Upon reading the terrorist's claim that he was doing it to protect Al-Aksa mosque after what the Zionists are doing (i.e. installing metal detectors), my first reaction was to think, If only they had not put up the metal detectors, then these people would still be alive! But, of course, it's not so simple. In the long run, capitulating to such things does not necessarily serve to protect more lives. Israel is not the West, where compromise leads to peace; instead, compromise is often seen as weakness, spurring on further hostilities. On the other hand, it was certainly a lesson to me in that it's so easy to call for Bibi to take a harder line when you don't actually have to face the potential consequences.
I don't have anything more to add right now. May Hashem heal the wounded survivors of the attack, may He comfort the family, and may He avenge the dead. And may we never hear of such things again.
This violence has NOTHING to do with metal detectors. It really has nothing to do with the "status quo" on the Temple Mount. The problem is the existence of a Jewish state which is viewed as abhorrent by not only by the Palestinians but the whole Arab world as well.Unfortunately, there are parallels now with what happened in 1987 when the first recent terror wave, mistakenly called "Intifada I" started. At the time, there had been a long period of quiet on the West Bank and Gaza, and an Arab summit meeting was held and the Palestinian issue was pushed aside.
ReplyDeleteToday, also there has been a fairly long period of relative quiet, and again, the Palestinian issue has been pushed aside, both by the Europeans and the Sunni Arab leadership as well.
However, today, there are major differences. First, in 1987, there was still belief that if only Israel would talk to Arafat and make concessions to him, then there could be peace. No one believes that peace is possible with the Palestinian leadership, which is divided between FATAH/West Bank and HAMAS/Gaza in any event. Secondly, the Chief of Staff in 1987 was Dan Shomron, the hero of Entebbe. While he may have been a brilliant commander of commando troops, he was apparently out of his element regarding mass Palestinian violence because he kept insisting that "there is no military solution" (Ehud Barak later became Chief of Staff and did put an end to it). Secondly, Israel's leadership was divided between Labor and Likud in a misnamed "national unity" government, which actually was a government of paralysis. The gov't felt very vulnerable to American pressure, and the Americans at the time were also believing in some sort of "peace process" so there was massive pressure not to crack down on the violence. Thus, it went on for something like three years and far more Arabs were killed than had the gov't taken decisive action at the beginning.
I just read that Minister Tzachi HaNegbi has warned the Palestinians that they are facing a new "Nakba" (his word) if they want things to spin out of control. Abbas' corrupt and inefficient Palestinian Authority would very well be a victim of spiraling violence, and even in Gaza, where the situation of the civilian population is constantly deteriorating, the HAMAS regime might pay the price, as much as they want there to be violence.
During this sensitive period of the 3 Weeks, I suggest we all pray for our leadership which we hope will have the wisdom to deal with this situation, and for G-d to protect our holy security forces as well as our civilian population, and not repeat the disastrous mistakes of the past.
I also don't understand the logic of not insisting on metal detectors--Terrorists definitely used the Temple Mount as a place to stash away the weapons used in a terror attack.
DeleteThere is no justification for the anger in the Muslim world, especially considering that Mecca also has metal detectors installed to thwart terror attacks--by Muslims against Muslims!
--Yehudah P.
As the possuk says, I am for peace but when I speak, they are for war.
ReplyDeleteWhat irks me the most is even thinking for a second that there is a reason behind this barbaric attack. Metal detectors?! Seriously? Like an Arab needs an excuse to murder. They have been murdering for thousands of years. And for the Israeli government to even entertain the idea makes the whole discussion laughable in the eyes of the Arab world. Once again we play into the Arab shtuyot. And the media of course will take bait and start focusing on the issue of metal detectors etc like they did when Ariel Sharon "sparked a wave of violence" after visiting the Temple Mount back into 2000. What shtuyot.
ReplyDeleteI have to say, I am always surprised to hear people say, like you did above, "My first thought was, if they had ONLY not put in those metal detectors..."
ReplyDeleteTell me, do you wake up in the morning and think, "IF ONLY we had not returned to this land, there would be such happiness in the world!!"??
"If only they had not put up the metal detectors, then these people would still be alive!" Not a very rational response. On the contrary it's really very simple. Metal detectors caused these terrorist attacks? Seriously?? The Muslim riots of 1929 resulted in a massacre of 133 Jews, long before there was any Israeli sovereignty at the Al Aqsa mosque and before there was any Israel. Did this cowardly stabbing attack happen because we installed a metal detector? Or are the metal detectors preventing more attacks, like the one last week when weapons were smuggled into the mosque?
ReplyDelete"In the long run, capitulating to such things does not necessarily serve to protect more lives." No, capitulating to such things DOES necessarily endanger more lives.
Actually, it's exactly how the-late Shimon Peres described, repeatedly, Israelis living in Yehuda, Shomron, and Gaza; "Obstacles to Peace", he called them, "if they hadn't been there, it wouldn't have happened."
Deletebest article I have read on the cause of arab terror against jews
ReplyDeletehttp://david-collier.com/the-arab-with-the-knife-and-the-murder-of-the-jew-100-years-of-excuses/
Things always go in perfect way when you make them to happen in positive way like what you thought with these lines "it was certainly a lesson to me in that it's so easy to call for Bibi to take a harder line when you don't actually have to face the potential consequences."
ReplyDeleteWhat???
DeleteHere are my thoughts: http://haemtza.blogspot.com/2017/07/savage-murderers-and-what-to-do-about.html
ReplyDeleteOne thing physicians hate is having elderly patients asking them to make difficult decisions for them and when the physician demurs, saying "well what would you say if I was your mother?"
ReplyDeleteThe answer is: if you were my mother, I would be asked your doctor what he thinks, not making the decision myself.
Yes, Bibi has to make the hard decisions and the consequences don't impact him directly. If they did, he'd make decisions out of simple self-interest and ignore the national situation completely.
"Israel is not the West, where compromise leads to peace; instead, compromise is often seen as weakness, spurring on further hostilities."
ReplyDeleteWhen Jews go to Israel and are confronted daily with what monstrous tissue of lies liberalism is, they try to rationalize it by constructing bizarre contorted schemes in which reality functions differently in the Middle East. They then get sad when westerners refuse to believe them.
If you incentivize terrorism, you get more terrorism. In Israel, in the West, everywhere. Ever since 1967, powerful factions in Israel backed by the US have been incentivizing terrorism, so we get a lot of it. It's not complicated.
It would be trivially easy to stop all Palestinian terror. Possibly we can't do it because the US won't let us, but, if so, we should be open about that fact and admit our abject situation. And, in the meantime, we might as well at least ask.
Metal detectors a problem? No way! Metal detectors don't stop people from worshipping, they just stop people from committing violence with metal implements. The real issue, in my opinion, is sovereignty. The rioters object to Israel exerting its power to change something about territory that Arabs consider to be Arab territory. That goes as much for the entire land of Israel as for the Temple Mount. The problem goes back to letting Arabs have any reason to think they're in charge there at all.
ReplyDeleteKudos to the Nephew of Rabbi Slifkin - he saved some lives.
ReplyDeleteThe Palestinians don’t need an excuse to kill Israeli Jews.
Any logical, reasonable rational human will support the metal detectors and the world should fully support Israel’s decision to make the area SAFE FOR ALL. I do and Israel has to put it foot down.
ACJA
Rabbi Slifkin, do you think it was wise to publicize the fact that this soldier is your nephew? That presumably makes it fairly easy to identify him, and my understanding is that the IDF prefers to avoid publishing identifying details of soldiers in commando units (or in certain other sensitive units). As far as I can tell, none of the published photos of him show his face.
ReplyDelete