Monday, May 15, 2023
Elder of Ziyon
On Saturday, there was an incident that is depressingly familiar:
A Palestinian man who allegedly attempted to stab Border Police officers at a checkpoint in the northern West Bank was shot dead on Saturday afternoon.A Border Police spokesman said the suspect ran toward the checkpoint near the settlement of Shaked, known as “checkpoint 300,” while brandishing a knife.“Border Police troops operating at the crossing fired at the terrorist and neutralized him,” the spokesman said.The Palestinian Authority Health Ministry identified the man as 33-year-old Ahmed Muhammad Atatreh, and said he had died of his wounds.
"Lone wolf" stabbing and car ramming attempts that result in the death of the attackers happen about once a week; there have been at least 13 of them this year.
But the perpetrators of these attacks have different demographics than the Palestinian terrorists killed in arrest raids. They are usually older, often with families of their own, and they are sometimes women.
These incidents happen often enough that the attackers know very well what is going to happen. The soldiers they attack will almost never be injured, and the attackers will probably end up dead.
It doesn't take much thinking to realize that these aren't terror attacks. They are suicides.
If you are a troubled Palestinian, with emotional, relationship or money problems, traditional suicide is not an option. It is a major sin in Islam; Muslims who commit suicide are taught that they do not enter Paradise, and a suicide would bring shame on the rest of the family.
But martyrdom is the opposite: it is honorable, and brings honor as well as monetary compensation to the families.
There are two guaranteed consequences of these attacks: the attackers will be honored as heroic martyrs, and their families will get a guaranteed income from the Palestinian Authority.
Suicidal Palestinians have an easy decision on how to kill themselves: one path towards shame and hellfire, and the other towards honor, Paradise, and guaranteed family income and security.
Although this is only a theory, it seems to be a compelling one. There are huge disincentives to traditional suicides and giant incentives to "suicide by IDF." The way to verify it would be if the media would investigate the personal lives of the would-be stabbers and car rammers to see what their family situations were like, what their personalities were, and to dig beyond the relatives claiming that they were angry at Israel to see of there were any other things going on in their lives.
But, of course, no media bother to do that. Even though they have enormous resources at their disposal - look at how they reported on Shireen Abu Akleh's death - as far a I know, no mainstream media have ever investigated the circumstances of these attackers' lives.
And the reason for that is just as obvious: they have a narrative of Israeli evil, and they have no desire to disprove what "everybody knows." Especially when doing so would bring the exact dishonor to the victims that they were trying to avoid.
This is another example of media bias by omission. And the world only sees the simplistic lies of desperate Palestinians driven to act by how terrible their lives are under "occupation."
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