The attacks began right around the time Israelis celebrated the High Holidays. Seemingly at random, Palestinians, many of them young, began stabbing Jews with knives in what has come to be known as the knife intifadah.
But for Middle East analyst David Hazony, the attacks are not random, if by random you mean something that comes out of the blue. No, Hazony said, these attacks have a genesis. There’s a straight line that can be drawn from the current round of terrorist attacks back to the attacks on Hebron in 1929, and even to the Farhud pogrom on Jews in Baghdad in 1941.
What you have here, Hazony said in an interview with The CJN, is a continuation of a violent, rejectionist, genocidal Palestinian aggression first laid in place by the mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. That’s the same Palestinian political and religious leader who Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu credited with inspiring Hitler to murder the Jews. Netanyahu may have been too quick to attribute Hitler’s crimes to the mufti, but in his own right, the cleric set in place the Palestinian agenda that Israelis are experiencing today.
Hazony, managing director at the Israel Project, a Washington, D.C. think-tank, and editor of The Tower magazine, was in Toronto last week to address students at the Anne and Max Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto and give a lecture at Adath Israel Congregation. That speaking engagement was co-sponsored by the shul and B’nai Brith Canada. Shimon Fogel, CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, introduced Hazony at the synagogue and moderated the event.
Looking at the latest round of terror attacks in Israel, Hazony said it’s about what you could expect from young Palestinians who have been bombarded with anti-Semitic propaganda in their school textbooks and on the media their whole lives.
“When an 18-year-old stabs a 70-year-old woman, this is the product of a generation of kids raised under the Palestinian Authority, indoctrinated to hate Jews and to see Jews as a legitimate target of violence,” he said.
People should not be surprised that this is the legacy of a government created by former PA president Yasser Arafat, who was inspired by al-Husseini and who created a governmental authority in which demonizing Jews is taught in schools. Preparing Palestinians for war, not peace, is the goal.
Contrary to media interpretation of events, the purported expansion of settlements has nothing to do with it, Hazony maintained. In fact, in the same week that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited Israel and criticized settlement expansion, Ha’aretz published a report that found expansion under Netanyahu was lower than under any previous Israeli leader.
Hazony urged supporters of Israel to do their best to correct popular misconceptions about the reality on the ground and to influence the overall narrative about the dispute. For years the Israeli-Palestinian story has been framed by Israel’s opponents, who refer to the country as an illegitimate, apartheid state and vilify it at every turn.
Instead, “we need to arm ourselves for this battle… and understand the reality.” Learn the facts, he advised, and make the case that Israel is a flourishing culture with an expanding economy whose numerous achievements are improving the lot of millions of people around the world.
Addressing the Iran nuclear threat, Hazony said the majority of the U.S. Democratic party supports the P5 + 1 deal, but it has divided the Jewish community. Mainstream Jewish organizations, such as the Anti-Defamation League, are “skeptical” about it, while J Street backs it.
U.S. President Barack Obama cites J Street in making the case for the deal while also adopting some of its rhetoric in criticizing Israel, including the argument that the country’s own policies are not consistent with Jewish values.
Hazony suggested that while the United States continues its military co-operation with Israel, Obama has “created daylight” with Israel on a number of fronts and criticized its policies.“Obama and Kerry have emphasized narratives about the conflict that are not helpful,” he said, referring specifically to the critique of Israeli settlements.
Expanding on that theme, Hazony said the United States has also alienated other longstanding allies in the region, including Egypt and the Gulf States, while at the same time it has worked closely with Iran.
At the heart of that policy is a desire to scale back U.S. involvement in the region and cede the role of regional power to Iran.