The Nobility of Martyrdom

"Do you see all these young people around us? They’re all unemployed. Sometimes they enter Israel illegally [to seek work], but they have no work permits. I don’t have one either. I never did anything wrong. I’ve never been in jail. Nobody in my family has been in jail or done anything, but they won’t give me a work permit."
"I drive people around in this car [a stolen car repurposed as an illegal taxi, complete with yellow Israeli license plates]."
"I tell you, today they are shooting people for no reason. Anyone who has a knife gets killed. Anyone who drives a little fast near soldiers gets shot. If I could make a decent living, why would I stab anybody? For Netanyahu? For Abu Mazen? What do I care about them?"
"For us, anyone who shoots or stabs Jews is a hero. Why? Because they resisted the occupation. We don’t want violence; ultimately, we want peace. But these shahids resisted the occupation, so we consider them heroes. And again I say to you: If these people had jobs, there would be no problems at all. I knew some of them, and I know what I’m talking about."
Khaled, 32, married father of four, Sa'ir, West Bank 

Palestinian women mourn during the funeral of Raed Jaradat, 22, in the West Bank village of Sa'ir, near Hebron, Sunday, Nov 1, 2015. According to the Israeli army, Jaradat stabbed an Israeli before being shot and killed. (AP Photo/Nasser Shiyoukhi)

What he is talking about is the Hebron village that inspired a full dozen young people to sacrifice themselves as martyrs by attacking Israeli Defence Forces members with knives or anything that could be converted handily into a lethal weapon. The village has had a mini-epidemic of young people in their teens taking to attempted stabbing of Israeli soldiers, and for their willingness to become shahids, they have been shot dead by those whom they wanted to kill.

The shahada are celebrated for their courageous deeds in opposing their 'occupiers'. A country forced to 'occupy' to keep itself and its citizens as safe as possible from the violence that breeds among Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza. The young man in Sa'ir is outraged that he cannot obtain a work permit to be gainfully employed in Israel. Never, evidently, asking himself why Israel should see to his employment needs and not the Palestinian Authority which governs the West Bank.

This fits neatly enough into the general thinking among Palestinians that a two-state solution is out of the question. It is a one-state solution they seek; willing enough they say, to live among Jews, but under a Palestinian state and flag and military. The prevailing attitude that Israel should simply melt into a Palestinian state and the Arabs absorb the Jewish population is one that has been promoted by stealth through generations of school textbooks with a curricula that stresses Palestinian 'rights'.

"There was no visible reason why these young people chose the path that they did. I have no doubt that the story of the Al-Aksa Mosque — the PA-disseminated allegation that the holy site is in danger — as well as other videos circulating on the Internet, had an influence on many of the young people here. One video showed a young woman who had been killed and her body disrobed when it was searched and that got people very angry. The slogan ‘Defend your sister’ spread on Facebook, and that got the young people up in arms."

Ka’id Jaradat, former colonel, PA security agencies, elected mayor of Sa'ir 

Inflammatory slander is yet another specialty of the public relations arm of the Palestinian Authority which excels in producing widely-disseminated videos that purport to demonstrate the brutality of the 'occupiers' by portraying their contextualized and falsified versions of events whose purpose is to incite outrage and anger on the part of the population toward Israel and its military.

 

After having groomed Palestinian youth for martyrdom, it seems the Palestinian Authority is now mounting an effort to dissuade them from launching ongoing attacks. The grief of the community in the town of Sa'ir over the inevitable consequences of their youth embarking on these suicidal missions in obedience to what they have always been taught is expected of them, seems to have motivated the PA to urge impressionable youth to restrain these impulses toward death by 'resistance'.

Yet, the authorities in Fatah who manage the Palestinian Authority, much less Hamas in Gaza, simply are functionally incapable of either governing responsibly, and seeking a way to surrender some of their impossible demands of Israel such as 'right of return' and the refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, to the extent that they will not forego their agenda of achieving the destruction of Israel. Impressing the burden of 'duty' on young Palestinians through 'resisting the oppressor' remains irresistible.

Celebration of the 'courage' of young men and women who choose to respond to their government's urging to become martyrs persists, stimulating new attacks. In this town where the mayor describes the Palestinian Authority's dedication to dissuading youth to sacrifice their lives through ongoing knife attacks, a poster bearing the images of the three "shahids" from the January 7 attempted terror attack at the Etzion Junction celebrates their deed. 

Bearing the Fatah’s logo the poster reads: "The three martyrs from the heroic Etzion attack."