and violence are simply part of the cultural heritage.

Three days of rioting left scenes of destruction in East Jerusalem's Shuafat neigbourhood before spreading to other Palestinian areas of the city and Arab towns in Israel  Photo: AP

"No, it is not classified as [terrorism]."
"There is an international classification regarding what constitutes or does not constitute [terror]. As far as I know, the [knife attacks in Israel] are not defined as terror."
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven

"Netanyahu knows it is not the same, he knows there are many differences between [Islamic State] and the terrorism Israel faces but there are some links. There is the inspiration and the culture, which is a culture of death, a culture of rejecting the West and what the West represents."

"When Netanyahu has to speak to the international community and explain what is happening in Israel, he cannot go into details, into the complexities; he has to explain the threat Israel faces by comparing it to (IS), which has become a significant and essential threat to the international community."
Kobi Michael, (former head), Palestinian desk, Strategic Affairs Ministry, Israel

"In spite of the supposedly tighter asylum rules announced November 24, chaos rules in Sweden. So far, in 2015, 150,000 asylum seekers have been registered; but as there is nowhere to house them, people are sleeping in tents, on cardboard boxes in exhibition halls, and even on the street. Many run away from the Immigration Service facilities. More than 22,000 people are supposed to be deported but refuse to leave. Swedes are understandably terrified that terrorists might be hiding among the refugees. The police are busy with pointless border controls and cannot attend to their normal work. It is not an exaggeration to say that in this situation, Sweden has lost track of pretty much everything."
Ingrid Carlqvist, Gatestone Institute