Arab media - and governments? - signal their displeasure with the knife attacks

Over the past day, at least a dozen Arabic newspapers, mostly out of Jordan and Egypt, published articles about a Salafi preacher who is against attacking Jews and even soldiers in Israel.

Jordanian preacher Ali Hassan Al-Halabi said, in response to a question, that it is not permissible to kill Jews in Palestine as "there are shari'a agreements that protect people's rights and lives."

Even in regard to attacking soldiers, he says:

Let me ask you a question. Does this man, who walks down the street with a gun, kill every Muslim he sees? ...Our brothers in Palestine tell us that the Jews do not attack anyone who does not attack them. Nobody should say that by my saying this I am defending the accursed Jews, but this is the reality. If they killed any Muslim they saw, nobody would be left in Palestine. All the people would leave Palestine. They would flee to other countries. But the people there stay put - in the 1967 territories, in the 1948 territories, in Jerusalem. They remain there, with the Jews around them with their weapons. You see (the Palestinians) killing the Jews, who only kill (Palestinians) when they are attacked.

But like I said before, the Jews only do this out of wickedness and heresy. They have principles. They want to be able to say, "We are better than the Muslims who kill us unprovoked. We don't do that.

The original video, however, was released last February.

So why the sudden coverage now?

The articles are saying that it is becoming popular on social media, but Arab newspapers won't publish just anything. They are sending a message.

I have not seen enthusiastic support for the current stabbing spree in wider Arabic media, and it seems that by reporting on this Salafi preacher now, a message is being sent to Abbas: this behavior is not acceptable and it makes Arabs look bad.

There has been a growing feeling over he years that Arab nations are sick and tired of the topic of Palestine, especially since the other Arab nations have much bigger issues to deal with than to spend so much time pretending that Israel - the mot stable country in the region - is the cause of all of their problems. They might hate Israel and Jews but they know that they are not threatened by the Jewish state. And the level of whining from the Palestinians is way out of proportion to their actual situations, which are in many way better off than those of middle class Arabs throughout the region.




The Arabs are sending a message by publicizing this video -  this time,  the PA cannot expect as much support for its role in incitement and murder from their fellow Arabs.

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