By Herbert London President, London Center for Policy Research
In the international effort to undermine Israel every avenue of attack from the military to the cultural is being employed. The Arab world is continually stirred to a frenzy pitch on imaginary or exaggerated threats. Palestinian Authority President Abbas (seemingly president for life) spread the unfounded incendiary rumor that Israeli settlers were “desecrating” Al-Aqsa Mosque and noting “we must stop them (the settlers) from entering by any means possible.” But there isn’t a scintilla of evidence that this claim is true?
When Mahmoud Abbas maintained that Jerusalem should be inundated with massive Muslim tourism in order “to preserve its Muslim nature,” Sheikh Qaradawi repudiated this idea arguing instead that visiting Jerusalem is forbidden so long as it is under Israeli occupation; “Jerusalem must be liberated by force and not by ‘tourism’.” As al Qaeda sees it “Jerusalem is the capital of the imminently approaching Islamic Caliphate.”
These threats and the ever present hostile rhetoric create hateful responses. An intifada or the signs of it are breaking out in Jerusalem. Hundreds of young Palestinians have been arrested for the use of “cold weaponry,” such as stones, Molotov cocktails and light explosives. All of the assailants exhort the slogan of “popular resistance” preached to them by the Palestinian Authority President Abbas, even though those in the Obama administration insist on calling him “a moderate.”
None of these recent outbursts is surprising after Abbas’ speech in the United Nations in which he accused Israel of waging a “war of genocide” in the Gaza Strip. Needless to say, Abbas did not mention the thousands of rockets fired into Israel before war commenced.
On October 22 Chaya Zissel Braun, a three month old infant, was killed when a Palestinian man slammed his vehicle into a crowd at a light rail stop in Jerusalem. Nine people were injured, three seriously and one woman died from her injuries. Hamas took credit for this heinous act.