Several major developments on the Israeli-Palestinian front may increase the likelihood of continued “lone wolf” terrorist attacks targeting Israelis combined with already planned chaos in the coming weeks. The supposed lone wolf incidents may be part of an orchestrated Palestinian terrorist crusade.
In the last few days, Israel was struck by at least three Palestinian terrorist incidents. On Sunday, a Palestinian terrorist in Jerusalem’s Old City repeatedly stabbed 32-year old Adiel Kolman, a married Israeli father of four who died of his wounds hours later. Two days earlier, two Israeli soldiers were murdered and two more were wounded in a Palestinian car-ramming terrorist attack outside the Mevo Datan settlement in the West Bank. On Thursday, three explosive devices detonated near the Gaza-Israel border.
Friday’s car-ramming attack took place on the 100-day anniversary of President Trump’s historic announcement that the U.S. would move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Israel’s capital city.
The uptick in terrorism follows calls by Palestinian terrorist groups to escalate violence ahead of both the U.S. embassy move scheduled for May and Israel’s Independence Day celebrations starting April 18. The attacks also come less than two weeks before Jews worldwide are set to celebrate Passover.
As Breitbart Jerusalem reported, Hamas is prepping to throng the Israel-Gaza border with thousands of protesters leading up to this year’s Independence Day, which marks the 70th anniversary of the Jewish state’s founding.
The terror stabbing and car-ramming rampages were described by some news media outlets in Israel as “lone wolf” attacks. However, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman may have been spot on when he noted earlier this week that “there is no such thing as ‘lone wolf terrorism’.”
“This is terror supported by Abu Mazen (Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas) and the Palestinian Authority, which pays money to the families of the terrorists. We will stop them,” he declared.
Indeed, Abbas’s official propaganda outlets have been broadcasting incessant incitement against Israel, with Breitbart Jerusalem documenting numerous examples from the past few days alone. Last week, Abbas met and congratulated a terrorist released from Israeli prison after serving 20 years for complicity in the murder of an Israeli in Jerusalem’s Old City.
While it remains unclear whether there was any official organizational involvement in the most recent spate of terrorist attacks, it cannot be ignored that the PA has a long and sordid history of escalating terrorism whenever there is a major effort at resuming negotiations aimed at creating a Palestinian state.
There have been widespread reports that the Trump administration is close to releasing a blueprint for an Israeli-Palestinian deal. The PA has responded to those reports with a campaign of verbal assaults on the Trump administration. On Monday, Abbas himself took the unprecedented step of calling a sitting U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, a “son of a dog.” This after longtime chief Palestinian negotiator and Palestine Liberation Organization Secretary General Saeb Erekat wildly accused the Trump administration of seeking no less than the “liquidation” of the Palestinians. For good measure, an official from Abbas’s Fatah faction described Trump as “mentally unstable” and a “racist.”
Besides the terrorism from the last few days, Israel’s security agencies have thwarted scores of attempted attacks that could have been deadly. Many of those attempted attacks, including 200 reportedly thwarted in the past two months, were also described as “lone wolf” in nature. Questions need to be asked about whether the increases in terrorism and attempted attacks are related to the possibility of renewed pressure on the PA to come to the bargaining table. Virtually every other major negotiating attempt was met with Palestinian intransience and terrorism.
Israel offered the Palestinians a state with territory in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem at Camp David in 2000, Taba in 2001, the Annapolis Conference in 2007, 2008, and during U.S.-brokered talks in 2013 and 2014. In each of these cases, without any exception, the Palestinian Authority rejected Israel’s offer of a state and bolted the negotiations. In most cases, they countered statehood offers with major escalations in violence, including infamously launching the deadly Second Intifada, or terrorist war, in response to the Camp David peace talks.
Regardless of whether the PA was involved in the latest attacks and terror attempts, their hysterical reaction to the possibility of a forthcoming Trump Mideast plan once again exposes what is plainly clear for all to see — that the PA is uninterested in peace. Instead, they seek the path of destruction.
Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.