Throughout the month of Ramadan, the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority and Hamas have been inciting Arab Israelis in Jerusalem and throughout the country to attack Jews. And so it happened that at the outset of the month, Jews in Jerusalem, Jaffa and beyond found themselves beset by gangs of Arab thugs who beat them on the streets and light-rail cars just because they were Jews.
Last week, Hamas’s leaders announced their detailed plans to open a new campaign against Israel on May 9. May 9 was a conflation of three events: Jerusalem Day—Israel’s national holiday celebrating the unification of Jerusalem in 1967; The holiest day to Muslims of the month of Ramadan; and Iran’s own Jerusalem Day, whose purpose is to call for the destruction of Israel and end Jewish rule in Jerusalem.
Hamas’s leaders put everything on the table, and events progressed precisely according to the plans the terror bosses set out in their public announcements. The combination of Arab violence in Sheikh Jarrah, at Damascus Gate and the Temple Mount, along with balloon bombs and rocket launches against Israel from Gaza, arson and terrorist attacks in Judea and Samaria are precisely what Hamas’s leaders said would transpire.
Fatah, for its part, has been a full participant in the violence. Fatah’s office in Nablus publicly took credit for the drive-by shooting of three Jewish students at a bus stop in Samaria last Monday. The Fatah terrorist critically wounded two of the young men, one of whom died of his wounds three days later.
According to the readout of the conversation that the U.S. National Security Council spokesman posted, among other things, Sullivan “reiterated the United States’ serious concerns about the potential evictions of Palestinian families from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood,” as if the issue didn’t revolve around illegal squatters that have been working for the past 50 years to steal the buildings from their Jewish owners; as if it weren’t well known that Hamas and Fatah are openly exploiting the legal battle to justify their new terror campaign against Israel.
If that weren’t enough, Sullivan also “encouraged the Israeli government to pursue appropriate measures to ensure calm during Jerusalem Day commemorations.”
As Israel Hayom‘s Ariel Kahana reported, Ben-Shabbat didn’t take Sullivan’s hostile dressing down in silence. He responded appropriately, “As the sovereign, Israel is handing the events responsibly and in a measured way despite the provocations.”
Ben-Shabbat added, “International intervention serves as a prize to the rioters and their dispatchers that had hoped that international pressure would be exerted against Israel.”
Less than 24 hours after their phone call, Hamas proved Ben-Shabbat right. With a tailwind from the White House, Hamas gave Israel an ultimatum: Remove your security forces from the Temple Mount and Sheikh Jarrah by 6 p.m. or you’ll regret it. In other words: Give up your sovereignty over Jerusalem by six or else.
Lo and behold, shortly after 6 p.m., air-raid sirens sounded throughout Jerusalem and its environs as Hamas attacked the capital with rockets from Gaza. As the evening progressed, Arab Israelis in Ramle and Lod and other mixed cities carried out what can only be called a pogrom against their Jewish neighbors. They burned yeshivot, schools and apartment buildings and beat and tried to lynch Jews that fell in their paths. After they were done, they went to the local hospital emergency room, threw rocks at the medical staff and patients and tried to kill the Arab Israeli doctors and nurses on the scene for “collaboration” with the Jews.
The medical staff had to evacuate with the patients to protected areas while the police dispersed the attackers with stun grenades—in the E.R.
The official readout of Biden’s national security adviser concluded by mentioning that Sullivan, “expressed the Administration’s commitment to Israel’s security.”
A bit more “commitment” like this and Israel will in short order find itself fighting a regional war.
{Reposted from the JNS website}