A day will come and there will be a brave leadership here that will say: Jerusalem and the Temple Mount are all ours
At some point, Jews will be able to exercise their right to pray in the holy place as they wish.
And as long as the month of Ramadan is a month of violence, terrorism and anti-Semitism, it is the Muslims who will find the mountain gates locked in front of them.
Kalman Liebskind
23/04/2022
Saturday, 23 April 2022, 21:00 Updated: 22:11
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In the video: The police disperse rioters on the Temple Mount in gas drones (according to section 27A on social networks)
At the end of this week a big thank you to the Arabs.
Again and again we evade having to explain to ourselves what we are doing here, and what Jerusalem is for us.
Again and again they do not allow us to escape.
On quiet days, we must admit, the escape is easy for us.
On days like these we can tell ourselves that if only there had been no "occupation" in Jenin, and if only we had not upset the Palestinians, and if only we had not sought to ascend to Eviatar or settle the Chumash, everything here would have been peaceful and calm.
But then, whenever it seems to us that the formula we invented proves itself, the Arabs come and remind us of what Shlomo Zalman Zoref, the grandfather of Yoel Moshe Salomon, who was murdered by Arabs back in 1851, understood in the course of his activities for the building of Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is the heart.
Is the center.
Is the cause of the reasons.
Our ancestors dreamed of it in the East and the West, in Morocco, Poland, and Ethiopia.
And we, who won, what do we do?
Assist enemy propaganda.
We explain that when Arabs burn a Jew's property in the Shimon Hatzadik neighborhood, it is because that Jew stuck a finger in their eye.
And when they riot en masse and attack the Ministry of Justice building, it's because we were wrong when they were not allowed to sit on the steps at the Nablus Gate.
And marching in our capital with the national flags, a few hundred meters from the town hall, is an annoying provocation.
And that land redeemers from the Elad Association or Ateret Cohanim are extremist settlers who all want to burn the Middle East.
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Rioters in al-Aqsa Mosque, June 2021 (Photo: Reuters)
But then, as mentioned, every time we get confused, the Arabs come - from Umm al-Fahm to Ramallah, from Taibeh to Gaza, and shout "Al-Aqsa".
Do not lie to yourself, they warn us.
Do not tell yourself stories.
The battle is over Jerusalem.
On the Temple Mount, in the heart of Jerusalem.
About the place that is the historical and national justification for the existence of the Jew here.
And we, for our part, can continue to bow before them, hoping they will spare us.
To allow their instigators to enter the mountain without interruption, and to wave the flags of Hamas and ISIS, and to praise the martyrs, and to turn the mosques into bases for attacks on Israeli police officers and Jewish worshipers at the Western Wall.
We can also continue to harass Jews who ascend the mountain, as if the danger comes from them.
But none of this will calm the Arabs until it is clear to everyone that the holiest place for us is theirs.
Riots in al-Aqsa Mosque.
Last week (Photo: screenshot, from Twitter)
And as mentioned, they push us against the wall and force us to decide.
It may not happen soon, but it will.
There will come a day after which we will have no choice, and we will have to explain to ourselves what brought us here, after the long exile, and what the Holy City is for us.
When this day comes, and there will be a brave Jewish leadership here, not one that humiliates itself in bowing trips to the Jordanian king asking him to help us run the holy place for us, we will make clear to the world what was supposed to be taken for granted.
Our whole Jerusalem, and our entire Temple Mount, and from this place, and only from this place, of the homeowners, we allow every Muslim to pray as he pleases.
And we will have to clarify, on this day, when it comes, what should have been simple and clear.
As long as the Muslim place of worship is used for violence and terrorism, the Temple Mount will be closed to Muslims and open to Jews.
Only for Jews.
Because when there is violence and there is terrorism, as strange as it sounds in the current situation, it is the violent who will pay the price, and not the victims of the violence.
And we need to clarify that the idea that a quiet place is a place where there are no Jews, is a matter that has been tried in the past in Europe, and we have no desire to copy it here, to the Jewish state.
Washed language
A few weeks ago, a news item that reached overseas gained real respect in a central place in the Channel 12 newscast. It happened after unknown individuals spray-painted the graffiti "FUCK JEWS" on the wall of a Jewish restaurant in New York.
"An antisemitic graffiti has been spray-painted on the Israeli 'Miriam' restaurant in Manhattan in recent days," the waitress reported, after which the reporter told the story of the act, interviewed the restaurant owner and its operations manager, and also presented a report from Fox News. The event, and further added that local politicians came to support the restaurant and that our consul in New York increased to do and came to eat at it.
Let it not be incomprehensible, I totally applaud the News 12 who devoted two and a half minutes in the front of the edition to this event.
What else?
That such events, with an antisemitic scent, occur here, here in Israel, on a daily basis.
Sometimes Arabs attack Jews with stones, sometimes with Molotov cocktails, sometimes they set fire to their vehicles, and sometimes they beat ultra-Orthodox people who travel on the light rail or walk on their way to the Western Wall.
And these events, almost always, fail to break into the newscast.
Not of Channel 12, nor of the other channels.
The question arises what is it, in anti-Semitism, that makes it important for journalistic prominence only when it is overseas?
One of the explanations, I suppose, comes from habit.
A Jew who is attacked in the Land of Israel is part of a boring routine.
A Jew attacked in New York is still an intriguing story.
There are of course more explanations, and I would like to offer one of them here.
When a Jew is attacked in New York, we can all afford to express a clear position regarding what has been done to him, without getting into a political debate.
On the other hand, a continuous report of Arabs attacking Jews on a daily basis in the Land of Israel will force us to reflect on their hatred, their terror, and the illusion of the possibility of living alongside them peacefully.
These are all issues that editors of editions are not always happy to flood.
In the video: Palestinians with Hamas flags demonstrate on the Temple Mount (according to Article 27A on social networks)
Here's a little example.
On the evening of the first holiday, I listened in the car to the news at 22:00 here on Net B.
The news began with a report on a "terrorist armed with a knife, a resident of the village of Silwad," who was caught near the fence of the settlement of Beit El.
The news editor was careful not to attach the word "Arab" to the detainee's description, although in this case this detail is important, and yet it is the kind of case in which the editor can be given a small discount.
After all, when we are called a "terrorist", we all understand what group he belongs to.
The following news item said that the Magistrate's Court in Haifa extended the detention of a 15-year-old girl from the city who stabbed a 47-year-old man on a nationalist background.
Here it is already more jarring.
After all, we know that the girl is an Arab, that the stabbed person is a Jew, and that this is the background to her deed.
So why save us these simple facts?
Wait, it's not over.
Later, in the exact same news, another report arrived, which told of the arrest of a 22-year-old young man, a "resident of the Negev," who threw stones at vehicles on the Arava road.
A test I did the next day confirmed what any radio listener could assess, that this was a guy from the Bedouin diaspora.
If so, why not tell us this explicitly?
Helplessness
This story is not the story of the media.
This story is the story of a state, a government, a police force and a judicial system, which are unable to define aloud who the enemy is.
Why?
Because it's not pleasant for them.
Because it does not sound good to them.
Because it sounds racist to them to say that there is a war on this country, and the enemy is a Muslim Arab enemy.
It is easier and more pleasant to think that the Palestinians want peace, except for a few terrorist organizations that interfere with them, and that Israeli Arabs want coexistence and peace, except for the one who enlisted in ISIS from Sakhnin, and those who enlisted in ISIS from Umm al-Fahm, who stain everyone.
I mentioned in one of the previous columns the hollow texts distributed by senior government officials after the attacks, in an acrobatic attempt to condemn the attack without saying who carried it out, why it was carried out, and against whom it was carried out.
This is how Minister Amar Bar-Lev is convinced that the terrorists' goal is "to harm our attempts to celebrate the spring holidays."
This is how Minister Merav Michaeli is sure that the terrorists only want to harm "peace and normalcy."
This is how Minister Nitzan Horowitz found, after the attack in Hadera, that the terrorists are a "common threat to Jews and Arabs."
And so Minister Yair Lapid, the inventor of the game, "How to explain why the Arabs murder Jews, without saying 'Arabs' and without saying 'Jews'."
In previous attacks he explained that the terrorists intend to harm us "in the fabric of life", and make us "hate and be angry with each other".
This week, a member of Lapid's party, Vladimir Blyak, tweeted that he tried to make fun of anyone who today criticizes the Shura Council for holding the fate of the government, but living in peace for years with right-wing governments "that were completely dependent on the Council of Sages and Rebbe Magor" MK Blyak, who chose this comparison a moment after the Islamic Council decided to boycott the coalition amid police activity in the face of the violent Arab riot, looks like an outstanding student of his party chairman.
For him, it does not matter whether it is Jews or Arabs, those on our side or those on the side of the enemy.
If there are two councils here, and both have religious people, then we have business with similar organizations.
So it is true that when there is a struggle between us and the terrorists, one council creates a political crisis following the attack on the terrorists, and the other council sings psalms for our success, but as far as the MK from Yesh Atid is concerned, they are all the same. The Temple Mount is an unforgivable act that goes against the spirit of the religions we believe in. "Do you understand? There are several religions here, we are not specific to anyone, we have no preference for anyone specific, we are not fans of any of the groups, By the association to ensure that the game is run properly.
Just like Ehud Olmert, who explained this week in IDF waves that "the brave and responsible decision had to be made - in a situation where there is tension, there will be no ascent of Jews to the Temple Mount during Ramadan.
There will be no disaster, and it will prevent the cause of looking for jihadist elements to ignite the area. "
Our fear of calling the enemy by his name, our fear of him in general, and the confusion that grips here too many factors in the avenue that runs the country, are what bring us again and again to the same situation.
He who does not know how to define the enemy and is not ready to fight to defeat him, will find himself once every few months helpless, not understanding why this is happening to him.
And so, an entire country, with its security forces, is holding its breath, every year, to see what the Muslims have prepared for us this time for Ramadan.
Will there be lynchings among the Jews this time as well?
Will Jews be stoned in the streets of Jerusalem?
Will bus passengers in the capital be injured?
And maybe synagogues will burn again?
Stop understanding
It seems to me that the formula needs to change.
The legends about the Palestinians that apart from some terrorist organizations want peace, should be put aside.
The same should be done with regard to stories about Israeli Arabs, who, with the exception of a few weeds, strive for quiet coexistence.
After tens of thousands of Israeli Arabs fought us in the events of 2000, after the masses participated a year ago in lynchings and stone-throwing and assaults and arson, after dozens of terrorists who left Israeli settlements, after this public repeatedly votes for people who support Jewish murderers and see themselves as Palestinian representatives in the Israeli legislature. , It's time to change perception.
To see in the Arabs of Israel those who identify with the struggle of the enemy in us.
A small part goes out and kills himself, the other part claps his heart, another part goes out to demonstrations and waves the enemy flags, and another part just declares that he sees himself as a Palestinian and expects us to understand.
Need to stop understanding.
This understanding rises in our blood, and rises in the images we saw in Lod and Acre a year ago, and in the images from Be'er Sheva and Hadera a month ago, and in the images of stone-throwing in Nazareth and Umm al-Fahm and Bir al-Maksur and in Jerusalem this week.
True, it should not be generalized and those who oppose terrorism and want coexistence should be treated as such, but everyone else has no choice but to treat with suspicion.
What do you do with this insight?
First of all, we change our perception and deduce everything from it.
There is a difference between those who demonstrate against vaccines or in favor of an increase in the allowance for the disabled, and those who demonstrate with the Palestinian flag in Haifa.
True, everyone is protesting, but only one of them is an enemy.
Who is a terrorist?
Interesting to interest in the same matter.
A few weeks ago I wrote that "not all Arabs are terrorists, but all terrorists are Arabs."
Several readers, including journalists who tweeted on Twitter, expressed their bewilderment at the things.
After all, for every thousand Arabs' attacks on Jews, there is one Jew in the Arabs, but even this one attack cannot be ignored.
Hence, how can one say that "all terrorists are Arabs"?
The wonderers are divided into two, some of them innocent but confused people.
Another part chose to function as a neutral side judge in the battle between us and the enemy.
For these and those, here is the simple explanation.
The phrase "terrorist" did not come to describe a person who murdered or attempted to murder.
After all, we are all familiar with heinous murders in which no one thought of giving the killer the title "terrorist."
Thus, for example, the person who murdered the girl Rose Fizem and threw her body in a suitcase into the Yarkon River did a shocking act, but he is not a terrorist.
Who is a terrorist?
A terrorist is someone who harms a Jew / Israeli as part of his war in the State of Israel / Zionism / the Jewish people.
The killers who shot in Hadera several weeks ago are terrorists.
The killer who stabbed people in Be'er Sheva is a terrorist.
Ami Popper, who murdered seven Palestinians, committed a horrific act, but he is not a terrorist.
He is a criminal offender who has committed serious, serious and horrific offenses, but that does not make him a terrorist.
Cops in a confrontation on the Temple Mount.
June 2021 (Photo: Reuters)
There is a story here of a state that was established in the homeland of the Jewish people, and in the enemies who are trying to fight it, its citizens, and the Jews in general.
Whoever is part of this war is a terrorist / enemy.
Others are not, and it has nothing to do with the seriousness of their actions.
I have a suspicion that anyone who seeks to call a "terrorist" any person who harms another member of a religion or another nation does not do so out of verbal innocence, but seeks to look at our struggle here as a positionless observer, watching events from the sidelines, like a Barcelona fan watching In the Tel Aviv derby.
Some Jews, some Arabs, some hurt, some hurt.
If it had started and ended with some leftists and some journalists, fine.
But when we understand that this is the point of view of the police, the judiciary and some of the senior members of our government ministers, we more easily understand how we got here.
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