This story originally appeared on themedialine.org.
In the wake of the most recent spate of violence that is reverberating through Israel and the Palestinian territories, newspapers, television and street corner debates are all focusing on the issue of incitement – albeit perhaps more in an effort to assign blame for the increasing loss of life and soaring anxiety than to address ways of reducing tension. Each side reacting to the other’s ire with a sense of disingenuousness and anger, Israelis and Palestinians risk the rapid erosion of the most successful elements of post-Oslo Accord: joint security cooperation.
As is typical in the course of debates over the efficacy of the use of force to subdue armed resistance, many opine that a political solution is the only realistic course of action for ending the violence, a position expressed by Dr. Ghassan Khatib, a former spokesman for the Palestinian Authority and labor minister. According to Khatib, both sides are correct when they accuse the other of incitement the level of which, he says, increases or decreases according to the state of relations between the two leaderships.
“When things are tense, incitement will increase. When there is an active peace process, it will decrease,” Khatib told The Media Line.
But following Tuesday’s synagogue shooting that left four Jewish worshippers and a policeman dead, fear is spreading among Israelis who believe much more bloodshed is in the offing, and who see the shootings, stabbings and motor vehicle attacks on pedestrians as premeditated terror while many Palestinian see the same incidents as predictable and for many, justified, responses to Israeli actions against Palestinians.
PLO Executive Committee member Dr. Hanan Ashrawi told The Media Line that Israel itself is responsible for the surge of violence. “We have been cautioning against Israeli actions for the longest time. We said they will generate violence and create instability for Israel.”
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to stop the incitement, accusing him of proffering “blood libel.” This despite Abbas’s condemnation of the synagogue killing.
On the Palestinian street, the death of Yousef Al-Rimouni, a 32-year old bus driver for Israel’s Egged cooperative, is a clear case of murder by Israelis and casus belli for the synagogue slaughter despite findings of suicide resulting from an autopsy conducted by Israel’s chief medical examiner and witnessed by a Palestinian doctor appointed by the Al-Rimouni family. The incident came after a mosque was torched, apparently by right-wing Jews intent on claiming revenge for acts committed by Palestinians.
Hamas, which praised the attack with a call for more “operations” to be carried out against Israeli targets, endorsed a cartoon that depicted a Palestinian wearing a koffiyeh (traditional Arab headdress) and dressed as a religious Jew, holding a knife dripping with blood, with bodies of Israelis on the ground above a caption that read: “show them to me.”
In the Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam, commentator Hassan Al-Batal criticized violence on any side, writing, “…nothing justifies the torching of a mosque of a terror attack on a synagogue even if there are multiple reasons and some will call these heroic deeds. A terrorist attack on a synagogue is a terrible and dangerous act.”
As for Fatah, while Abbas came out in condemnation of the synagogue shootings, a Fatah Facebook posting praised the attack. But Gaza based Palestinian journalist Saud Abu Ramadan believes the posting is not indicative of the larger organization. “The factions have their own agenda, have their own ideology and are certainly not going to be friendly with what the Israeli occupation is doing to them,” he told The Media Line.
Khatib agrees that it deserves little attention. “Fatah is a huge movement that has never been unified. It could have been an individual that did that. The posting doesn’t say much.” Taking a shot at Netanyahu, Khatib added that he wishes the Israeli prime minister “can be as successful in restraining various Israeli officials from inciting violence.”
Nevertheless, in commemorating the 10th anniversary of Yassir Arafat’s death, the Fatah-aligned Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade warned Israelis that, “Our bullets will continue to be aimed at your chests and heads.”
Fatah spokesperson in Gaza Dr. Fayez Abu Atia says the most important element is that “Abbas does not support it.” He did acknowledge that Palestinians were inciting violence against Israelis because they were “emotionally affected by the acts and provocations of Jewish settlers in the West Bank.” He also said that Israel was responsible for this new wave of violence and “that a major part of the incitement problem is from Mr. Netanyahu,” adding that “It’s the Israeli media that encourages settlers to attack our people.”
Yoram Cohen, head of Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security agency disagrees with those who accuse Abbas of inciting to violence. He said the PA president was not inciting what he called “acts of terror, overtly or covertly” but that these attacks were driven by “subtler forces.”
Abu Ramadan sees incitement in the words of rightwing Israeli politicians Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett. Lieberman recently called plans by Abbas to go to the United Nations to pursue world recognition of the Palestinian state a “terror attack”; and Bennett has called for a military operation in east Jerusalem in response to the recent attacks perpetrated by residents of that part of the city.
Referring to restrictions barring Palestinians from the holy site Muslims call Al-Haram Al-Sharif [and Jews call The Temple Mount] during times of violent demonstrations, Abu Ramadan admonishes that, “every action has a reaction” and incitement is a result because it has “pushed them to carry out equivalent campaign.”
On other websites, Israelis expressed outrage at the site of Palestinians celebrating over the synagogue attack. But officials claim it’s not the voice of the majority. According to Ashrawi, “We do not condone acts of violence against any civilians.”
On the other hand, some 300 Israeli right-wing activists protested at the entrance of Jerusalem and Jaffa Road following the synagogue attack calling for “Death to Arabs.”
Meanwhile, for both Palestinians and Israelis, Khatib says “it’s not easy to correct the non-official media or individuals from doing it (incitement), be it Palestinian or Israeli.”
