The current wave of Palestinian terror attacks against Israeli targets presents a particularly difficult challenge. For one thing, the seemingly self-motivated, discrete acts by one or two terrorists hailing from disparate locations without centralized coordination means it’s almost impossible to get a handle on the perpetrators as in past intifadas.
And the young age of the perpetrators means that most are not on any list of dangerous individuals, which would at least provide police tangible information to work with. Nor are Israel’s justifiably vaunted intelligence agencies able to identify and infiltrate any relevant infrastructure or capitalize on bribing local Palestinians for information.
Under the circumstances, Prime Minister Netanyahu has adopted policies that seem to be the only practical way of protecting Israeli citizens. Thus, he has ordered tough police responses to attacks despite the young age of the attackers and substantially widened the parameters under which the homes of perpetrators’ families can be demolished.
He has also sharply criticized Palestinian authorities for inciting the attacks either by exhortation or failure to condemn, and debunked the notion that the attackers are acting out of disappointment with the pace of movement toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.
To our mind, there should also be serious efforts by the Israeli government to force the PA to end its practice of granting stipends to the families of slain and imprisoned terrorists. And we concur with the urging of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations that the Obama administration “demand that Palestinian officials act decisively” to curb the current attacks as a condition for further U.S. aid. There is plenty the U.S. can do to calm things down.
But we have yet to hear any senior Palestinian official urge an end to the attacks. Indeed, it should not be forgotten that the current wave of terror stems from a bogus claim by Palestinian leaders that Israel was about to take control of the Al-Aqsa mosque. Indeed, PA President Mahmoud Abbas exhorted Palestinians: “Al Aqsa Mosque is ours. The [Jews] have no right to defile it with their filthy feet…. We bless every drop of blood spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood, blood spilled for Allah.”
This incendiary message cannot be left to stand.