Reason, Logic, Humanity Denied

How do you make peace with a people whose instincts, culture and continual incitements lead to ongoing attacks against your existence? Those who see you not as like themselves and worthy of consideration as other human beings, but as impediments to their own aspirations and existence. The primeval gut instinct inbred in humans to distrust to the point of violent hatred those unlike themselves alive and well in the Middle East.

Where tribalism and sectarian religious strife among Arabs have always contributed to violence and unrest; from bellicose warning to vicious slaughter as clan and tribe and versions of religious adherence traditionally led disparate groups to war one upon the other. What brings the various Muslim states together is the presence of a non-Muslim state.

The single unifying principle that brings all the factions together in agreement is the presence of an historical group quite unlike their own with another religion entirely in the geography. Land held to be consecrated to Islam is not to be tolerated for use of others who worship another religion. Even if that other religion pre-dated Islam and the presence of the Palestinians.

And then the cries of Allahu Akbar! ring out. As occurred when a group of settlers set out to worship at Joseph's Tomb in the West Bank without first contacting the IDF to accompany them, pre-arranging with the PA military to allow Jews to access their holy site. The settlers, in a convoy of vehicles, sought to spontaneously, without notifying the IDF, pray at the tomb.

"When we got back to the vehicles the police shot at the vehicles, they were screaming 'Allahu Akbar'. It was crazy, they were shooting to kill. I screamed at the driver to drive out of there quickly. When we got to Har Bracha we attended to the wounded."

But there was one death, a 24-year-old settler, father of four young children. In the Middle East, one does not take precautions lightly, spontaneity can result in death. Enraged Palestinians then attacked the funeral procession of the young father, with rocks. And then Palestinians desecrated Joseph's Tomb, as they have done also in the past.

In an interview following the killing of the settler and the wounding of his companions, Palestinian Authority security forces' spokesman General Adnan Damiri, stated that Jewish settlers "are not normal people", and as a result there was no need to issue any kind of statement that might be taken as an apology for the attack.

How does one reason with such people?