The Palestinian Flare-up that Terrifies Jews

Prof. As’ad Abdul Rahman

Extreme fear is gripping the minds and hearts of every Jew in Israel, especially the Zionist colonialists, the so-called settlers, enjoying their ill-gotten gain of stolen lands in all historical Palestine. Jews in Israel now dread encounter with some Palestinian youth yielding knives, or a Palestinian driver trying to run over Israelis, or that they might be burned by a crude Molotov cocktail attack at a checkpoint or hit by a sling in David’s style. All these actions are perceived by many observers including Israelis (in the news media and in security agencies) to be endured as long the only colonial occupation in our world continues. Although a small number of Israelis have perished in the attacks in what has been termed as a ‘Palestinian flare-up’, Haaretz says that “many Israelis are dying inside out of fear!”

Several factors are causing this unprecedented fear in Israel. A Palestinian generation grew up to despair and frustration coupled with a lack of opportunities in the absence of peace and security and a steady incursion of colonialists on their fathers’ lands, encouraged by an extremist rightist government sustaining its occupation of Palestinian lands. Colonial Zionist settlers are now living in the very guts of Palestinian communities who are being forced to adjust their daily lives to their desires and  pleasures in very humiliating ways which negate the need for those who colonized the land to erect a wall of separation for protection. Armed settlers occupying confiscated houses in old Jerusalem and in Hebron in the very midst of unarmed Palestinian population forced to endure daily abuse by Israeli soldiers is not only asking for trouble, but is indeed building a pressure of a time bomb that is bound to explode in a humongous way.

A second major factor that is feeding this ’flare-up’ is the huge number of Palestinian workers- around 200 thousands- who have jobs in Israeli cities again negating the possibility of erecting a wall separating Israeli Jews for safety. In such a situation, fear grips both, Israeli Jews and Palestinians working in Israel. “Jewish neighborhoods in (occupied) Jerusalem and even in Tel Aviv look like ghost towns”, according to a report by Israel’s channel One. According to the same report, “Israelis now avoid walking alone, but only in groups in fear of facing a Palestinian youth yielding a kitchen knife which has also forced many to move to coastal areas seeking safety.” Indeed, polls taken for the Knesset TV Channel revealed that “50% of Israelis surveyed, supported the turning over of Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority to govern.”

A third factor behind this unprecedented Jewish fear stems from the fact that the Palestinians responsible for these stabbing attacks and run-over operations by motor cars against Israelis are really unknown elements who neither belong to any organized Palestinian group, nor have any criminal records, whatsoever. These facts make Israeli security agencies blind and unable to intercept these operations and stop them.

 Israeli news media have reported that “the Palestinian perpetrators are Lone Wolves acting on their own which makes them outside the radar scopes of all Israeli security agencies.” This hinders the Israeli government ability to provide the public with assured security. According to Maariv, “this unprecedented fear has driven the public to seek help from psychological centers whose numbers have now doubled along with the number of absentees from work”. Fear drives a  person to commit huge mistakes which could explain the number of Israeli Jews “killed by a friendly fire” when security forces hastily shot them mistaking them for a “Palestinian terrorist” because of their dark skin. Many oriental Jews resorted to wearing T shirts with bold letters printed in Hebrew saying “I am a Jew” to avoid being shot and kicked to death by other Jews. What is terrifying to the Israeli colonial establishment is that this Intifada of “Lone Wolves” has annihilated the slogan of “Israel as the paradise and the oasis of peace and democracy” which has resulted in increased reversed immigration from Israel by Jews looking for safer shores in Europe.

The international community, especially the United States of America, are now fully engaged to lay down plans to save their shores from ‘the Lone Wolves of ISIS (Daesh) and al-Qaeda’,  as the recent carnage in Paris shows without any doubt. The western world in general and Israel in particular are all in denial refusing to connect the atrocities committed by the Zionist killing machine in Palestine with the atrocities committed by ISIS and al-Qaeda who both have now infiltrated Europe, as evidenced in the Paris attacks.

We are now witnessing raging religious wars energized by the colonial Zionist establishment in Israel led by the ’settlers’ and on the other side by the so-called jihadists of the takfiri doctrine of Daesh and al-Qaeda which is anti-Islamic, through and through. The dividends of implanting the so-called democracy by force in the Arab world which is only a guise to protect Israeli occupation and dominance are being delivered on time in western capitals. As Daesh is trying to establish its un-Islamic state, so are the ’settlers’ trying to establish their un-Jewish state in historical Palestine. The Torah, a Holy Book, cannot be turned into a real estate book to steal Palestinian lands in the name of God.