Jerusalem Takes Revenge

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Israel struck the Palestinian people with bitter frustration, given its persistence in killing Palestinians — men, women, and children — under flimsy pretexts and tired justifications. Some Palestinians may indeed have attacked Israeli soldiers with knives, but Israel used the knife to confirm its own accusations and justify its killing of young men and women. It was difficult for everyone to understand why soldiers were opening fire on people, particularly since knives were being thrown near the blood-soaked body, with Zionist media claiming they were the martyr’s attack weapon. In any case, in many instances the knife did not justify the killing, particularly since it would have been possible for the soldiers to subdue the attacker instead.

The Palestinian people’s morale declined in the face of these events, since Israel amuses itself killing them while they cannot mount an effective or deterrent response, and it is true some Palestinian operations against Israeli soldiers succeeded, but Palestinian sacrifices remained far higher and far greater than Zionist losses. And how painful it is for a Palestinian to watch his fellow Palestinian’s home demolished, families displaced, while a settler manages to obtain a home built on Palestinian land with total ease and under full protection.

The Jerusalem operation, carried out by the martyr Fadi al-Qunbar from Jerusalem on January 8, 2017, in which four soldiers were killed and about fifteen wounded, some very seriously, came as part of an operation of moral rescue and a remedy for some of that frustration. The operation was carried out with precision, inflicting substantial losses on the Israeli side.

It appears the martyr had put in great effort in surveillance and reconnaissance, learning the location and the scale of human presence there at various times. Through this, he managed to determine the appropriate hour to launch the attack with the truck. The moment the Palestinian people heard the news, their private and public conversations changed, smiles appeared on faces, as though everyone had been awaiting revenge and retribution for our martyrs and our homes. In Gaza, people took to the streets in spontaneous demonstrations expressing their joy at the operation, and had conditions in the West Bank been favorable, people would have done the same. People’s morale rose overall, and they felt themselves possessors of pride and dignity, and there remain, among the Palestinian people, those who preserve the people’s dignity.

The Palestinian people is neither a killer nor bloodthirsty, but, like the rest of the peoples of the earth, carries within it an instinct for self-defense and the defense of its own humanity, and if we are to explain the motives behind what happened, there is only one explanation: that occupation, in the end, produces its own negation, carrying within it, ultimately, the seeds of its own demise. Occupation is a continuous aggression by night and day, and in itself invites those living under it to rid themselves of its yoke and eliminate it — and were it not for this continuous aggression, Palestinians would never shed blood.

It is the occupation that bears responsibility, and it is terrorism in itself. According to American definitions of terrorism, Israel is the state that uses force to dominate civilians in order to achieve political gains, and in this American sense it is terrorist, and everyone who supports it is a terrorist. As for the Israeli prime minister’s claim that ISIS carried out the attack, it is refuted, since there is no evidence supporting this claim. Had ISIS carried it out, the truck would have been laden with deadly explosives. The accusation against ISIS serves as convenient material for Israel to mislead the world about the reason a Palestinian would carry out such an operation.

Israel has tried, over the years, with the Palestinian Authority’s help, to give the world the illusion that it is not an occupying state, in order to improve its image, and this operation came to remind the world that Israel still occupies Palestine, demolishing its people’s homes and displacing them outside the country. Netanyahu made a failed attempt to improve Israel’s image, and if anyone believed him, it is the states that support his terrorism and their media.

As for the scene that most undermines Israel’s prestige, it lies in the flight of the soldiers who were present at the scene. The world saw the video capturing armed soldiers of the Golani Brigade — considered one of Israel’s most important combat brigades — fleeing before the truck to save their own skins. And as some media outlets reported, it was an armed Israeli civilian who confronted the martyr Fadi al-Qunbar. This confirms what many observers of Israeli affairs keep repeating: that Israel’s army is no longer what it once was, that the army of the state-building phase no longer exists, replaced by an army made up of soldiers clinging to life and comfort, who do not believe it is their duty to make sacrifices. The standards of loyalty and belonging have changed for Israel’s soldiers, swept along by the currents of modern life focused on pleasure and comfort, and fleeing has become part of Israeli military culture.

Israel’s soldiers fled before Hezbollah’s forces, screaming and crying out for help, and fled too in the Gaza Strip before the forces of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. They will certainly flee in any coming military confrontation, and it is necessary for the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance movements to capitalize on this Israeli trend, which reflects a declining level of military discipline and commitment.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “القدس تنتقم” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.