But Hamas – the Iranian-backed Gazan branch of the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist organization – was never concerned with niceties. Or with protecting the sanctity of Jerusalem. And it definitely doesn’t care about the sanctity of life.
The rockets were fired from Gaza on May 10, as thousands of Israelis flocked to the city to celebrate Jerusalem Day, the day marking the reunification of the capital in the 1967 Six Day War. The aim was obviously to injure as many people as possible, either in a direct hit on the revelers singing and dancing outside, or by causing a stampede as the sirens wailed.
That Muslim residents of the city could also be hit or hurt does not bother Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad or any of their ugly siblings. That’s how the martyrdom belief system works – a collateral casualty can immediately be pronounced a “shahid.”
Terrorists’ willingness to be martyred – or to turn others into martyrs – is one of the reasons Islamic terrorism is so hard to fight.
On Saturday night, rioters on Temple Mount – where some 100,000 Muslim worshipers gathered on one of the holiest nights of the Muslim calendar – used makeshift weapons to attack police, who responded with riot control tactics. The Arabic chants spoke not only about “liberating al-Aqsa” but also liberating Tel Aviv. The rockets on Tel Aviv, indeed, soon followed.
At least seven people have been killed in Israel by Hamas rockets and missiles as I write these lines, including a five-year-old boy in Sderot. Hundreds have been wounded and thousands traumatized. The Iron Dome anti-rocket missile system that had so effectively protected Israelis in previous rounds of rocket fire continued to provide protection – but it is not failsafe.
Between Sunday evening and Wednesday morning, more than 1,000 rockets were fired by Hamas and PIJ in what was described as the largest barrage on the Tel Aviv metropolitan area in the country’s history. There was also massive rocket fire targeting Beersheba, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Dimona and communities close to the Gaza border.
The first Israeli fatality of the current round of hostilities was largely overlooked: 19-year-old Yehuda Guetta died of his wounds last week a few days after a drive-by terror shooting attack at a bus stop at Tapuah Junction in Samaria. Last week also saw the start of a renewed wave of incendiary balloons launched on southern communities.
Residents of the center of the country were taken by surprise at the mammoth bombardment of their cities on Tuesday night but the warning signs were there. When terror strikes Jews in Judea and Samaria and the western Negev, it doesn’t stay there.
Israel’s political and security establishment seemed to think it could rely on a principle of deterrence gained in the 2014 Operation Protective Edge, but there is no deterrence if sporadic rocket fire, knife and shooting attacks and scorched earth tactics meet with no serious response.
Periodically, Hamas attacks Israel and is rewarded with a cash inflow of Qatari funding. I wouldn’t mind if Gazans were to scatter dollar bills over Israel. That wouldn’t hurt like rocket attacks. Why waste the money on missiles? From Hamas’s point of view it’s a win-win situation – it can continue to claim poverty while using the money on trying to destroy the Jewish state rather than tending to the welfare of the citizens of the Palestinian quasi-state in Gaza.
EVERY WAR – and this is war – has certain images that stand out. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen photos of gazelles trying to flee the flames in a burning field – their habitat and food supplies burning in the background; yet again we saw helpless babies, newborns, being moved from the neonatal unit at Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon to the hospital’s underground shelter; there were shellshocked residents of buildings that had been hit by rockets – shattered windows and shattered lives – and the pain contorting the faces of the grieving as they buried loved ones.
This week there new powerful and distressing images – images of coexistence going up in smoke: The photos of Torah scrolls being removed from a torched synagogue in Lod; a popular restaurant in Acre in flames; cars on fire on the road to Beersheba.
For this war was unlike others. There were rockets aplenty in 2014 during Operation Protective Edge and the previous mini-wars with Hamas in Gaza. And there were Arab-Israeli rioters blocking roads, attacking police and drivers in the Second Intifada in 2000. But the combination of rockets and uprising to this extent was unprecedented.
“Is this Lod or Lodz?” asked one resident who had witnessed a pogrom-like attack in the city close to Tel Aviv. Particularly painful was the way that in mixed Jewish-Arab neighborhoods where previously polite if not good relations existed, Jews locked themselves into their apartments and turned out the lights as masked, rampaging Arabs threw firebombs into homes and looted Jewish-owned businesses. By Wednesday, a state of emergency was declared in the city with a nighttime curfew and border police, trained in riot control, brought in to back up the regular police officers, who proved outnumbered and unable to cope.
On Tuesday night, Meretz MK Esawi Frej made a passionate plea to his fellow Arab-Israeli citizens, saying: “The anarchy on the streets of Lod, Ramle and elsewhere threaten us as a society” and adding, “Jews and Arabs are neighbors, not enemies.”
MK Mansour Abbas, whose United Arab List (Ra’am) has been considered a possible kingmaker in latest round of post-electoral coalition building, issued a similar call to refrain from violence and preserve the rule of law and order.
MKs from the other Arab parties did not speak out against the violence loud enough to be heard over the sounds of the rocket alert sirens – if they spoke out at all.
Despicable vigilante-style attacks by Jews on Arabs have been rightly condemned by President Reuven Rivlin, the Sephardi Chief Rabbi and MK Bezalel Smotrich, who heads the Religious Zionist Party, among others.
The escalation came just as Israelis of all types should have been celebrating life – the COVID crisis is largely over (at least for now) thanks to the vaccination campaign that reached citizens of all faiths. Muslims this week marked the end of Ramadan; Jews next week celebrate Shavuot (Pentecost). Instead of wishing each other a happy holiday, this year neighbor warily eyes neighbor. Hamas-fostered hatred is as dangerous as the novel coronavirus.
Israel named its campaign against the Hamas aggression “Operation Guardians of the Walls.” Hamas has codenamed its hostilities “Operation Sword of Jerusalem.” It’s more than a war of words. While both focus on Jerusalem, there’s a world of difference.
Temple Mount, where the First and Second Temples once stood and where al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock now stand, is Judaism’s holiest site and Islam’s third holiest. Using it as an arms arsenal is a desecration. Every rocket indiscriminately launched on Israel from Gaza is a war crime. Scorched earth in the wake of incendiary balloons is ecoterrorism.
Israel has the right and duty to respond to these attacks, as Defense Minister Benny Gantz noted. The world needs to stand with Israel as it fights back. Don’t be fooled. Israel is the front line in this war. When terrorism is not truly deterred, it spreads.
liat@jpost.com