An awful tragedy took place during the night (April 29-30) on Mount Meron in the Upper Galilee. Forty-five Jewish lives were lost in a crowd stampede. News about it here. Prime Minister Netanyahu has declared Sunday will be a day of national mourning. Our prayers are with the families and with the nation. What effect this will have on the situation I’ve addressed below is not yet clear.
Taking a look today at what’s been happening this past week with the ‘Palestinians’ living in the Gaza Strip and in a scattering of towns, plus a city or two, in Samaria and Judea.
(Just to clarify: there are millions of Palestinian Arabs living elsewhere in the Middle East, mostly in Jordan – where they comprise the majority of the population, rendering that kingdom a de facto ‘Palestinian’ state – and in refugee camps in Lebanon. Also, if you should wonder why I put ‘Palestinians’ in inverted commas – and otherwise use the two-word designation, Palestinian Arabs, it is simply accurate to history. These Arabs are people, but they are not A People. They do not form an actual national group with a national history as ‘Palestinians’ that ever played out in a national homeland called Palestine – a country that has never existed.)
It was on Friday evening a week ago, as I was between attempts at Prague Airport to board my flight to Israel (they turned me away twice for bureaucratic reasons), that an explosion of violence described as the worst in years erupted outside Jerusalem’s Old City.
Some attributed these “Palestinian riots” to Muslim sensitivities being offended during Ramadan. Others blamed a Jewish group that went to the area to protest police failure to quell the unrest. And then there was the suggestion that young Arabs penned up with repeated Covid-19 restrictions were just venting their frustrations.
As video of the clashes went out over the airwaves, Hamas began to launch rockets at civilian Israeli targets, ostensibly ‘in defence’ of its people in Jerusalem.
The clashes in Jerusalem and the rocket firing from Gaza went on for successive nights which is why, as my plane descended into Tel Aviv in the early hours of last Sunday morning, I was straining to look across the aisle and out the windows towards the south.
Israel which, as is its practise, carried out surgical airforce strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza – taking care not to injure or kill ‘Palestinian’ civilians – warned the terrorists it would respond much more forcefully if they continued firing rockets.
So they stopped.
But not before they had sent a clear message to their prospective supporters in the scheduled elections: Hamas will fight for you. Vote for us.
Today, as I write this, it is Friday again (April 30). Ramadan means the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs are abstaining today from food and drink. At sunset, they will break their fast and, when they do, we will see what happens.
Why?
Because last night, Mahmoud Abbas postponed (cancelled) the ‘Palestinian’ elections that were set to be held next month.
The Palestinian Arabs are infuriated by this unilateral decision taken by the ageing leader of the Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organisation terror group who, despite not having a mandate to do so, has clung to the position of Palestinian Authority President for years.
Months of campaigning has been exciting anticipation at the prospect of the first election in 15 years whereby, according to the polls, they were set to oust Abbas and replace him with a Hamas-led ‘government’.
Abbas’s stated reason for pulling the plug on the vote was that Israel would not permit about 6,500 ‘Palestinian’ residents in Jerusalem to cast their ballots in the Jewish capital.
But that old killer is fooling no-one.
Hamas called his action ‘a coup’ against ‘Palestinian legitimacy’ [SIC] and the will of the ‘Palestinians’ and vowed there would be a response.
There is a great deal of bad blood between these two. In 2007, after Abbas (coerced by the US) refused to concede a Hamas election victory, the Islamist group violently ripped Gaza from the Palestinian Authority – literally throwing PA officials off the roofs of buildings in the Strip.
‘Palestinians’, therefore, are mad at ‘Palestinians’.
No prizes, though, for guessing in which direction most of the imminent reaction will go?
To be sure, while few in the Arab street are buying Abbas’s Jerusalem tale, his followers in and near to the capital will certainly be directed to let loose in Israel’s direction.
And, I expect, we will see a replay of what happened last weekend – with variations. I’ll revisit this in a few days.
Of all our foes – out there in the world and around us here in the Middle East – the ‘Palestinians’ are the nearest, the most enduring, and the most useful to all Israel’s enemies.
The weapon they have long been working to wield against the Jews is the State of Palestine they want to establish – in the words of Yitzhak Rabin – “on the graveyard of Israel”.
Over the last four years they had seen their ambitions stumped by that president called Donald Trump. Immediately following last November’s US election, as Joe Biden prepared to move into the White House , Abbas announced that the ‘Palestinians’ would finally be able to vote.
During the months since, the PA has been flexing its muscles, demanding that its Arabs – who Israel permits to have residency in Jerusalem – be allowed to vote there. Israel rejected Abbas’s rather transparent campaign gimmick.
So he sent his gang of thugs to the United Nations Security Council to try get them to squeeze an acquiescence out of Israel.
Simultaneously the Arabs upped the violence in Jerusalem. And the guys in Gaza joined in with rocket barrages.
This is a well-worn PLO strategy.
Joe Biden is now the president. They have him on their side. They can smell Jewish blood, Israel’s blood, and they know this is the way they always make progress towards their goal: Israel’s end.
As Israel responds to their war crimes (firing rockets at civilian towns is an internationally recognised war crime) the Arabs appeal on their knees, weeping on CNN’s cameras for international intervention and help against “the occupiers,” while dialling up the violence so Israel is put on the back foot in dealing more stringently with it.
And so the Arabs can say – “You see? You see? We are being oppressed. Our human rights are being trampled. The Israelis are the bad guys here. You must stand with us.”
And the world does ‘see’, and does stand with them.
It’s all very well timed. I know there are analysts who see things differently, but I have witnessed this too often.
In any case – we will soon know. As I post this, the sun is headed towards its setting site in the Mediterranean Sea off Tel Aviv.
Ramadan is just halfway through. For today, the fast will soon be over.