Analysis: Palestinian Incitement Encouraged the Recent Escalation in Violence

There has been a recent escalation in the level of violence between Gaza and Israel. The IDF attacked Gaza and Southern Israeli cities have been bombarded with qassam rockets. The root of this recent escalation is the level of incitement that presently exists within Palestinian society.

Life in Southern Israel as we speak is very difficult. As the Jewish people approach Purim, Southern Israel has been bombarded with qassam rockets. Bomb sirens were heard in Ashkelon, Ashdod, Yavne, Sderot, Sha’ar Ha-Negev and even Be’ersheva, where I presently live. Despite a ceasefire with Islamic Jihad mediated by Egypt, the rockets continue to rain down upon southern Israeli communities.

While so far there have not been any injuries, the disruption to daily lives in Southern Israel is quite apparent. One Israeli woman described on her Facebook page what it was like to rush her three panicked children into a bomb shelter, right before Purim. The children were horrified. While the Iron Dome significantly decreases the chances of death and injuries from these rockets, it is not 100 percent effective and doesn’t deal with the disruption caused by the rockets.

For example, 3,000 students in Ashdod could not go to school because they didn’t have a bomb shelter in their educational institutions. Even the students who did have a bomb shelter in their school were often brought home by worried parents, who didn’t want to be separated from their children in a time of national crisis. If a rocket falls while one is eating, in the shower or asleep, running to the bomb shelter dramatically disturbs the performance of these normal activities that many Americans take for granted.

This does not even include the environmental damage caused by these qassam rockets. Even when there is no property damage or human injuries, the qassam rockets traumatize the animals living in Southern Israel and destroy plant life, vegetation and trees at times, even when they land in open areas. This does not even include post traumatic stress disorder and other psychological damage caused to humans living in the rocket zones, which the Iron Dome also doesn’t address.

Many Americans are probably pondering why there was a recent escalation in violence in recent days. Some claim that the Islamic Jihad was upset that Israel raided an Iranian ship full of weapons. Others allege that the Islamic Jihad was disturbed that Israel harmed some of their terrorists. Yet, the most compelling explanation is that the Islamic Jihad members, much like the Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, are indoctrinated to hate Jewish people by their societies and they will use any excuse to escalate the level of violence with Israel.

Two days ago, senior Palestinian Authority official Abbas Zaki, who is not even an Islamist like an Islamic Jihad member, stated on PA TV, “These Israelis have no belief, no principles. They are an advanced instrument of evil. They say, the Holocaust, and so on — fine, why are they doing this to us? Therefore, I believe that Allah will gather them so we can kill them. I am informing the murderer of his death.”

If these are the types of statements emanating routinely from the relatively moderate Palestinian Authority—the party that is interested in negotiating with Israel only in exchange for freeing terrorists and even then, is not willing to commit to recognizing Israel as a Jewish state—the level of propaganda is drastically worse inside Gaza. Here, the Islamist Hamas and the even more radical Islamic Jihad, which broke off from Hamas because they felt Hamas was too complacent to Israel, dominates.

The Center for Near East Policy has documented that the Palestinian educational system in Gaza is full of anti-Semitic propaganda, including in UNRWA schools that are funded by American tax dollars. A report from the Center for Near East Policy stresses that members of terrorist organizations have succeeded to infiltrate into UNRWA’s staff and to teach hatred to impressionable Palestinian youngsters. The incitement situation is even more dire in Hamas-run schools, which essentially serve as terrorist indoctrination centers.

In conclusion, the only solution to the rocket situation and the violence associated with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a negotiated peace agreement. However, no genuine peace agreement can succeed so long as the Palestinian media, the Palestinian educational system, the Palestinian mosques, the Palestinian leaders, etc., are indoctrinating their people to hate Jews. Changing the reality that the Palestinian people are systematically indoctrinated to be opposed to peace with Israel should be a major American foreign policy objective.