Palestinians Oppose Israeli Metal Detectors at the Temple Mount - Joseph Klein

by Joseph Klein

When it comes to Islamic justice, prayers are not enough.

Last Friday, three Arabs killed two Israeli police officers who were guarding an entrance to Jerusalem’s holy compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. The police officers were shot with arms that had evidently been smuggled into the compound and stashed there. This latest attack was another in an unending series of terrorist murders of Israelis, but this time the attack took place at Old Jerusalem’s sacred site itself. It also may have been orchestrated by a Hezbollah-run cell, acting on orders from Iran, according to a Debkafile report based on its intelligence and counterterrorism sources. 

“The pro-Iranian terror group has long been suspected of recruiting networks in some Israeli Arab communities,” the Debkafile report stated. “By striking Temple Mount, Iran and Hizballah targeted both Israel and Jordan, which claims religious custodianship of its mosques.”   

If the Debkafile report turns out to be true, Iran may have been trying to set off Palestinian riots, anticipating stern security measures imposed by Israel that would be seen as interfering with access by Muslim worshippers to their third holiest site. For the last five nights, Palestinians have been attacking police. The police appeared to have acted with restraint in dispersing the mobs. On Thursday, a Palestinian terrorist tried to stab a female IDF officer in a town south of Jerusalem. Fortunately, the IDF officer was not hurt. The terrorist was shot dead. The fear is that there will be another surge in terrorist attacks against Israeli soldiers, police and civilians, followed by Israeli reprisals that the so-called “international community” will condemn. This is the vicious cycle that Israel’s enemies within Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and elsewhere are looking to repeat.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had tried to maintain calm in the immediate aftermath of last Friday’s terrorist attack. He told Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that Israel would “take all the necessary actions to maintain security on the Temple Mount, without changing the status quo.” Abbas had called Prime Minister Netanyahu to condemn the attack, while seeking assurances that the holy site, which had been closed temporarily for security reasons, would be re-opened promptly.

True to the Israeli prime minister’s word, Israel partially re-opened the compound to worshippers two days after the murders of the Israeli police officers. More gates were opened Monday morning. For understandable security reasons, Israel installed metal detectors at the entrances to detect any arms being smuggled into the compound. That action has set off denunciations by Palestinian government officials and Muslim religious leaders.

Abbas has quickly pivoted away from his momentary condemnation of the terrorist attack. According to Fatah vice chairman Mahmoud al-Aloul, as quoted by the Jerusalem Post, Abbas has been engaging in “intensive phone calls” to line up international pressure on Israel to reverse its latest security measures.

Muslim religious leaders also refused to accept such commonsense security measures and directed their worshippers not to enter the compound as long as there are metal detectors there. 

The Waqf Muslim religious trust and other Muslim authorities released the following statement:

“If the metal detectors continue to be imposed on the gates to the blessed al-Aksa Mosque, we call upon our people to pray and worship in front of the gates of the al-Aksa Mosque and in the streets of Jerusalem and its alleys.”

The Mufti of Jerusalem issued a religious edict for Muslims, declaring that the prayers of any Muslim entering the compound through the “Zionist” metal detectors will be “invalid” and will not be received by Allah.

“This is a severe violation of the status quo,” said Sheikh Omar al-Kiswani, the director of al-Aksa Mosque, which is situated on the Temple Mount.

PLO executive committee member Mustafa Barghouti expressed defiance. “We have been under occupation for 50 years, and we will not ‘get used’ to the new injustice,” Barghouti told the Jerusalem Post. “People will try entering in every possible way without going through the electronic devices,” he added. “There is no place in the world that collective punishment is used against the whole population... We feel that their aim and nature is to change the situation at al-Aksa mosque.”

Following Barghouti’s “logic,” all airline passengers are being collectively punished for the acts committed by terrorists, including Palestinians, on board planes and at airports. Following the Mufti’s “logic,” a Muslim flying from a New York airport to Saudi Arabia for the annual pilgrimage, who passes through a metal detector supplied by an Israeli firm, would presumably not have his prayers in Mecca heard by Allah. Barghouti, the Mufti and other like-minded Israel-haters do not denounce the murders and exhort their followers to refrain from all violence. Instead, they condemn Israel for taking measures to protect not only its own citizens, but all worshippers, from violence. Such depravity should be denounced by world leaders. Instead, there is silence.

Nickolay Mladenov, the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, issued a bland statement on Thursday expressing deep concern over “the recent surge in tensions and violence around the holy esplanade in the Old City of Jerusalem.” His statement failed to single out the trigger for the “recent surge” – Islamic terrorism. He called upon all concerned parties “to de-escalate the situation and on moderate voices to speak up against those who try to fuel tensions.” His statement praised President Abbas’s condemnation of the deadly attack last Friday and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s commitment to uphold and respect the status quo at the holy sites. The statement failed to call out specifically the Palestinian officials and Muslim religious leaders who have been fueling the tensions in the streets with inflammatory language against Israel’s measures to prevent more smuggling of arms into the Temple Mount. 

Deputy Spokesman for the UN Secretary General, Farhan Haq, punted when he was asked on Thursday if Israel’s use of metal detectors to deter the smuggling of arms into the Temple Mount compound will exacerbate the situation as the Palestinians say, or whether it will actually increase the level of security as the Israelis are saying. The reporter asking the question at the UN’s New York headquarters reminded Mr. Haq that metal detectors are used “in the entrance to this hallowed building.”

Mr. Haq referred the reporter to Nickolay Mladenov’s statement, which sheds no light on the issue. The deputy spokesperson then simply recited the UN’s standard line by declaring, “We believe it's important that the status quo that we've had in place be maintained at all holy sites so that worshipers can freely have access to them.”

Palestinian terrorists have changed the conditions for maintaining the status quo by bringing their slaughter into the immediate vicinity of the Temple Mount holy site. Israel’s use of metal detectors, a common security feature at airports and at so many other venues around the world, will help deter the arms smuggling that threatens peaceful worship by members of all faiths. It is shameful that the UN lacks the common sense, let alone the moral courage, to publicly back such security measures as a restrained means to prevent more carnage and desecration of Jerusalem’s holiest site.

Joseph Klein is a Harvard-trained lawyer and the author of Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom and Lethal Engagement: Barack Hussein Obama, the United Nations & Radical Islam.

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267341/palestinians-oppose-israeli-metal-detectors-temple-joseph-klein

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Metal Detectors and Palestinian Lies - Bassam Tawil

by Bassam Tawil

The Palestinians and the Waqf are lying to the world by telling it that Israel is denying Muslims access to their holy sites.

• The slain police officers were stationed there to ensure the safety of Muslim worshippers. The Palestinian spin doctors are attempting to divert attention from the terror attack by making it look as if the crisis began when Israel installed the metal detectors and not when two police officers were murdered.
• First, the security measures, including the placement of the metal detectors, was not an Israeli initiative but came as a direct and necessary response to a specific terror attack. The Israeli government did not convene and take a decision to install the metal detectors in order to alter the status quo or stop Muslims from praying.
• Second, it was the Palestinians who took the decision not to enter into the Temple Mount unless the metal detectors are removed. The Palestinians and the Waqf are lying to the world by telling it that Israel is denying Muslims access to their holy sites.
• The Palestinian opposition to the metal detectors at the Temple Mount means one thing only: that the Palestinians are determined to turn the holy site into a weapons cache and use it as a launching pad to carry out terror attacks against Israelis. If the mosque were then actually destroyed in the process, guess who would be blamed? Possibly that is even the real agenda.

The controversy surrounding the Israeli authorities' decision to place metal detectors at the gates of the Temple Mount calls to mind the famous Arab saying, "he beat me and cried then came to me to complain." This inversion of reality is a common among perpetrators who pretend to be victims.

The decision to install the metal detectors came after Arab terrorists murdered two Israeli police officers at the Temple Mount on July 14. The three terrorists -- Israeli Arab citizens from the city of Umm al-Fahm -- used a submachine gun and knives to carry out their attack. The weapons were easily smuggled into the Temple Mount thanks to Muslim worshippers not having been required to pass through metal detectors or undergo body searches by policemen stationed at the gates.

Incredibly, the Palestinians have since been waging daily protests against the new Israeli security measures, demanding that the metal detectors be removed from the entrances to the Temple Mount. As part of the protests, Palestinian leaders have urged Muslim worshippers not to enter the Temple Mount through the metal detectors and instead to pray at the entrances to the holy site.

The Palestinian Authority (PA), Jordan and other Arab and Islamic countries are accusing Israel of violating the status quo at the Temple Mount by installing the metal detectors.

One listens in vain for a denouncement of the terrorists who murdered the two Israeli police officers -- these are the people responsible for defiling the sanctity of the holy site.

We also hear no condemnation of the murder of the officers, who belong to the Druze community in Israel and who were entrusted with preserving law and order at the Temple Mount. The slain officers were stationed there to ensure the safety of Muslim worshippers.

On the contrary -- many Palestinians and Arabs have applauded the terror attack as a "heroic operation" against the "Zionist enemy." The three terrorists, who were killed by Israeli policemen during the attack, are being hailed as "martyrs" and "heroes" who sacrificed their lives in defense of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Sadly, many Israeli Arab leaders have refused to condemn the terror attack carried out by three of their fellow citizens.

The metal detectors have one goal: to prevent terrorists from smuggling weapons into the Temple Mount. That is the act that should be viewed as a desecration of a holy site.

Yet, rather than supporting the Israelis' attempt to thwart bloodshed on this sacred soil, the Palestinians and other Arabs blame Israel for seeking to safeguard the well-being of all people -- not least of all Muslim worshipers -- through basic security measures.

The Palestinian spin doctors are attempting to divert attention from the terror attack by making it look as if the crisis began when Israel installed the metal detectors and not when two police officers were murdered.

The Palestinians and other Arabs are now crying to the international community that Israel is seeking to change the status quo at the Temple Mount through a series of security measures. They are also trying to make it look as if Israel is preventing Muslim worshippers from entering and praying at the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The facts, however, tell a rather different story.

First, the security measures, including the placement of the metal detectors, was not an Israeli initiative but came as a direct and necessary response to a specific terror attack. The Israeli government did not convene and take a decision to install the metal detectors in order to alter the status quo or stop Muslims from praying.

Second, it was the Palestinians who took the decision not to enter into the Temple Mount unless the metal detectors are removed. Palestinian leaders and officials the Waqf (a religious trust that manages the Temple Mount compound) were the ones who urged Muslim worshippers to stay away from the Temple Mount and hold prayers in the streets and public squares in protest against the metal detectors. The Muslim worshippers prefer to pray in the streets and public squares rather than enter the Temple Mount through metal detectors. But now the Palestinians and the Waqf are lying to the world by telling it that Israel is denying Muslims access to their holy sites.

Approximately 4,000 Palestinian Muslims pray outside the entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem, on July 19, 2017, in protest at the installation of metal detectors at the entrances to the Temple Mount. (Photo by Ilia Yefimovich/Getty Images)

The Palestinian propaganda machine is working overtime to market the false impression that the metal detectors are part of an Israeli scheme to spark a religious war with Muslims and destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. It appears, however, that quite the opposite is true. The incitement of Palestinian and Waqf officials suggests that it is they who are hell-bent on triggering a religious war with Israel and Jews.

This incitement began more than two years ago, when Palestinian and Waqf leaders started telling their people and the rest of the world that Israel was planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and that Jews visiting the Temple Mount were "defiling with their filthy feet" an Islamic holy site. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was the first to pronounce this blood libel, which triggered a wave of knife and car-ramming attacks against Israelis that continues to this day.

The three terrorists who carried out the July 14 attack were acting precisely in accordance with the instructions of Abbas and other Palestinian and Muslim leaders: that it is the duty of Muslims to defend the Al-Aqsa Mosque from Jews. In that sense, this attack should be seen in the context of the ongoing wave of terror attacks against Israel that began in late 2015 and which is known as the "Knife Intifada."

Since then, the Palestinians have been using visits by Jews to the Temple Mount as an excuse to launch terror attacks against Israel. Palestinian officials and media outlets continue to depict these peaceful visits as "violent raids by Jewish settler gangs into the Al-Aqsa Mosque." The truth, however, is that no Jew has set foot inside the mosque. The visits are restricted to tours of the Temple Mount compound -- something that non-Muslim tourists have been doing since 1968.

In reality, it is the Palestinians themselves who are desecrating the sanctity of the Temple Mount, using the site to launch violent attacks against Jews by hurling stones at Jews praying at the nearby Western Wall.

They have also been smuggling various types of weapons into the Temple Mount in order to throw firebombs and stones at Jewish visitors and policemen. The Palestinian leadership and Waqf officials have also encouraged Muslims to harass Jewish visitors and police officers by hurling insults at them.

Last year, the Palestinians thwarted a plan by Jordan to install dozens of security cameras at the Temple Mount. The cameras were supposed to refute or confirm Palestinian allegations that Israel was plotting to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Jordanians backed off from their plan after Palestinian intimidation, including the threat to destroy the cameras.

Why protest the plan? The Palestinians were afraid that their violence, harassment and amassing of weapons to attack Jewish visitors and police officers would be captured on camera.

Redux: Palestinian are twisting reality again, only this time with metal detectors. They are worried that the metal detectors will stop them from smuggling knives and firearms into the Temple Mount.
One wonders -- if the draw of the Al-Aqsa Mosque is prayer, why worry about metal detectors? Thousands of Palestinians pass every day through metal detectors on their way into Israel, and all that happens is that they get to work. Similarly, Palestinians and Israelis alike pass every day through metal detectors at shopping malls and state institutions, such as the Post Office, the National Insurance Institute, hospitals and medical centers. Where is the outcry?

The Palestinian opposition to the metal detectors at the Temple Mount means one thing only: that the Palestinians are determined to turn the holy site into a weapons cache and use it as a launching pad to carry out terror attacks against Israelis. If the mosque were then actually destroyed in the process, guess who would be blamed? Possibly that is even the real agenda. Who among the international community would like to sign off on that?

Bassam Tawil is a Muslim based in the Middle East.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10718/temple-mount-metal-detectors

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The mouth of the volcano - Nadav Shragai

by Nadav Shragai

There are plenty of signs that last week's shooting attack on the Temple Mount was part of a broader context of incitement by the outlawed Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement

The site of the terrorist shooting inside the Temple Mount compound |Photo credit: Reuters

Sheikh Raed Salah, head of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel Photo credit: Noam Rivkin-Fenton

In September 2015, two months before it was outlawed, the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, based in Umm al-Fahm, held its last demonstration under the clarion call "Al-Aqsa is in danger." 

The three murderers from the Jabarin clan who turned the Temple Mount into a bloody battlefield last week were at that demonstration. So was Alaa Ahmad Ziwad, who two months later steered his car into a crowd of civilians near Kibbutz Gan Shmuel. 

That event was the last one orchestrated by Sheikh Raed Salah, the man behind the "Al-Aqsa is in danger" blood libel. At the protest, Salah shouted -- not for the first time -- that Muslims were ready to die, to shed blood and become shahids (martyrs) for the sake of Al-Aqsa mosque, which Israel was supposedly planning to destroy. The crowd gave a thunderous, rhythmic response: "In spirit and in blood we will redeem Al-Aqsa." Later, Hamas media outlets and websites disseminated an even more radicalized version of Salah's words, paired with a battle march as a soundtrack and hard-to-forget images of terrorists, terrorist attacks and terrorist attack victims. The message was as sharp as a knife and did the trick, prompting dozens of stabbers, car rammers and shooters to set out to kill Jews and die "for the sake of Al-Aqsa." 

Many of the terrorists believed in the story originally outlined by the Grand Mufti Hajj Amin al-Husseini early in the 20th century, which said the Zionists planned to demolish the Temple Mount mosques. Salah and his partners built on that story. Many of the terrorists had been exposed to horrifying cartoons of Jews wielding axes or burning torches against the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosque or the drawings of bulldozers knocking down the Al-Aqsa compound and all its mosques. They also drank in false "information" like the fabrication about the man-made earthquakes that Israel was supposedly planning to set off around Al-Aqsa mosque as a way of bringing it down. 

The media and mentality on which the Jabarins and other terrorists from the Umm al-Fahm area were raised -- no matter whether they were members of the Islamic Movement or the Islamic State -- put Al-Aqsa mosque being "under attack" at the center of the radical religious discourse. There was little room left over for facts. Visits to the Temple Mount by Jews were portrayed as "settlers attacking the Temple Mount" and "takeover and occupation." Police activity was described as activity by the "forces of evil." The fact that Israel restricts Jews' visits to the Temple Mount, stops Jews from praying there and takes care not to carry out any archaeological excavations underneath it was in no way relevant to them.

Salah and his cohort in Umm al-Fahm, along with their partners, took a similar approach on the issue of the status quo. They repeatedly reported that Israel intended to divide the Temple Mount between Jews and Muslims, and stuck to their baseless story that the Israeli government was planning to allow Jews to pray on the Temple Mount. They described imaginary Israeli plots to burst out onto the Temple Mount from underneath, via secret tunnels, to take control of Islamic holy sites, and often illustrated the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa as a falling tear facing threatening soldiers and police officers. 

In Umm al-Fahm, like in the Palestinian refugee camps and in West Bank cities, the awareness of Al-Aqsa being "in danger" did not exist only in the incitement of preachers at the mosques. Any self-respecting school or public institution covered its walls and doors with pictures of Al-Aqsa, often marked with threatening arrows and sometimes with snakes and fire-breathing dragons that bore the Star of David and threatened to annihilate the mosques. 

For years, a well-oiled system of private transport bused operatives from the Morabiton and Morabitat groups to the Temple Mount from Umm al-Fahm and other places in the Triangle region and the Galilee where the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement had traction. The operatives received monthly salaries for their work on the Temple Mount: preventing Jews from visiting and harassing those who did come. A recent Israel Hayom report report revealed that the salaries were partly funded by Turkish and Qatari organizations. 

Where Hamas and the Northern Branch meet 

A week after the terrorist attack on the Temple Mount that left everyone shaken, the various branches of Israel's security establishment are adamant that the shooting had been locally organized, but that the same local organization -- and this is still under investigation -- might be part of a larger context. One sign of that is that one of the killers, Mohammed Jabarin, served as the muezzin of Al-Faruk mosque in Umm al-Fahm. That isn't one of the city's major mosques; it's a sort of a clan mosque associated with the Jabarins. 

The mosque's doors were open to the Islamic Movement's Northern Branch, as well, and its leaders visited there. In 2010, senior members of the Northern Branch, including Salah himself, celebrated the Prophet Mohammed's birthday there. In 2012, Salah paid another visit, and in 2014 one of the leading intellectuals of the Northern Branch and the man who formerly headed the movement's Islamic Council for religious rulings, Raed Fathi, put in two appearances. It wouldn't be farfetched to assume that the Jabarins, including the three killers, took in at least something of the Northern Branch's ideology. 

Does it really come as a surprise that the Northern Branch slid from incitement into terrorism? The Shin Bet security agency warned of that possibility before the organization was outlawed, and also that its then-open activity would move underground, and possibly turn into terrorism. 

The writing was on the wall for months. Last December, the Shin Bet ferreted out a terrorist cell that included members with ties to the Northern Branch. The cell had been planning to attack soldiers at a number of places in the Negev desert -- Dimona, Arad, and at the entrance to the Israeli Air Force base at Nabatim -- to avenge the movement having been outlawed. Two Northern Branch operatives -- one from Qalansawe and Mehmad Mitzri from Beersheba -- planned the attack. Mitzri had previously belonged to the terrorist group Shahada Al-Aqsa and served 12 years in prison for planning a terrorist attack at a wedding venue in Herzliya. Mitzri has also been caught on film standing next to Salah. 

The terrorist Masabah Abu Sabih of Silwan, known as the "elder brother of the [Hamas-linked] Shabab al-Aqsa" also had ties to the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement and gave lessons in religion on the Temple Mount. In October 2016, Sabih opened fire at a group of people waiting at a light train stop on French Hill in Jerusalem, killing two and wounding several others. Prior to that, he took part in riots and disturbances on the Temple Mount and even wrote some things that could have hinted his intentions: "Jerusalem is on the mouth of the volcano and is about to blow up. Jerusalem is beginning a revolution that is not a revolution of rocks alone." 

Only a few years ago, security forces thwarted a combined terrorist shooting and abduction that had been conceived to attack Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount. Five residents of east Jerusalem planned an attack along very similar lines to the one that was carried out last Friday. It included shooting police officers at the gates to the Temple Mount, as well as the murder of Jewish visitors. That cell had ties to Hamas as well as ideological links to the Northern Branch. 

Two years ago, the Shin Bet arrested the members of another Hamas cell who members threw Molotov cocktails at police on the Temple Mount, which at the time was considered particularly brazen. Last month, the Shin Bet arrested five Shabab Al-Aqsa member who also had plans to attack Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount. The five have already been indicted, but the details of the case are still under a gag order. 

Mosques are no longer off limits

After the attack last Friday, three members of the Muslim Waqf were arrested on suspicion of helping the Umm al-Fahm terrorists stockpile the weapons they used in the attack inside Al-Aqsa mosque. This is nothing new, either. In recent years a number of Waqf employees who were identified with Hamas and who even took part in organizing terrorist activity, have been arrested and indicted. 

Years ago, the Shin Bet thwarted a plan to make pipe bombs and use fishing line to plant them in the caper bushes that grow out of the cracks in the Western Wall. The bombs were to detonate at a time when the site was crowded, and the attack would have inflicted shrapnel wounds, mainly to the Jewish worshippers, who lean against the wall as they pray. 

Not only is the concept of a terrorist attack on the Temple Mount nothing new, attempts to smuggle weapons are old hat. In recent years, large quantities of firecrackers were smuggled into the Temple Mount in worshipers' clothing. They were later fired directly at Israeli security forces. There was one case of a bomb being smuggled onto the Temple Mount, which was luckily discovered in time. 

After last week's attack, police deployed to the Temple Mount, which was closed, and conducted a thorough clean-out. Although the details are still under a gag order, the Muslims are describing "raids on the Waqf offices, the guard posts, the clinics, the libraries, the museum and even the muezzin's position" and saying that police "broke the locks on all the wells and the locked rooms, conducted searches inside the Dome of the Rock and took the keys to some of the gates to the Temple Mount [compound] such as the Lions' Gate [and] the Mughrabi Gate ... during the night." They also report that a white van, similar to the ones used by the police special forces, "entered the [Al-Aqsa] mosque and drove around with lock-breaking equipment." 

In comparison to other countries that have been forced to confront terrorism coming out of its mosques, Israel is practically Mother Theresa. For years, it has demonstrated almost inconceivable restraint in the face of the terrorism organized inside the Temple Mount, rioting and disturbances there, and the severe incitement that has been voiced there for years. When I was researching the development of the "Al-Aqsa is in danger" story, I reviewed files from Jordan's intelligence services that had fallen into Israel's hands in the 1967 Six-Day War. Only then did I discover the draconian restrictions Jordan had placed on religious leaders at the Temple Mount. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, incidentally, has taken the same line against Hamas activity in PA mosques, removing dozens of Hamas-affiliated imams from their positions. 

Mosques elsewhere in the world are no longer taboo, either. After the 9/11 attacks, Saudi authorities took drastic action against the mosques that were sheltering operatives from al-Qaida and other terrorist groups. In July 2007, the Pakistani army raided the main mosque in Islamabad, the Red Mosque, after it became a hot spot of terrorism and incitement. 

Abbas' position on the Temple Mount issue, like that of his Fatah party, should be looked at separately. Not many people know that a near-anonymous branch of Fatah called Fatah al-Intifada claimed responsibility for Friday's Temple Mount shooting. Although the Israeli security establishment is assuming that this is nothing more than an attempt to ride the coattails of the shocking attack, which came out of Umm al-Fahm and the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement's ideology. Nevertheless, it is no coincidence that Fatah operatives jumped up in an attempt to score points from the ensuing response. 

In September 2015, Abbas himself accused Israel of aiming to divide the Temple Mount and declared: "Al-Aqsa mosque is ours. They [the Jews] have no right to defile it with their impure feet." He said at the same time that "every drop of blood shed in Jerusalem is pure, and every shahid that falls for it [Jerusalem] is a martyr who has a place in paradise." 

A Fatah spokesman in Jerusalem spoke at the time about "ongoing Israeli invasions of Al-Aqsa," in exactly the same manner as Salah and his Northern Branch. Inciting materials such as a drawing of an Israeli bulldozer demolishing the Dome of the Rock were running rampant on Fatah's culture and public relations website. After Masabah Abu Sabih's terrorist attack on Ammunition Hill in Jerusalem some two years ago, the Fatah Facebook page ran a picture of a hand holding a gun poking out of the Dome of the Rock. The incitement reached a peak with one cartoon that hinted at similarities between Israel and the Islamic State, showing Israel cutting off the head of Al-Aqsa mosque. 

Now, too, Fatah is having a hard time keeping itself in check. Jordan, on the other hand -- despite King Abdullah's moderate remarks -- has allowed itself to hurl accusations at Israel about its supposed plans to change the status quo on the Temple Mount. 

Israel purportedly "understands" the Jordanian need to showcase its credentials in front of the Muslim world by making delusional accusations against Israel. Nevertheless, and given the close cooperation between Israel and Jordan on Temple Mount issues, Israel is having a tough time accepting Jordan's game, and the matter has been brought to the king. 

Jordan and Israel have a common enemy: the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement and its ilk -- Qatar, Turkey, Hamas, and the entire Muslim Brotherhood family. Jordan has cooperated with Israel in the past to torpedo attempts by Salah to fill the water reservoirs on the Temple Mount with water from the Zamzam spring in Mecca, a plan intended to make the Temple Mount the equal of Mecca and Medina in holiness. 

Still, Israel lost its battle against the Islamic Movement, which built and uses two subterranean mosques at the Temple Mount, one in Solomon's Stables and the other beneath the Al-Aqsa Mosque itself. The Northern Branch and its sub-groups on the Temple Mount made life miserable for Israel. Israel is now facing for the first time terrorist on the Temple Mount itself that stems from the ideology of the Northern Branch. 

Another disappointment for Israel this week came from the political leadership of the Israeli Arab community. Its ineffectual condemnation of the attack, such as it was, brought us back to September 2015. Back then, the Supreme Arab Monitoring Committee, together with representatives of the Arab Knesset parties, organized a protest march against Israel's decision to outlaw the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement. Thousands of residents of Umm al-Fahm took to the streets. Anyone who recalls that might be able to understand the popularity the Northern Branch enjoys in Umm al-Fahm, even today, after the attack.

Nadav Shragai

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=44025

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

We must honor the Druze - Emily Amrousi

by Emily Amrousi

A week after two Druze police officers gave their lives defending the Temple Mount, it is incumbent upon us to bestow the highest honors on the Druze community, invest resources in their towns, and show them the kind of generosity that they have shown us.

Druze Israelis visit the shrine of Prophet Nabi Shu'ayb | Photo credit: Dror Artzi / JINI

For a week I've been feeling that I want to scream: "My Druze brothers, your grief is our grief."

The covenant between us -- one persecuted minority reaching out to assist another persecuted minority -- was sealed in blood last Friday, in a terrorist attack on our spiritual heart (Jerusalem), where Haiel Sitawe and Kamil Shnaan were stationed to defend its walls. It has been a long time since I saw all of Israel mourn this way.

You are not "friends of the state," you are citizens. But you are friends of the Jewish people. Having chosen to join your fate with ours, you deserve even more admiration than all our security forces. You didn't have to choose this way. After all, the terrorists who murdered Haiel and Kamil were also Israeli citizens, and they chose differently. Two fighters were killed while defending the state, by three citizens seeking the state's destruction.

* * *

In a green village at the foot of the Carmel

A loyal son was born to the State of Israel

He went to school, all boys

Two hours Muhammad; three hours Zionism.

He rode ahead with the blowing wind

At age 18 he joined the army

He chose an elite unit, then officers' training

His commanders were proud, he couldn't lose

They said: With the coat and the Uzi

Who could even tell he was Druze?

In Kiryat Shmona, facing fire and murder

He ran ahead of the pack, and drew his gun

He fell first as he went up the stairs

Badly hurt, his legs paralyzed.

When they took him away, they told the news:

With the blood on his coat and his Uzi,

Who could even tell he was Druze?

* * *

Yonatan Geffen's "Ballad for a Druze" contains a third, more critical verse, but the first two verses are quite accurate: The State of Israel is often blind to the Druze population's contribution and slow to show its gratitude for their sacrifices. The subpar state of infrastructure in Druze villages is an obvious example of this type of injustice.

The Druze joined the ranks of the Israel Defense Forces shortly after the establishment of the state, enlisting in mandatory duty, when they were recognized as a religious ethnicity (Israel was the only country that recognized them). But their military service was not just a show of gratitude -- even before they came under the mandatory draft, the Druze served in the IDF on a voluntary basis, under a fascinating alliance with the Jews that began as early as 1938, when they suffered persecution by the Arabs.

Some 400 fallen Druze IDF soldiers are commemorated in the Yad Labanim memorial in Daliat al-Carmel, not including the civilians who were murdered in terrorist attacks. The percentage of fallen Druze soldiers is very high in comparison to their percentage in the general population. Many of them showed extreme courage and were abundantly decorated. 

In 1972, Nabih Meri, then a youth group counselor in the Druze town of Hurfeish, demanded to enlist in the paratroopers rather than the minorities unit that existed for Druze soldiers back then. He succeeded and advanced to the rank of colonel and served as a deputy commander in Gaza. It was thanks to him that the name of the minorities unit was changed to the Cherev Battalion.

Meri reasonably argued that changing the name would boost motivation among minorities to enlist in the IDF. He was right.

When riots erupted in the Western Wall tunnels in 1996, Meri met with Palestinian officers in Gaza and promised them a truce on behalf of Israel. He then rushed back to his soldiers, who came under Palestinian fire from the direction of the Rafah crossing. The bullets were faster than he was, and he was killed instantly.

Madhat Yosef, an exceptional high school students who dreamed of attending medical school one day, followed his father's footsteps and joined the Border Police. His father had served as a border policeman for 28 years. In 2000, he fought to defend Joseph's Tomb, where a Jewish forefather who shares a name with Madhat's family is buried. The fighting was tough. A Palestinian sniper -- an Arabic speaker just like Madhat -- fired a bullet into his neck and wounded him critically. 

The Israeli military command did not send additional troops to the area to extract the wounded, opting instead to rely on the cooperation of the Palestinian security forces. Madhat's life slowly extinguished right before his friends, who did not have the tools to help him and were busy fighting. His life could have been saved, but for four hours he was left to bleed to death. Even now, 17 years later, no defense official has visited his grave to beg his forgiveness. 

When ax-wielding terrorists attacked a synagogue in Har Nof and viciously murdered five Jewish worshippers, two traffic police officers stormed the site and waged a heroic battle with the assailants. Druze officer Zidan Saif fought with the terrorists until he fell in an exchange of fire. His widow, Rinal, has kept in touch with the widows of the other victims in the attack -- ultra-Orthodox Jewish women. Blood touched blood.

* * *

During the Holocaust, 26,000 Righteous Among the Nations risked their lives to save Jews. Some 130 Arabic-speaking Righteous Among the Nations live among us today. 

Last Shabbat, in many synagogues -- Ashkenazi and Sephardi -- the policemen killed on the Temple Mount were included in the prayer. This was done in accordance with the instructions of the late Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who once ruled that when a Druze soldier is killed while defending Israel from its enemies a special prayer must be recited, as is customary for Righteous Among the Nations. 

Our shared fate ties us together -- two national minorities (the Druze rebelled against French colonialism, the Jews against the British). Our partnership is paved with military tombstones alongside cobblestones of life and success (the local school in the Druze village of Beit Jann has the country's highest matriculation scores, for example). The painful side of our partnership is the cost. 

The mourners' tents erected in Hurfeish and Maghar, the homes of the two slain police officers, may as well extend across all of Israel. Every Israeli killed in the line of duty is a "son to us all," but members of minorities who serve alongside us are even more so. It is incumbent upon us to glorify these righteous individuals, invest resources in their towns and their exceptional students and teach our own children to thank them, so that the whole world may know: Those who partner with us will be cherished and rewarded.

The nations of the world granted us a state on the assumption that it would be a democratic one, and that we would behave morally toward minorities. Our duty is to them as much as it is to ourselves. 

Our conscience should guide us to be as generous toward them as they are toward us in ways that cannot even be measured. If we want a true partnership with the country's Bedouin, Circassian, Christian and Muslim minorities, if we want to tie our blood to theirs in a shared life on this land, we need to bestow the highest honors on our country's Druze population. 

Emily Amrousi

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=44029

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The Merkava 4: Why Hezbollah Should Be Afraid—Very Afraid - Ari Lieberman

by Ari Lieberman

The lessons of the 1973 and 2006 wars.

Following the 1973 Yom Kippur War, armchair pundits determined that the age of the tank as king of the battlefield had come to an ignominious end. They argued that the introduction of anti-tank guided missiles rendered the tank obsolete. How wrong they were. Several post-war studies of the conflict demonstrated that the tank was still indispensable to modern warfare and when employed in a combined arms manner with artillery and mechanized infantry, still reigned supreme.

Israel learned many lessons from the Yom Kippur War and incorporated those lessons into the development of its own indigenous tank, the Merkava (Chariot). The Merkava 1 entered service with the Israel Defense Forces in 1978 and first saw action in 1982 during Operation Peace for Galilee when it engaged and destroyed no fewer than nine Soviet-made, Syrian T-72 tanks without sustaining a single loss. It also reportedly succeeded in downing a Syrian anti-tank helicopter with its main gun.

Since that time, the Merkava has undergone several modifications and improvements, the latest iteration of which is the Merkava 4. The Merkava 4 is considered by armored warfare experts to be among the finest tanks in the world, and in terms of crew survivability, the safest.

In the summer of 2006, Israel was forced to go to war again, this time with the notorious terrorist organization Hezbollah. On July 12, two Israeli reservists were killed and their bodies snatched during a Hezbollah cross-border attack. Israel could not allow the outrage to go unanswered and decided to launch an offensive against Hezbollah. Nearly 400 Merkava tanks, mostly of the older II and III variants, were haphazardly deployed in the latter stages of the 34-day conflict.

During the course of the war, Hezbollah guerrillas fired thousands of anti-tank missiles – from the first generation Sagger to the highly advanced Kornet – at static Israeli infantry and tanks but only succeeding in damaging some 40 tanks and of these, there were only 20 penetrations. Despite these encouraging numbers, so-called experts began to once again challenge the utility of the tank and its place in modern warfare.

IDF planners saw things differently. They went back to the drawing board in an effort to draw conclusions from the performance of the Merkava and tactics employed by its crew members.

With at least 1/3 of its fighting force permanently stationed in Syria, the probability of Hezbollah initiating war against Israel in the near future is low. Even in the absence of the Syrian conflict, Hezbollah will soon not forget the thrashing it took at the hands of the IDF during the 2006 campaign. Nevertheless, most experts agree that the next Lebanon war is not a question of if, but when, and when it does begin, Israel’s latest Merkava variant, the vaunted Merkava 4 will be in the thick of it.

The Merkava 4 incorporates many sophisticated design features including advanced electro optics that ensure a 100% first-hit kill capability from its formidable 120mm smooth-bore gun. The Merkava also features an internally operated 60mm mortar to deal with missile-armed infantry. The Merkava is also capable of firing the long-rang, third generation LAHAT laser homing, guided missile from its main gun, an advantage lacking in the Merkava’s contemporaries. Another feature possessed by the Merkava but lacking in its competitors is the ability to accommodate up to eight infantry soldiers or three litter patients.

But among its most outstanding features is its emphasis on crew safety and ability to negate anti-tank missile threats. The tank, whose well-sloped armor is composed of advanced spaced and composite materials, is arguably the best protected in the world.

Unlike other tank designs, the Merkava’s 1,500hp diesel engine is located in the front, providing the crew with an additional layer of protection from frontal hits. Learning from past experience, the Merkava’s vulnerable underbelly was up-armored to provide additional protection against anti-tank mines and Iranian supplied explosively formed projectiles (EFP), which have been used to devastating effect by Iraqi and Afghan insurgents against American forces, claiming no fewer than 500 American lives. In addition, the Merkava 4’s armor is modular, allowing for quick battlefield repair and tailoring the armor for the tank’s mission-specific purposes.

But perhaps the Merkava’s most outstanding feature is its use of the Trophy active self-protection missile defense system, which acts like the tank’s personal Iron Dome missile defense shield. The system is designed to shoot down incoming missiles before the projectile reaches the tank’s armor. The IDF is the first military to deploy such a platform and all Merkava 4s and Namer (leopard) and Eytan armored personnel carriers (APC) are equipped with it. The United States Army is currently testing the Trophy system for use and adoption in its M1A2 Abrams tanks and other armored fighting vehicles such as the Stryker wheeled APC and the Bradley tracked APC.

The Trophy’s first baptism under fire occurred on March 1, 2011 when it successfully intercepted an RPG-29 anti-tank rocket fired by a Hamas terrorist from Gaza. Three years later, during Operation Protective Edge, the system proved itself again, shooting down no less than five anti-tank missiles fired by Hamas terrorists. Not a single Merkava tank was damaged thus depriving the enemy of any psychological or propaganda victory.

But the Trophy is more than just a missile interceptor. It simultaneously calculates the trajectory of the incoming rocket to determine the location of the source of fire and instantly transmits the coordinates by interfacing with another Israeli innovation known as the Tzayad battle management system. Soldiers in the theater or aerial platforms hovering above are instantly apprised of the enemy’s position and can quickly engage the belligerent seconds later. This seamless integration of battlefield technology has dramatically reduced the sensor to shoot cycle, enabling rapid elimination of the enemy.

While war with Hezbollah is not likely on the horizon due to the terror group’s efforts to prop up Assad, any miscalculation by Hezbollah in underestimating Israeli resolve, such as that which occurred in July 2006, can trigger a massive conflagration. When that occurs, it’s a sure bet that Israel’s fleet of formidable Merkava 4s will be at the tip of the spear.

Ari Lieberman

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267342/merkava-4-why-hezbollah-should-be-afraid%E2%80%94very-ari-lieberman

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

A national seismograph - Dror Eydar

by Dror Eydar

As I wrote this week, the real issue is sovereignty over the Temple Mount.

In this period, known as the three weeks (beginning with the 17th of Tammuz fast that marks the day when the walls of Jerusalem were breached by the Romans in 69 C.E., and ending with the 9th of Av fast that marks the day that both Temples were destroyed), the Jews are not the only ones reflecting on the destruction and rebuilding of Jerusalem. The entire world is turning its eyes to Jerusalem, wondering what will become of the metal detectors installed at the entrance to the Temple Mount compound. 

As I wrote this week, the real issue is sovereignty over the Temple Mount. The Muslims realize that the Jews' struggle to return to Zion focuses on Zion -- Jerusalem -- and its crown jewel, the Temple Mount, where our Temple once stood, symbolizing our independence. 

The Christians left the Temple Mount in ruins to "prove" that God had abandoned his chosen people and had chosen them instead, because the Jews rejected Jesus' messianic (and divine) status. This view is known as "replacement theology" -- the principle at the foundation of religious anti-Semitism. Fortunately, the Christian world is increasingly rejecting this ideology. 

The Muslims also used the Temple Mount in their own version of replacement theology. The Muslim version maintains that the Prophet Muhammad was the last prophet and that Islam is the only true faith -- anyone who does not yield to it is considered an infidel. 

After the Muslims conquered Jerusalem in 638 C.E., the Dome of the Rock was built where the Jewish temples had once stood to symbolize that Islam was the "legitimate" heir of the Jewish people's faith. When the Jews returned to Zion in recent history, the Temple Mount became a source of contention. It acts as a sort of seismograph, measuring the Jewish state's progress in settling the land and making its deserts bloom and ultimately enforcing its sovereignty over the land. In these three weeks, we would do well to recall Nathan Alterman's prophecy in 1941, while the Nazis began to close in on the gates of the Land of Israel, in his opus "The Joy of the Poor": "For between the straits, it is not the ones who besiege, but the ones who are besieged who know happiness." 

We are only beginning the process. We must have patience.

Dror Eydar

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=19485

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Temple Mount attack-the demise of the “1-state” theory - Dr. Martin Sherman

by Dr. Martin Sherman

Hat tip: Dr. Jean-Charles Bensoussan

After seven decades living under Israeli sovereignty, and over half a century after military rule over the Arab population was abolished, anti-Israel enmity is alive and kicking among Israeli Arabs.

Extending Israeli sovereignty over Judea-Samaria (and eventually over the Gaza Strip) is indeed a necessary condition for ensuring the ability of Israel to endure as the nation state of the Jewish people. It is, however, not a sufficient condition to ensure that worthy objective.  In fact, without additional complementary measures, such an initiative on its own is very likely to imperil Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel…in its entirety on both sides of the pre -1967 Green Line. “The Humanitarian Paradigm”, Sovereignty Journal (No. 8), March, 2017.

Last Friday, three non-Jewish terrorists gunned down two-non-Jewish policemen to express their hatred of the Jewish state.

And yet while many condemned the heinous deed, expressing shock, dismay, and opprobrium at the brutal desecration of the Temple Mount, no one really found it bewilderingly inexplicable or staggeringly aberrant.  After all, Judeocidal Arab hatred has always defied rational explanation.

Extinguishing hopes for one-state formula

No less perverse was the fact that the alleged cause of the killers’ homicidal urge was purported to be the “Occupation”, despite the fact that none of the perpetrators were subject to any form of “Occupation”—as they were all Israeli citizens,  with full civil rights.

But beyond the human tragedy, the hail of bullets that cut short the lives of the two Druze police officers from the Galilee, Hayil Satawi and Kamil Shanaan, inflicted an additional casualty.

For they conclusively cut down any residual credibility that the proposal for a one-state formula—especially as touted by “right wing” pundits—might still have had. Indeed, it totally extinguished any lingering hopes that some kind of coherent, cohesive society could be forged if Israel were to annex Judea-Samaria—and incorporate its Palestinian Arabs into Israel’s permanent population.

As I have written elsewhere, “It would require more than a gigantic leap of unsubstantiated faith to believe that such a measure could precipitate any result other than “Lebanonization” of Israel.”   (For good order’s sake—and to cite New York Times columnist, the late A. M. Rosenthal—“Lebanonization  refers to the [situation] within a single country so riven with religious and other disputes that [it] becomes impossible to govern.” 

Downplaying the danger

Typically one-state proponents seem unaware, or unperturbed, by this unpalatable prospect. Thus, one prominent one-stater sees the process of imposing Israeli sovereignty over Judea-Samaria and its Arab residents as “fairly straightforward”. According to this upbeat prescription: “Israel will apply its laws to Judea and Samaria and govern the areas as normal parts of Israel…Contingent on security concerns…Palestinians will have the right to travel and live anywhere they wish within Israeli territory…Palestinians will have the same legal and civil rights as the rest of the residents and citizens of Israel… Those that receive Israeli citizenship in accordance with Israel’s Citizenship Law will also be allowed to vote in national elections for the Knesset.” 

Thus one-state advocates have tried to dismiss the potential for inter-ethnic strife, suggesting that “an Israeli assertion of central authority over the areas [of Judea-Samaria] will likely have a significant moderating impact. Once the population feels there is a central governing authority in place, that sense of order will likely neutralize a significant amount of opposition momentum spurred by anti-Israel animus.”

Clearly, the events on the Temple Mount last Friday shatter the foundations of any such belief.  
After all, the gunmen’s conduct—and the reticent reaction of the Israeli-Arab leadership—clearly indicates that, after seven decades of living under Israeli sovereignty, and over half a century after military rule over the Arab population was abolished, “anti-Israel animus” is alive and kicking even among Israeli Arabs—despite decades of “Israeli assertion of central authority”.

Not an isolated incident

Moreover, while Judeophobic terror attacks by Israeli-Arabs are not a frequent occurrence, neither are they virtually unheard of rarities.

Thus for example, on New Year’s Day, 2016, an Israeli-Arab from the village of Arara, just south of Umm al Fahm, the town from which last Friday’s killers hailed, opened fire with an automatic weapon on a crowd in a Tel Aviv pub, killing two and wounding almost ten. The shooter also murdered an Israeli-Arab taxi driver in his attempt to escape.

Significantly, he was provided  shelter and logistic support from residents of the village, with whom he discussed plans for additional attacks.

Barely, two months later, two teenage females from the city of Ramle in central Israel, attacked a security guard with large knives, admitting: “we came to kill Jews”.

However, as distressing as these and other individual acts of terror might be,  no less disturbing is the reaction of the Israeli-Arab Establishment, including its elected political leadership and prominent civil society organizations.

Reflecting the ambivalent Arab attitude towards lethal attacks by their kinfolk on the Jewish state, was the vague and equivocal condemnation of the Temple Mount attack by the Arab leadership in Israel. 

Indeed, it was so reticent and reluctant that it even provoked a flash of ire from our meticulously politically-correct President, Reuven Rivlin. 

Collaborating with terror?

Referring to the lack of any unambiguous denunciation of the deed almost three days after it was perpetrated, an exasperated Rivlin declared:  “The silence and the feeble responses from some Arab political leaders are outrageous…Terrorism must be denounced unconditionally”, adding. “Anyone who doesn’t denounce terrorism is collaborating with it.”

Of course, in recent years there have been far more explicit examples of an elected Israeli-Arab politician   brazenly collaborating with terror.  Perhaps the most blatant was that of former Knesset member of the Balad faction in the Joint (Arab) List, Basel Ghattas. 

Ghattas, a Christian Arab Israeli, from the town of Rameh in the Galilee, was jailed,  after he was filmed, abusing his parliamentary privileges, smuggling  mobile phones, SIM cards and other items to convicted terrorists in prison for involvement in lethal attacks against Israelis. Despite his sentencing for violation of the Terror Law, Ghattas remained unapologetic, expressing neither remorse nor regret for his actions.

But his was not the only display of identification of elected Arab lawmakers with mortal enemies of the country in whose legislature they serve.

In February 2016, three members of the Joint (Arab) List met with the families of terrorists to express condolences and identification  with their suffering, even referring to terrorists who killed three passengers on a bus in Jerusalem as shaheeds (martyrs). 

“Never miss an opportunity to support terror…”

Another Arab MK, Jamal Zahalka, has openly identified with the Palestinians’ armed resistance against Israel and publicly called for Arabs to prevent Jews from visiting Judaism’s most holy site by “all means” and at “all costs”. 

Hanin Zoabi is of course another Arab lawmaker, who has been conspicuous in her continual expression of anti-Israel enmity over the years, including her 2010 participation aboard the infamous Mavi Marmara, in the attempt to breach the maritime quarantine imposed on the terrorist ruled enclave of Gaza.

In light of these and other manifestation of borderline sedition it is not difficult to understand the caustic censure of Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, who reacted to the ongoing identification with the enemy with fury:"…the Arab MKs don't miss a single opportunity to support terror.”

Regrettably, the response of Israeli-Arab civil society organizations gives no less cause for concern.  

Thus in the immediate wake of the Temple Mount attack, an organization named  Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights , perversely called for the investigation of….the Israeli police, who swiftly shot the attackers, preventing further casualties !!  

So  rather than express shock at the defilement of the holy site by the actions of Arab terrorists, and raising questions as to how similar incidents can be avoided, Adalah, generously funded by the US based “New Israel Fund” demanded  an “immediate probe of police killings of [the] Al Aqsa Mosque shooting suspects.”  

Obscuring Arab malfeasance  

Accordingly,  instead of focusing on the murderous actions of the Israeli-Arab perpetrators, Adalah purposely tried to divert attention to the reactions of those who cut their homicidal spree short. 

In a transparent attempt to obscure Arab malfeasance, while denigrating the preventative response by Israeli forces, it writes with unabashed gall:  "the incident raises serious questions regarding police personnel's compliance with very detailed open-fire regulations”.

This anti-Israel sentiment is reflected in pervasive—albeit, as yet, inert—bias in the general Israeli Arab public.   This dormant anti-Zionist proclivity is clearly evident in a 2013 poll conducted by Prof. Sami Smoocha, under the auspices of the University of Haifa and the Israel Democracy Institute, both of whom are decidedly on the Left of the Israeli political spectrum. According to the findings of the study:  55.9% of [Israeli] Arabs resigned themselves to Israel as a state, with a Jewish majority… 

However, as Smoocha points out: “resignation... does not mean preference… the Arabs prefer a binational state to a Jewish and democratic state. [N]or does it imply justification of the status quo, since 69.6% of the Arab respondents think that it is not justified that Israel maintains a Jewish majority….” 

Ominously, he observes: “The proportion of Arabs denying Israel’s right to exist as a state was… 11.2% in 2003, and 24.5% in 2012.  82.2% of the Arabs in 2012 accused Jews of the Nakba [the “catastrophe” of Jewish victory in the 1948 Independence War]…”

Gloomily, he notes: “The percentage of Arabs holding accommodating and compromising stances has been steadily decreasing and has shrunk to a minority.” 

One-statism: The Writing on the wall

Should any further evidence be required as to the dire consequences of a dramatic increase in Israel’s Arab population, they were provided by the results of the 2015 elections, when virtually to a man—and fully enfranchised woman—the Arab sector voted for the vehemently anti-Zionist Joint List. This is a party made up of a motley mélange of communists-cum radical Islamist-cum-leftwing Arab nationalists, whose only unifying factor is their fierce rejection of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

Indeed, the political DNA of the Joint List is so rabidly opposed to the Jewish state that it refused to sign a surplus vote sharing agreement even with the far-left Meretz party, because it was still a “Zionist” faction, vividly underscoring its obdurate repudiation of the right of Jews to a state of their own, repudiation, which it seems, Israeli-Arabs endorsed virtually unanimously.

Today, the Joint List – with 13 seats—is the third largest party in the Knesset, with Israel’s (potentially recalcitrant) Arab population within the pre-1967 “Green Line” now at around 20%. Accordingly, little imagination is needed to grasp the dramatic impact—socially, economically, politically—of doubling it to around 40%.—by extending Israeli sovereignty to Judea-Samaria to incorporate  the Arab residents in the country’s permanent population (assuming the optimistic demographers are right). 

One-statism: The Demographic dilemma

The Temple Mount incident, together with the pervasive anti-Zionist sentiment in the Israeli Arab sector,  underscores just how unfounded the optimism of one-staters is that: “Once the population feels there is a central governing authority in place, that sense of order will likely neutralize a significant amount of opposition momentum spurred by anti-Israel animus.”

Indeed, if anything, quite the opposite is true: Reinforced by a huge increase in numbers, the anti-Israel animosity is likely to be commensurately enhanced.

If Israel has no program to significantly reduce the Arab presence in its sovereign territory, it will face a searing demographic dilemma. It can either (a) enfranchise the bulk of the newly annexed Arab population within a reasonable timeline; or (b) it can deny them such enfranchisement. 

If it opts for the latter, Israel will inevitably become an undeniable apartheid state—withholding political representation largely on ethnic grounds.  As such it is likely to be subjected to crippling international censure and sanctions, imperiling its ability to survive.If it opts for the former, it will create a very real danger that the anti-Zionist elements will become the dominant political force in the country, with the Arab vote potentially reaching 25 seats—making it possibly one of the two largest parliamentary factions. If they team up with the radical anti/post Zionist Left, its ability to advance anti-Zionist initiatives will be formidable…

And this is only the tip of the proverbial “iceberg”…which is why I warned (see introductory excerpt): “Extending Israeli sovereignty over Judea-Samaria  is indeed a necessary condition for ensuring the ability of Israel to endure as the nation state of the Jewish people...but without additional complementary measures, such an initiative on its own is very likely to imperil Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel… on both sides of the pre -1967 Green Line”.To be continued…


Dr. Martin Sherman served for seven years in operational capacities in the Israeli Defense establishment, was ministerial adviser to Yitzhak Shamir's government and lectured for 20 years at Tel Aviv University in Political Science, International Relations and Strategic Studies. He has a B.Sc. (Physics and Geology), MBA (Finance), and PhD in political science and international relations, was the first academic director of the Herzliya Conference and is the author of two books and numerous articles and policy papers on a wide range of political, diplomatic and security issues. He is founder and executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies (www.strategicisrael.org). Born in South Africa,he has lived in Israel since 1971.

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/20774

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.