Driven by despair

The attack on a Jerusalem synagogue last week gives a micro image of life in Palestine for the next few decades unless Israel ends its policy of occupation, aggression and political arrogance. 

Although the act has been condemned by many religious scholars, who see Islam as forbidding the killing of anybody in places of worship, whether synagogues or churches, the Jordanian people glorified the two perpetrators as heroes and martyrs who took the appropriate revenge for Israel’s provocations against Al Aqsa Mosque.

The future of Jerusalem within the next 20 years is exemplified by the young Arabs who feel frustrated, humiliated and marginalised. They feel they will lose nothing by killing American or British rabbis since their Palestine is occupied, and their holy mosque will be replaced by the Third Jewish Temple.

What should be done to prevent a repeat of the massacre in Har Nof? 

The answer is a new courageous political initiative from Israel, along with a strategic security foresight to accommodate the “lone wolves” in ways similar to what happened following the first and second Intifadas.

The security option will not stop a lone wolf operation against Jewish targets in the days ahead.

The only deterrence is to give the new generations some hope that the current state of oppression will come to an end soon. But with the daily mushrooming of new settlements and arrival of new Likudniks, despair is the driving force behind those suicide bombers whose culture glorifies their acts as heroism.

The violence that took place in Jerusalem did not spread to other parts of the West Bank due to the fact that Palestinians there still have some hope that they will eventually get their political rights. But in Jerusalem, they feel trapped in a dead-end corner, with the current political leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu jamming all hopes for any decent, respectful coexistence in the future between Arabs and Israelis in Jerusalem. 

In the Chinese book of war a strategy is laid down: “Before killing a terrorist, kill his motivations.”

Israel should abide by UN Security Council resolutions, end its occupation of Palestinian territories and develop a political initiative to accommodate living with its Arab neighbours.

As Israeli journalist Eitan Haber wrote: “Even in case of true peace between Israel and the Arab world, there will always be an individual or a group that will take the road of terror... These days, even a nail file is a weapon. Definitely a penknife. A knife. An axe too. The problem is not the terrorists’ weapons. Our problem is their motivation, the urge to go out and commit the dreadful act. It’s almost ridiculous to suggest that we conduct a house-to-house search in the villages of the territories and even in the villages of Israel’s minorities. There is hardly a single house which doesn’t have some kind of weapon in it.”

Netanyahu’s coercive security measures will only generate more carnage.