On March 6, a 19-year-old Arab from East Jerusalem arrived at the Huta Gate in the Old City, pulled out a knife, stabbed a policeman and then was killed.
The Jerusalem District Commander, Superintendent Doron Turgeman, arrived at the scene and concluded with standard dryness: "The attack is another reminder of the threats that the Jerusalem police face in the routine of operational activities. (...) We must continue to be alert and ready 24 hours a day. Anyone who harms police officers or civilians, for the safety of Israeli citizens. "
Forces at the scene of a terrorist attack in Jerusalem, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
This response, logical as it may be, did not satisfy Homeland Security Minister Amar Bar-Lev.
Although the attack ended in two lightly wounded policemen and a dead terrorist - a good result considering the alternatives, it was heartbreaking to feel that something was missing.
A little balance, maybe?
"Jerusalem District David police officers quickly and resolutely ended this morning's attack and eliminated a terrorist after stabbing one of them," the minister tweeted according to standard, then gave his special number: The police and the border guard will be alert and ready. "
While readers are impressed by the guidance of the security forces, the question still crept into the hearts of some of them: Who the hell are the "extremist forces" that the minister placed in front of the terrorists?
The Israeli public has a close and ongoing acquaintance with terrorists: from suicide bombings, shooting attacks, stone attacks, stabbing attacks.
Since the establishment of the state, some 3,000 Israeli civilians have been murdered by Arab terrorists.
When the minister writes "terrorists" we know who he means.
Not so with the extremist forces.
Did he mean Jewish terrorists?
It is hard to believe, because if we count the victims of Jewish terrorism, it is doubtful that we will reach 100, about a third of them from the massacre in the Cave of the Patriarchs.
How many Jewish terrorists are there?
How many terrorist organizations?
If they are the "extremist forces" that the minister was referring to, then they have not given enough work to balance the "terrorists" column in the equation.
The scene of the attack in the WC, Photo: Dudu Greenspan
It is possible that in the minister's mind, the "extremist forces" are potential Jewish terrorists, that only a harsh hand from the government and a foreign-funded "settler violence" campaign prevent it from materializing, but in his mind they are an existential threat no less than Arab terrorists.
This is a position he also bothers to export, for the sake of seeing the world and being careful.
In December, Minister Bar-Lev met with US Secretary of State Victoria Noland.
He clarified that the State of Israel takes settler violence seriously and that it intends not only to eradicate the phenomenon, but also to "ensure that IDF soldiers know the instructions more clearly in situations where Jews encounter violence against Arabs." And Samaria are incessant attempts by Jewish settlers to harm the peace-loving Palestinian population.
He may not receive regular reports of stones, Molotov cocktails and agricultural destruction that the Arabs routinely carry out there.
The "extremist forces," if I may assume, are the settlers of Judea and Samaria.
And their assistants.
Something like that.
And they, like their mirror image, the terrorists, participate in the field-burning circle equally.
Minister of Internal Security Amar Bar-Lev, Photo: Dudi Vaknin
Less than two weeks later, Jerusalem recorded two more stabbing attacks: one when a Jew who went for a run near the station compound encountered the drawn knife of a 20-year-old Arab extremist force. By Arabs from the Jabal Mukaber neighborhood.
Bar-Lev, still having a hard time saying goodbye to the concept of "settler violence", nevertheless realized that it was wrong to stab passers-by and / or police officers, and again took to Twitter to tweet his Talmud:
"The stabbing attacks in the last day are another example of damned terrorists and extremist forces continuing to try and undermine our attempts to celebrate the spring holidays for the first time in two years without restrictions," the minister began, hurting the embarrassed reader's ability to admire the promise of determination at the end of the text.
The lynching in Bat Yam, Photo: AFP
Even in the face of the accursed terrorists, the extremist forces are a suitable counterweight.
But the last time evidence of such "extremist forces" was recorded was the lynching in Bat Yam in 2021, and it was also an unusual event, at a time when thousands of Westerners in Israel went on a riot in the mixed cities and roads of the country, during which three Jews were killed.
265 policemen were injured, more than 1,000 suspects were arrested.
There are no Jewish extremist forces that have reached such numbers, but the columns in Bar-Lev's head are stronger than reality.
In his desperate attempt to seek symmetry, and fueled by what appears to be a burning hatred for part of the Jewish public (what part? Well, extremist forces. You will already understand alone), Bar-Lev also abandoned Judaism itself.
The damned terrorists, hand in hand with the extremist forces, will try to harm the "spring holidays."
In Bar-Lev's Israel, everyone celebrates spring, each in his own way.
In so doing, he despises both Judaism and Islam.
Also, for the sake of simplicity, he abandoned the heartbeat of the beginning of the month, the one that still recognized the fact that during Ramadan there is an Arab tendency to increase the output of terrorist attacks.
As far as historians are aware, Jews do not tend to carry out terrorist attacks against Arabs during the Passover period, unless they count the murder of children in order to bake matzah.
According to the data, the last time an extremist force was prosecuted for such a Jewish spring worship was in 1911, in Kiev.
The defendant, Mendel Baileys, wins, but may not have been heartbroken.
Ramadan is not a spring holiday.
The Muslim calendar is based on the moon, so every year Ramadan finds itself elsewhere across the Gregorian calendar.
Bar-Lev's ignorance of the Islamic holiday is understandable, since he is not a Muslim himself.
It is a little harder to understand why in the eyes of a minister in the Jewish state, Passover is not a Jewish holiday at all.
It may be necessary to remind him that Passover is not a local spring holiday.
Passover is a central part of the great story of the people of Israel, and its departure from slavery to freedom for the journey to the Promised Land.
Or as Bar-Lev sang on Seder night: "In the departure of extremist forces from Egypt, a house of settler violence from a foreign people."
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