18-Jan-20: Red lines, defilement and more Arab-on-Israeli knifings

The Kiryat Arab victim in today's Israel National News report

If you rely on news reports alone, the ebb and flow of Arab-on-Israeli terror attacks can seem to happen without any obvious pattern or underlying motivation.

But sometimes, you wait a little and you learn that there are forces at work that wanted these to happen.

We're mostly in the dark about what's driving events here in the Jerusalem area today. But as always, there are clues. And yes, a Palestinian Arab child is involved. Again.

From Times of Israel, we know a man of 22 suffered moderate injuries this afternoon (Saturday - Shabbat) when he was stabbed in the shoulder by "a Palestinian youth" (a term that can have multiple meanings) in Kiryat Arba. The knifer was arrested while trying to escape the scene of the attack according to the IDF is in their hands for questioning. Haaretz says the stabber is an as-yet-unnamed seventeen year old. Keep that in mind the next time you see, and you surely will see, hostile news coverage complaining of how Israel takes so many children into custody.

The knifing victim is in Jerusalem's Shaarei Zedek Medical Center where they say he is in stable condition. Israel National News this evening says the Israeli is Moshe Greenblatt, who says from his hospital bed that "Thank G-d, I feel good... The knife broke and he didn't manage to stab any of the people around me."

Earlier today (Saturday - the Jewish Sabbath), a Palestinian Arab female said to be "in her fifties" was taken into custody by Border Police officers after threatening them with a knife at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City. The Times of Israel report says she was subdued by officers and a civilian who happened to be at the scene and is also undergoing questioning.

Friday morning, right after the completion of their morning prayer service which were attended by an estimated 8,000 people, hundreds of Muslim Arab worshipers chanted about killing Jews outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. Police dispersed the crowd. Times of Israel says no one was injured in the clashes with police.

TV footage from the march shows members of the unruly crowd shouting in Arabic “Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Muhammad is returning.”

Video clip from 124news.tv

It's a recurring theme - the chant recalls how in the seventh century Muslims massacred and expelled Jews from the town of Khaybar, located in today's Saudi Arabia. Their chants also included “With spirit and blood, we will salvage Al-Aqsa” and “Jews, the army of Al-Aqsa is returning.”

Hamas, on Friday, declared itself happy with the unrest. Times of Israel quotes one of its spokespeople saying the morning prayers “support our people in their campaign against the Zionist occupation and thwart its racist plans.”

This past Wednesday, Hamas publicly called for Palestinian Arabs to “mobilize” during Friday’s prayers against the “defilement” of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs by “the Zionist occupation.” The terrorists sought to persuade Israeli authorities that “our sanctities are a red line that cannot be tolerated.”