Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu did not waste time Tuesday after two Jerusalem Arabs slaughtered four prominent Anglo-Israeli rabbis and an Israeli Druze police officer, and wounded six other men.
Within the hour he arranged to convene a high-level security meeting, and shortly thereafter an order to demolish the homes of both terrorists who had carried out the attack.
But though the response was swift, it is unlikely to stem the flow of shahids, or “martyrs” for Islamic holy war against Israel.
The reason has to do with the maniacal blood lust that has gripped the local Arab population. Both terrorists were shot dead by police at the scene — but not before they had “purified” Jerusalem – via the synagogue — with the blood of worshipers who came to pray the morning service.
It may sound very Biblical, this idea of the “purity through the blood,” but there is nothing at all holy about its application through murder.
Yet somehow, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has convinced its populace that it is so. In a broadcast on official Palestinian Authority television (PA TV) November 7, 2014, a Fatah official in Lebanon blessed terrorists murderers for heeding a call to “purify Jerusalem” with blood. According to a statement translated by the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) watchdog organization, Lebanon-based Muhammad Al-Biqa’i said, “Jerusalem needs blood in order to purify itself of Jews.”
Al-Biqa’i said, “They are the ones who heard the call of Yasser Arafat, while the Arab and Islamic nation ignored his call. ‘Millions of martyrs (shahids) are marching to Jerusalem.’ They came out with their weapons, with their true belief that Jerusalem needs blood to purify itself of Jews,” he proclaimed.
Just one week later, on November 14 – less than a week ago – PA Ministry for Religious Affairs representative Hassan Al-Saifi reiterated the call, according to an article published in the Al-Hayat Al-Jadida. As did the Fatah official before him, the ministry representative said ‘Jerusalem needs “sacrifices and blood.”’
Al-Saifi “addressed the suffering of the residents of Jerusalem and the continuing Israeli desecration of al-Aqsa” and declared “that Jerusalem has no need of declarations or religious rulings but rather needs the religious scholars in particular to fulfill their duty, rush to Jerusalem and offer sacrifices and blood.”
Both the Palestinian Authority unity government – which now partners with the Hamas terrorist organization – and the Fatah faction are headed by Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. Known among Arabs by his terrorists nom de guerre “Abu Mazen,” Abbas also heads the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), having succeeded his mentor, former chief terrorist Yasser Arafat in the post. Not a single PA media item is published without Abu Mazen’s express approval.
It is Abbas whose doctorate focused on a denial of the Holocaust. And it is Abu Mazen who has skillfully, successfully, steadily and stealthily crafted the image of the Jewish threat to the Islamic Al Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount. But that alone was not enough to spark a third intifada and early in 2014 Abu Mazen and his counterparts in Hamas and Islamic Jihad finally figured that out.
What was missing, they realized, was the blood.
That thirst for the blood. The excitement. The adrenalin. Perhaps it has something to do with the climate? But this issue of violence, of passion and blood has become very central to Arab culture and mentality.
Consider one of the rituals at a traditional Bedouin wedding. There is a magnificently structured, stylized dance with swords performed by the groom and his father-in-law-to-be. The swords are often real in this ritual; when carried by those who hold to tradition, those blades are sharp. The smiles are quite wide.