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March 17, 2016 Special Dispatch No. 6350

Columnist In PA Daily Praises Attacks In Israeli Cities, Slams U.S. For Condemning Them

March 17, 2016
Palestinians | Special Dispatch No. 6350

On March 8, 2016, during U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel, an American tourist was killed and 14 Israelis and tourists were wounded in three terrorist attacks that took place in Jaffa, Jerusalem and Petah Tikva. Rajab Abu Suraya, a columnist for the PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, praised the attacks in his March 11 column. He wrote that the attacks were important because they took place not in the occupied territories but rather inside Israel proper; thus, they brought the fight to Israel's home front, and conveyed the message that "the Palestinian people will not die and will not rest until it removes the Israeli occupation with its bare hands." Abu Suraya also criticized VP Biden for condemning the attacks, saying that he had condemned the victims rather than Israel, the occupier and the executor. He added that the U.S. has never supported the oppressed in the world and always acts in the service of Israel.

The following are excerpts from the article.[1]


Rajab Abu Suraya (image: Shasha.ps, February 12, 2016)

The Attacks Were Important Because They Took Place Inside The Green Line

"Following the three attacks that took place last Tuesday [March 8], Israel's Minister of Public Security, Gilad Erdan, its police chief and the heads of its security apparatuses held an emergency meeting to assess the situation. [After the meeting] they announced that the three attacks had been uncoordinated and had probably been [private] initiatives of individuals. This is not a new conclusion of the Israeli security forces, but the importance of these attacks lies in the fact that they came after a long period in which there was no [event of] three attacks occurring on the same day. Even more importantly, all three occurred inside the Green Line: in Jerusalem, Petah Tikva and Jaffa. This is very important, because Israel has made a habit of turning the Arab and Palestinian territories into the battle zone, so that the economic damage be sustained by the other side [and not by Israel itself].

"...[These attacks come] almost six months after the start of the Jerusalem Awakening [i.e., the current wave of attacks], even though there are restraining elements on both the Israeli and the Palestinian sides that prevent this awakening from becoming a comprehensive intifada. So far, the clashes have not spread to all the [Palestinian] cities and villages, and apart from young men and women, no other sectors are taking part in them] The means, too, have not been expanded to include firearms, as happened in the second intifada, for example.

"Shifting the battle zone into [the region] inside the Green Line means that the fire has reached Israel's fingers, [the fingers] that are burning everything in Jerusalem and the West Bank, and that [Israel's] field executions[2] - by now over 200 of them - cannot continue without having repercussions [for Israel itself]..."      

The Attacks Convey A Message: There Will Be No Security Inside Israel As Long As There Is No Security In The Territories

"The common denominator of the three attacks that the Israeli authorities discussed [was that all three took place during] the visit to the region by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who met that evening with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Out of their awareness [to the importance of] resistance, the attackers tried to send a clear message to the U.S. administration, that the continued Israeli occupation in Palestine is a keg of gunpowder that could set the entire region on fire, and that Israel will not be secure as long as Palestine is not safe and secure.

"Surely, the death of the American tourist was not what caused Biden to demand an end to what he called 'terror' so that the political process could be renewed. [By 'terror'] he obviously meant the ongoing Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation - and this is a reversal of the correct picture and a travesty of human justice, [for] all the monotheistic religions, as well as the UN, sanction resistance against occupation by all possible means, including through armed struggle."

The U.S. Is Condemning The Victim Instead Of The Occupier  

"The U.S. has never supported the oppressed or the liberation movements [in the world]. It supports some of the peoples in the region in toppling some of the regimes, and does not hesitate to do so despite hundreds of thousands of fatalities. Why [then] would it condemn the death of a handful of [Palestinians], or even dozens of them, on the altar of liberation from occupation by the most terrible tyrannical regime in the entire world[?]

 "Since the Americans are accustomed to selling empty words to the Palestinians, in Ramallah Joe Biden repeated [the call for] a two-state solution, strengthening Netanyahu's occupying and murdering hands. He  condemned neither the occupation nor the settlements nor the field executions - only the victims' resistance and the mosquito's attempts to annoy the lion.

"Biden's visit would not have been important or worth writing an article about if it hadn't been for the three simultaneous attacks. The important point is that the attacks occurred inside the Green Line, and thus conveyed a message that the Palestinian people will not die and will not rest until it removes the Israeli occupation with its bare hands, and imposes justice and equality among the residents of the region. Biden and Obama will continue to throw dust in some people's eyes, and will continue to spew many empty words in order to continue serving Israel by [helping it to] curb the French initiative [for the establishment of a Palestinian state] and perhaps even in order to promote [the campaigns of] the Democratic presidential candidates [in the U.S.]..."

 

Endnotes:

[1] Al-Ayyam (PA), March 11, 2016.

[2] "Field executions" refers to the killing of attackers in the course of the attacks.

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