The Jerusalem synagogue attack should not be the tipping point

World leaders, including US President Barack Obama, have condemned Tuesday’s attack in the Kehilat Bnei Torah, at Har Nof, in West Jerusalem where two Palestinian cousins killed five people — four Jews who were praying and a police officer — and injured eight others.
Daniel Carmon, Israeli ambassador to India, too condemned the attack saying: “Incitement and the glorification of terrorists by the Palestinian leadership is a fast track to violence and terror itself...We must take every effort to delink religion and terrorism, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi said himself in the Australian Parliament on Tuesday.”
This spike in attacks against Jews in Israel should be of concern to all who hope to see an end to the tension in the region. Tension has been brewing for some time now after news spread that Israel had plans of altering the present arrangement of prayers at the Temple Mount, revered by both the Muslims and Jews. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied any such plans and said that Hamas has been spreading these “lies”.
It is encouraging that Mahmoud Abbas, President of the state of Palestine and chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), has condemned the “acts of violence no matter their source”, but as Netanyahu has said it “is not enough”. To bring any semblance of peace back to the region Abbas has to do more than express shock and regret, especially at a time when such acts of terror are pushing the holy city to the brink. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is the second largest PLO member, has claimed credit for Tuesday’s attack further putting pressure on Abbas.
If the recent attacks in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem can be attributed to lone wolf attacks by disgruntled Palestinians, Tuesday’s attack stands out for the planning that seems to have gone behind it. The Kehilat Bnei Torah in Har Nof is in a Jewish locality and unless there was extensive planning the cousins could not have attacked the synagogue.
While Netanyahu has promised to “settle the score with every terrorist” both sides must be careful to not let Tuesday’s attack set off a string of attacks on worshippers — as in February 1994, when a US-born Jewish doctor killed 30 Palestinians in a mosque in Hebron and in March 2002, when a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 30 civilians and injured more than 140 during a Passover seder in Netanya.
(This appeared in the Hindustan Times on November 20)

Israel's plans for more settlements will not help

                                                                                                    By: Ilia Yefimovich

The West Asia peace process can at best be described as one step forward and two steps backward — and this time it appears to be only steps backward. After the West Asia peace talks, initiated by United States secretary of state John Kerry, failed in April, both Israel and Palestine have been extremely jumpy when it comes to each other. Tensions broke out on June 12 after three Israeli teens were kidnapped. Their bodies were found in Hebron on June 30. Two days later, on Wednesday, a Palestinian teen was kidnapped and a burnt body believed to be of the boy was found later in the day. Clashes broke out between Palestinian protestors and Israeli soldiers in East Jerusalem, which has been held by Israel since the 1967 Mideast War. Following the abduction of the three teens, calls for ‘revenge’, like the one from Israel’s Kfir brigade, have vitiated the atmosphere further.
At a time when much of the Arab world was witnessing unrest — from Syria to Egypt to Iraq — Israel and Palestine were relatively calm. The recent abductions and killings are set to change things for the worse if reasonable reactions and policies do not prevail. With violence growing over the past two days there are fears that it might lead to a third Palestinian intifada. World leaders have criticised the killings. The United Nations and the Obama administration have condemned the killings but it’s highly unlikely that US President Barack Obama will actively step in, as his reluctance to engage in Iraq and Syria show. Meanwhile, Palestinian leaders have accused extremist Jews of the abduction and killing of Mohammed Abu Kheider, the slain Palestinian teen.

                                                                                           Reuters

As a first step towards easing tensions between the two, Israel must refuse to go down the road of collective punishment as it has done often in the past. The massive Israeli search exercise for the three teens led to hundreds of arrests and the death of five Palestinians. To worsen this volatile climate, earlier this week Israel announced a wave of new settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem — Israel’s housing minister, Uri Ariel, has called this move a “proper Zionist response” to Palestine’s new unity government. This is not a step in the right direction. This will not help the cause of peace or bring stability to the region. The Palestinian authorities, on their part, must rein in the extremist groups on their side.