(Times of Israel) David Horovitz - Eden Atias, conscripted into the Israeli army just two weeks earlier, was fast asleep in his seat on a bus inside Israel when he was knifed over and over by Hussein Rawarda, a Palestinian consumed with hate who happened to be sitting next to him. This assault demonstrates an atmosphere and a mindset evidently prevalent among at least some Palestinians in the West Bank that leaves no room for optimism in the short-term. Rawarda deliberately ended the short life of a young man about whom he knew nothing, who had never done him any harm. Killed Eden Atias because he was an Israeli. Killed him because the opportunity to kill him presented itself. Right now, day after day - in Gaza and the West Bank, and in countries all across the region - millions of young minds like that of Hussein Rawarda are being gradually poisoned. Children are being persuaded by those they trust that all Israelis, most certainly including uniformed young Israelis helpfully asleep on the bus, must be culled. The insistent approach of the international community is to focus almost exclusively on the imperative to tackle the problematics of the settlement enterprise, while doing next-to-nothing to tackle the carefully cultivated, pervasive negation of Israel's legitimacy among Palestinians. That approach constitutes an absolute guarantee that peace efforts will never succeed. The main enemy of Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation is the hatred for Israel that is being nurtured daily in the hearts of so many in the West Bank and Gaza - the constant peddling of the narrative that says Israel has no right to exist.
2013-11-29 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive