In the Face of Savagery, What Do You Do?

Here’s an instance of how good-for-its-own-sake works. And how utterly different it is from the evil that has so many of our neighbours in a vice-like hold – an evil that certainly includes bogus ‘opponents’ of terror like Mahmoud Abbas, the president (ten years after being elected to a four year term of office) of the Palestinian Authority and still the central figure in Fatah, the PLO and a large part of the Palestinian Arab terror industry. In the past several weeks, those of us who watch closely for this kind of thing have witnessed a crescendo of Islam-based calls from the organizations over which Abbas presides, calling for blood to be spilled in pursuit of an Arab Jerusalem.

• Hassan Al-Saifi, an official in the PA Ministry of Religious Affairs condemning “the continuing Israeli desecration of Al-Aqsa” and declaring that Jerusalem “needs the religious scholars in particular to fulfill their duty, rush to Jerusalem and offer sacrifices and blood” [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, the daily house newspaper published by Abbas’ PA, November 14, 2014, quoting an official in the PA’s Ministry of Religious Affairs, recorded by Palestinian Media Watch here]
• “They are the ones who heard the call of Yasser Arafat, while the Arab and Islamic nation ignored his call… They came out with their weapons, with their true belief that Jerusalem needs blood to purify itself of Jews.” [A Fatah official, Muhammad Al-Biqa’i, invoking blessings on murderous terrorists, interviewed on the PA’s wholly-owned and authoritative TV channel, November 7, 2014, and captured on video, translated into English by Palestinian Media Watch here]
• “Not a centimeter of  Jerusalem will be liberated unless every grain of Palestinian soil is soaked in the blood of its brave people… For Jerusalem doesn’t need negotiations, because negotiations will not bring Jerusalem back to us.” [Fatah official and member of its Central Committee Tawfiq Tirawi, speaking on camera at a public event in December 2013, translated to English by PMW here] Tirawi means it. This week, he said of the massacre in Har Nof: “I consider the Jerusalem operation to be a natural response to the occupation and the crimes of the settlers.”
• By the blood of the youth, Jerusalem will come back to us… We’ll free every inch from the foreigner’s clutch” – A child performing a song on government-controlled PA Television, September 8, 2012: the video clip with English subtitles is here.
  

  Australia’s ambassador to Israel, His Excellency Mr Dave Sharma

  Here is a very different take on the role of blood in today’s Jerusalem. It focuses on a diplomat who we believe brings genuine honour to his country and his role. (We wrote about him back in September as well.)

  Following the horrendous terrorist attack at a Synagogue during morning prayers in Har Nof, Jerusalem, some diplomats stationed in Israel expressed their countries’ condemnation. None of them however acted as quickly or as decisively as Dave Sharma, the Australian Ambassador. Wasting no time after the murders, he issued a strong statement deploring the terror outrage and then decided that something more than mere expressions of regret were called for on this occasion. The Ambassador swiftly arranged to make the one hour trip from Tel Aviv to Israel’s Capital and visit the wounded at Hadassah University, Ein Karem Campus in order to not only show solidarity with the wounded but to also express Australia’s outrage at this latest manifestation of irrational hatred against Israelis…  I caught up with him in another part of the hospital where Dave was demonstrating true Australian grit and solidarity. He was at the blood bank of the hospital, not only helping to provide badly needed blood but showing in practical ways that diplomacy can be more than just empty gestures… It gave him the opportunity to do something positive and practical in the face of fanatical evil… Groups of charedi young men, waiting to donate blood, came up to us and upon hearing that the Australian Ambassador had done the same, showered him with blessings and encouragement… [From a report by Michael Kuttner published by Jwire, an Australian online news service, today.]

  What do you do? There’s always something you can do.