According to the Shin Bet, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine cell was behind the attempted attack on March 9, when a makeshift bomb was planted on a bus in the Beitar Illit settlement.The explosive malfunctioned at the time and did not cause any injuries. The settlement went into lockdown for several hours as troops searched for the suspects. A day later, the military arrested a Palestinian accused of planting the bomb, along with four others in the West Bank town of Battir.The Shin Bet on Monday said the PFLP cell planned to carry out additional attacks.The investigation of the terror cell also revealed the involvement of the PFLP leadership in the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon, which allegedly directed the cell to carry out the attempted bombing, as well as attacks by other terror cells, the Shin Bet said.
Today, in the US, Israel and Europe, we are seeing high levels of partisanship where many people care more about countering their political opponents than about finding common ground.
Palestinians have no such problems.
The PFLP is an avowedly socialist, secular party. Their Leftist philosophy is the polar opposite of the far-right ideas behind Islamist groups like Hamas or Islamic Jihad. The two sides have nothing in common on fundamental issues like women's rights or the role of religion in politics. They couldn't possibly build a functional state together.
But if you look at the PFLP and other Leftist Palestinian websites, you won't find any public disagreements with Hamas, and Islamist websites won't say a negative word about the Leftists groups like the PFLP and DFLP. In fact, there is cross-pollination in rhetoric between the sides- the Islamist sites have adopted the Leftist terminology of "resistance" and "liberation" while the Leftist sites regularly use decidedly religious terms like "martyrdom." Both Hamas and the PFLP sent speakers to a conference in Algeria this past weekend.
The only thing they have in common is their shared hate of Jews.
And no, it isn't anti-Zionism. It is Jew-hatred.
The PFLP website, today, defends Mahmoud Abbas for saying that historic persecution of Jews including the Holocaust is because of their "social behavior," such as usury.
The PFLP website, today, contains sentences like "Since ancient times, the Jews have been active in exaggerating their history, and repeating lies claiming that they are the only superior race, the intelligent race, and the chosen people" - and this is in an article that attempts to distinguish between good anti-Zionist Jews and the 95% who are bad.
The PFLP website, today, espouses the classic blood libel, claiming that Jews historically killed Christian and Muslim children to use their blood for religious practices.
Both the Islamists and the socialists insist that they aren't antisemitic at all - but scratch the surface and their Jew-hatred shines through. It is clear that even the avowedly socialist PFLP's supposed "anti-Zionism" is just a front for their hatred of Jews - if they were truly against antisemitism, their blood-libel article would have caused an outrage and been taken down immediately.
And that Jew-hatred is the only thing that keeps them allied.
|
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. Read all about it here! |
|
