opinion: stephen m. flatow

‘Savage’ is too kind a word

Posted

After a Palestinian civil engineering student was revealed on Aug. 2 to be the terrorist arrested for plotting a large-scale attack on Jerusalem’s light rail in revenge for Jews visiting the Temple Mount, everyone’s natural reaction to the terrorist’s capture was to breathe a sigh of relief, feel a sense of gratitude to the quick-thinking security guards who caught him, and turn the page.

But before turning our attention away from this latest near-miss, let’s pondering a few lessons:

Lesson #1: It’s not the “occupation.”

Would-be bomber Ali Abu Hasan is a resident of the town of Beit Ula, six miles northwest of Hebron. Like 99 percent of Palestinians, he lives under the rule of the Palestinian Authority (PA), not Israel. Former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin withdrew Israel’s forces from Beit Ula way back in 1995. This means that Hasan has lived literally his entire life under Palestinian, not Israeli, occupation.

Lesson #2: It’s not about borders or settlements, either.

Hasan said his intention was “revenge against tourists and Jews who visit the Temple Mount.” He wasn’t demanding a Palestinian state, or an Israeli return to the pre-1967 borders, or an end to Israeli construction beyond the ‘Green Line.’ He told the Israeli police that his beef is the fact that a tiny number of “tourists and Jews” occasionally visit Judaism’s holiest site, the Temple Mount, where the Al-Aqsa Mosque is located.

Keep in mind that non-Muslims who visit the Temple Mount are prohibited by the police from praying there. And unlike the Muslims on the Temple Mount, the non-Muslim visitors do not throw rocks and firebombs at the police, or engage in other types of dangerous or unruly behavior. They don’t make noise. They don’t bother anybody. All they do is briefly walk around the area and look at it. The mere presence of non-Muslims in the vicinity inflames Ali Abu Hasan and his ilk.

Lesson #3: Poverty does not cause terrorism.

Page 1 / 3