U.N. Security Council Holds Emergency Meeting Over Palestinian Violence

The U.N. Security Council is holding an emergency meeting on the violence in Jerusalem on Friday, as a wave of Palestinian knife attacks and the burning of a Jewish holy site intensify into what some believe is a third intifada, or uprising.

Israeli citizens have armed themselves against these attacks at the urging of their government, which has deployed the largest security presence seen since the Second Intifada in 2002.

The Palestinians, of course, think the U.N. should be investigating the Israelis, who made the mistake of defending themselves against these attacks. “Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, has called on the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions to carry out an investigation into what he called ‘state-sponsored killings of several Palestinians during the past few weeks,'” reports Germany’s Deutsche Welle. 

DW also says a pro-Palestinian rally was planned for Berlin on Friday, although the Central Council of Jews in Germany called for the government to step in and block the rally. “There should be no place in our country for such undisguised anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel,” said council president Josef Schuster.

The tortured language deployed by Western media organizations to coddle the Palestinians is amazing. DW tries to explain the wave of knife attacks, which have involved children as both attackers and victims, as follows: “The violence was sparked by Palestinian anger over what was seen as Jewish encroachment on Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound. It is a holy site also for Jewish settlers as the location of two biblical Jewish temples.”

In reality, the Israelis did not “encroach” on the mosque, and did not change anything about Temple Mount policy, until the current violence prompted them to announce on Friday that men under the age of 40 would be temporarily barred from the site. False Palestinian propaganda alleging a secret Jewish plan to desecrate or destroy the mosque was circulated over the past month to incite violence.

The dirty little secret is that the Palestinians are angry because more Jews have been visiting the Temple Mount lately, not because they have reason to think the Israeli government is planning to change the rules. On the other hand, the Palestinians just demonstrated their regard for Jewish holy sites by burning down Joseph’s Tomb.

The Obama Administration is still trying to prop up the Palestinians, after the disgraceful acceptance of their propaganda by Secretary of State John Kerry and spokesman John Kirby, and the AFP news service pitched in to help:

“No amount of frustration is appropriate to licence any violence anywhere at any time. No violence should occur. And the Palestinians need to understand,” [Secretary of State Kerry] told NPR News in a radio interview to air Friday.

“President Abbas has been committed to non-violence. He needs to be condemning this, loudly and clearly,” said Kerry, who plans to travel to the region “in the coming days” to try to calm tempers.

Abbas has called for peaceful protest, but frustrated Palestinian youths have defied attempts to restore calm.

Abbas has not been working to calm things down. He spread a lie about the Israelis executing a Palestinian boy in the street for no reason, even though the youth in question was (a) involved in a knife attack against an Israeli boy of the same age, and (b) not dead, or even injured by the police — he got hit by a car while fleeing the scene of the crime. In fact, he confessed to his role in the terror attack from the Israeli hospital bed where he has been receiving treatment from neurosurgeons. He said his cousin — who was shot by the police after attacking them – talked him into it.

Abbas’ Fatah party has been circulating posters glorifying these knife attacks and calling for violence to “redeem” the al-Aqsa mosque. Fatah joined with the even worse killers of Hamas to call for a “Day of Rage” on Friday. AFP decided to conceal this ugly reality by reporting that unspecified “Palestinians” were “calling for a day of protests.”

Israel has reinforced its police with military troops, and increased the security presence at public places, such as Tel Aviv’s bus station. “At stops along the highway between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Hebron, a major junction to other points in the occupied territory, border police were boarding and searching every bus,” reports AFP, which does not mention that Palestinians have been targeting buses and bus stops, because they bunch soft targets together for easy stabbing.

Meanwhile, Israeli citizens have been arming themselves with everything from guns (which have been flying off the shelves) to broomsticks and rolling pins. The mayor of Jerusalem has urged citizens with gun permits to carry their firearms.

This is a volatile situation, with many possibilities for both murderous attacks — it is not very difficult to knife unsuspecting people in crowded locations — and mistaken responses. AFP mentions an incident in which a warning shot was fired, and a train brought to an emergency stop, because someone shouted “terrorist!” No attackers were found, although that does not necessarily mean it was a “false alarm.”