22-Nov-15: Getting behind the Abbases and the Haniyehs and what that means

This is going on tonight outside the home of the murderer of Hadar Buchris [Image Source]

The large crowd of Palestinian Arabs out on a chilly November night in Beit Fajjar, a Palestinian Arab town of about 11,000 people, close to Efrat, is there at this moment because a man who lived in the house is dead.

His life ended this afternoon shortly after he plunged a knife into the neck of a young Jewish woman, Hadar Buchris. The specific circumstances, the man's name, his age, are all of no interest to us at this point. (We noted them here.) Every part of the Palestinian Arab media is tonight calling him a "martyr" and relates to his deed - an attack on a defenseless, unarmed girl - as an act of heroism.

It's facile and inaccurate to view this scene only as an expression of a society flushing itself down the drain. Years of astute coverage by dedicated analysts like Palestinian Media Watch and MEMRI have brought home the message, for anyone willing to take note, that Palestinian Arab society has been implanting in generation after generation of its own children a hateful and murderous bigotry that sees only evil in their Jewish neighbours, and that impels them towards acts of zealotry, savagery and self-destruction.

It's not new. It hasn't changed (at least not for the better). And no one who takes an interest in the Arab conflict with Israel has any right to be surprised by it.

For us, the significance of the crowd paying homage to today's killer is in the way it throws light on a handful of matters:

1. Other than the readers of a few obscure blogs like ours, most people have no idea it's happening. That includes consumers of most of the world's major news channels, even those that focus time and attention on the Middle East. It's simply not reported.
2. We can express all the abhorrence we can muster up at the men - it's almost entirely men, and boys - in the Beit Fajjar crowd. We can tell them (hypothetically) what we think of their values, and we can pour scorn on their bigotry. But nothing in their society - from their two prime ministers on down - is going to condemn them or the murderer or the murder. Nothing is going to tip them off to the idea that they are engaging in the celebration of something most people outside their region think is horrible. They don't know; they won't know. They are what they are - what their society has made them into.
3. It's the people living far from here who are on our minds tonight. Those who give their backing to the cause represented by Fatah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad ought to look long and hard at the throng in the picture. Translated into practical terms, this is what their support achieves. This is what it means to be aligned and in solidarity with Mahmoud Abbas or Ismail Haniyeh or both. Far from condemning men who plunge knives into the necks of girls, the Palestinian Arab leaders call these heroic acts. Heroic acts! 

This is what resistance (a favourite word in those circles) means. In reality, it's self-destructive, corrosive terrorism.