10-Oct-16: Does yesterday's Arab-on-Israeli shooting attack say anything about our neighbours?

The cold-blooded murder of Levanah
Malichi at a Jerusalem tram
stop yesterday has warmed many
Palestinian Arab hearts

It's hard to think about the explosion of violence ["09-Oct-16: In Jerusalem, first reports of Arab-on-Israeli shootings this morning"] yesterday in this city of great beauty and of peace and spirituality without reflecting on the awful savagery of the past several years. Do yesterday's events add anything to our understanding?

In the aftermath of Sunday's attack by a lethally-armed Palestinian Arab attacker on unarmed Israelis standing at tram-stops in the capital, the New York Times looked at the people behind the attack:

Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls the Palestinian coastal territory of Gaza, praised the attack and described the gunman as “one of ours.” Al Quds, the Hamas-affiliated television station, broadcast a video that it said was exclusive to the channel and that it described as the perpetrator’s last words. It was not clear when or where the video had been filmed. In it, the man, wearing a green polo shirt, the color of Islam and of Hamas’s flag, stood before a map of historic Palestine.

Not an outright claim of ownership - though Times of Israel says it is, quoting Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum who characterized the cowardly shooting of randomly-targeted Israelis as “a natural reaction to the crimes and violations of the occupation against our people.”

Hamas are riding the wave of Palestinian Arab support for savagery of Sunday morning's kind. And not to be out-flanked, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement also praised that attack, calling it “heroic.”

How widespread is that support?

We offered a view some months ago, in "15-Jun-16: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?". The picture provided by reputable Arab pollsters is strikingly consistent. The answers are so clear-cut and so extreme that it's astounding they are referred to so little in the news commentary provided by 'experts'.

Here's one of the ways the flames keep being stoked. Avi Issacharoff, The Times of Israel's Middle East analyst, writes that members of the killer's family

joined the celebrations of his “martyrdom,” handing out candies to all those who passed by their house. Even his young daughter put out a video in which she expressed her joy in her father becoming a “shahid” (martyr)... The terrorist published a “will” in which he called on Muslims to act to protect the [Al-Aqsa] mosque.  ["Does the Jerusalem terror attack signal a new uprising?", Times of Israel, October 9, 2016]

The killer's daughter is Ma'an's principal focus today. The father
earlier posted a statement saying "We sacrifice
our children for Al-Aqsa".

The family's adulation of yesterday's murders, and of the murderer, is a major talking point for the reporters and editors of Ma'an News Agency. The main story on their English-language news site at this moment (Monday October 10, 2016 at 12 noon) is headed "Israeli forces detain slain Palestinian gunman's 14-year-old daughter"

A video of Eiman hailing her father’s actions went viral on social media on Sunday. "We deem my father as martyr,” she said in the video. “We hope he will plead for us before God on judgment day… I am proud of what my father did..." 

From the same Arab source, additional hard-to-miss signs of how much support there is currently in Palestinian Arab circles for the murder of innocent Jews:

Hamas said on Sunday afternoon that Abu Sbeih was a member of its Islamic resistance movement. Meanwhile, the Fatah movement in Jerusalem declared a day of mourning for slain Palestinians on Sunday afternoon following Abu Sbeih’s death. Fatah said in a statement it rejected Israeli forces’ killing of Palestinians, especially in Jerusalem, and that it would never leave the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and the Old City “fall prey” to Israeli “extremists and terrorists” Ma'an News Agency, October 10, 2016]

Yosef Kirmah, newly-married, a '
decorated anti-terrorism hero,
now dead

Fatah, to remind those of lose sight of such things, is headed by "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority:

In two separate posts on its official Facebook page, Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Movement honored the terrorist murderer... Fatah referred to the murderer as a "Shahid," an Islamic Martyr - someone who died for Allah - a status the Palestinian Authority presents as the highest achievement a Muslim can reach in life. Defining a dead murderer as a Shahid indicates that according to Fatah, the murder of Israelis is sanctioned and even desired in the name of Islam. Palestinian Media Watch has documented that it is PA and Fatah policy to glorify terrorist murderers and turn them into role models for Palestinian society.
Fatah and the Palestinian Authority for quite some time have been defining the conflict with Israel as a religious war, defining all attackers and the murderers of Israelis as heroic defenders of Islam and its symbols. Fatah's Jerusalem branch announced "mourning and a general strike for Palestine's Martyrs" and specifically mentioned today's killer - "this morning's Martyr" and vowed to "defend the honor of the Arab and Islamic nations with our bare chests"... Voice of Palestine Radio likewise reported that the Jerusalem branch of Fatah announced a day of mourning and a general strike in Jerusalem “due to the death of the Shahid Abu Sbeih.” [Palestinian Media Watch, October 9, 2016]

The head of Hamas, Khaled Mashaal, reportedly phoned the parents of the dead terrorist last night from his penthouse suite in Qatar, absurdly telling them his deeds “defended the Palestinian people” who, he said, were “proud” of what he did and who will serve as an “example” to his contemporaries. “Hamas will carry on it its jihad until Palestine and the Al-Aqsa Mosque are liberated from the impurity of the occupation”, said Mashal in a reminder of one of the central truths of the generations-long bloody conflict: it has almost nothing to do with creating another Arab state, and everything to do with destroying the only Jewish one.

In addition to the six wounded, two Israelis were killed in yesterday's murderous attack. 

Yosef Kirmah, an officer in an Israel Police counter-terrorism unit, the Yasam (a Hebrew acronym for Special Patrol Unit), was one of the police motor-cyclists who pursued the gunman after the attack and engaged in a gunfight with him in which the gunman also died. He was 29. Hundreds attended his funeral late yesterday at Jerusalem's Mt Herzl Military Cemetery:

In her eulogy, Noy Kirma, whose husband had been awarded a medal of honor last December for thwarting a Palestinian stabbing attack on kindergarten kids, continued: “How many plans we had — for a home and children. You loved me more than I love myself... You were my shoulder to lean on…” said the young widow, who had been married to the Israeli hero for only six months before his life was cut short. “You were loved by all. You were number one in their eyes. Number one in my eyes. I don’t know how the world will turn without you…You will be in my heart until the day I die.” [Algemeiner, October 9, 2016]

A Facebook page, quickly set up in his memory, served as a magnet for expressions of incitement and hatred during yesterday. Israel National News says:

Facebook users from Israel’s Arab sector bombarded Kirma’s memorial page with abusive taunts, anti-Semitic smears, and explicit incitement to violence and even threats of murder. Some of the offensive posts included images of anti-Semitic caricatures, pictures of bloody drawn knives and vulgar language.

Levanah Malichi, the second victim of yesterday's shooting ramage, died of her injuries at the Hadassah hospital on nearby Mt. Scopus. She left behind a husband, three children and six grandchildren. Many Jerusalemites remember her fondly from the three decades of her work on the administrative and logistics side of the Knesset, Israel's parliament. The Knesset speaker Yuli Edestein is expected to eulogize Malichi at her funeral today.

The police say (according to Haaretz) that the shooter

used a .556-caliber automatic rifle, in contrast to the crude, homemade firearms typically used in past attacks... [P]olice were trying to determine how the shooter had obtained the weapon.

It's unlikely that that particular high-power, automatic weapon is the only one currently in the hands of murder-minded Palestinian Arabs, already well-equipped with what are sometimes called home-made guns. The current tensions are unlikely to abate soon.

The same is true of the open adulation for the dead gunman, as evidenced by doing a Google search on "الشهيد أبو صبيح". Those Arabic words translate to "Martyr Abu Sabih", which is the name more than 60,000 hits give at this hour to the man who mercilessly opened fire with his high-powered rifle on unsuspecting Israeli commuters yesterday in order to "save" a house of prayer. In a string of Facebook posts, the gunman offered such thoughts as "We sacrifice our souls and our blood for you Al-Aqsa" and "We sacrifice our children for Al-Aqsa".

His frame of mind and his actions are likely on the minds of many other Palestinian Arabs today.

We're wide open to being shown Arabic-language condemnations of the pointless killings perpetrated in Jerusalem yesterday. If there are truly angry Arab voices out there, or even just some expressions of Palestinian Arab despair at the open bigotry and the immorality of celebrating murders, people need to hear them and know about them.

We're waiting, as we have been for some time.

11-May-14: Still searching for outraged moderate Palestinian Arab voices

From the Arabic press: Funeral of the remains of the Sbarro pizza shop
human bomb

We wrote a few days ago on an issue about which we are especially passionate, even while we realize it's one that moves relatively few people in political life or in the media. We called [see "6-May-14: In search of appalled, sickened Palestinian Arabs" ] for published Arabic-language articles that condemn 

the ongoing satanic strategy that continues to drag Palestinian Arab society - along with those who give such pathological forms of education their passive or active support - down into the gutter of human society and history. Strong words? What else to call a process in which the leadership of an entire society - Abbas and his PA; Hamas; the Palestinian Islamic Jihad - seeks to turn its pre-teen children into human bombs?

We're offering to republish those Arabic articles here, translated into English. It's a serious offer, and a serious search. If those voices exist in Arabic, it's in everyone's interests that people come to know about them. 

This search got started a week ago after a widely-reported ceremony honoring the burial of the remains of a certain human bomb. (If it's not obvious, we think the use of the expression "suicide bomber" is wrong on multiple levels, and we hope it disappears.) And when we say widely-reported, we of course mean widely-reported in the Arabic-speaking world. In the English, French and Spanish language editions of the online Arab media, and in the English-language mainstream news media, there has been barely a mention of the obscene al-Masri funeral. We described it here ["6-May-14: In search of appalled, sickened Palestinian Arabs"] including photos and links to videos.

We are essentially searching for signs of a true moderate voices in Palestinian Arab society - the one we keep being told exists but is not getting noticed enough. 

We're also wondering about the liberals, the humanists, the defenders of human rights, living far from the Middle East, who have given their support to the Palestinian Arabs. We still hope to unearth their condemnations of the process by which a man who murders innocent children is transformed by government officials into a hero and a figure whose actions deserve to be emulated. 

Can it be that liberals, humanists and defenders of human rights hold no view about this? Or think it's unworthy of their attention? Their silence, the absence of condemnation from them, screams.

11-Sep-13: No need to speculate: Palestinian Arabs genuinely, overwhelmingly believe in barbarism as a strategy

Yasser Abed Rabo, co-author of 2003 peace
plan, with Israeli partner Yossi Beilin [Image Source]

A Pew Research Global Attitudes report issued today demonstrates statistically that

Overall support for violence in the name of Islam has declined among Muslim publics during the past decade... In many of the countries surveyed, clear majorities of Muslims oppose violence in the name of Islam. Indeed, about three-quarters or more in Pakistan (89%), Indonesia (81%), Nigeria (78%) and Tunisia (77%), say suicide bombings or other acts of violence that target civilians are never justified. 

But there is one demographic where a clear majority of respondents - 62% - told Pew's pollsters that "suicide bombing is often or sometimes justified". That demographic is Palestinian Arab Muslims.

Knowing the murderous intentions of the Palestinian Arab "street" concerning us ordinary Israelis (and keep in mind that Palestinian Arab terror is rarely directed at the Israeli military), it casts a deadly light on the current strategies of the Mahmoud Abbas regime's inner circle. 

A report published just yesterday by WAFA, the official mouthpiece of the PA, quotes Yasser Abed Rabbo summing up the 'peace' process currently underway. Abed Rabbo is said to be one of the authors of the 2003 Geneva Accord. 

“Israel is trying to benefit from the negotiations to pressure Europe to cancel the boycott (of settlement products),” he said on Voice of Palestine... The negotiations have not made any progress on the ground and that all Israel wants is that no one says anything about its settlements and other activities that violate the rights of the Palestinian people.
“There are no signs of progress... There is progress only in the settlements and in the violations, but not in the negotiations that can cause us to say that US efforts have achieved any real results on the ground or in the peace process..." [Abed Rabbo quoted yesterday by WAFA]

His voice is part of a choir. The Palestinian/Israeli journalist Khaled Abu Toameh writes today on the Gatestone Institute website that -  

PLO, Fatah and Palestinian Authority officials have described the talks as "futile", "unproductive", "a waste of time" and "a cover for Israel to pursue its policy of creating new facts on the ground..." By sounding the alarm bell already, the Palestinians are hoping that when the talks fail they will be able to tell the world, "You see, we told you from the beginning that these Israelis do not want peace." But these statements and threats have also proven to be counter-productive. The more Palestinian officials and leaders talk about the "futility" and "ineffectiveness" of the peace talks, the bigger the opposition grows to the negotiations with Israel. [Khaled Abu Toameh on Gatestone Institute website, September 10, 2013]

Nearly two-thirds of the people ruled by the clique of which Abed Rabbo is a leading member are committed to the most extreme forms of lethal terrorist attacks on Israelis. In that light, do we need to speculate about the intended effect when PA insiders like him dismiss so comprehensively the current round of talks between their side and Israel?