Before we get confused again, before we construct another flawed paradigm on Gaza, before we bring the Palestinian Authority to Gaza instead of Hamas, or be tempted to believe President Joe Biden and ourselves that the Palestinians in the West Bank are "something else," we should look at the bare fact right in front of us; we should know how to distinguish between an enemy and a hater, and between an ally and a collaborator.
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You would think that in the wake of the massacre and the horrors of Hamas, things take on a different meaning, since our threshold to what is "tolerable" and "normal" has changed. But the truth is that nothing has changed: If only they could, the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria – whether it's Hamas, Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, or the Popular Resistance Committees – would perpetrate the same acts against the Jews in Petach Tikvah, Kfar Saba, Lod, Ramla, and Afula.
It hasn't happened yet, but not because of a lack of desire or attempts. It has not happened because hundreds of terrorist acts and attempted mass killings of civilians got thwarted almost daily over the past two years by the Israeli security services and the IDF. Authorities tend not to release all the specific figures so as not to stir panic, but now it might be worth reconsidering.
In any case, in order to understand what "a two-state solution" means and what its implications could be, there is no need to open the files of the pogroms that were thwarted. It's enough to take a quick look at the terrorist attacks they did manage to carry out. While they may not be on the same scale as what happened in the Gaza Strip, the nature, style, and cruelty are identical.
Hallel Yaffa Ariel, a 13.5-year-old girl, was slaughtered in her bed in her home on the outskirts of Kiryat Arba with a knife. Ori Ansbacher, a 19-year-old, was raped and brutally murdered in Jerusalem, and then her body was mutilated. He killer gloated in his trial that "raping and murdering a Jewish woman is the most important thing I have ever done." The Fogel family from Itamar was murdered in their home shortly before Purim in 2011. Yoav, 10, and Elad, 4, were strangled and stabbed, and Ehud and Ruth, their parents, who tried to save their children, were stabbed repeatedly in their neck, throat, and abdomen. The three-month-old baby, Hadas who was found because she was crying,, was also killed by the Nazis (now it is acceptable to call them that).
On one Saturday night, a similar massacre took place in the Salomon family's home in Halamish. Esther Horgen was killed with a rock that crushed her skull. Shalhevet Pas, who was less than a year old, was executed in her stroller by a sniper. Kim Levengrond Yehezkel was tied up in the Barkan industrial zone and was then shot to death.
The reactions in the Palestinian Authority to the massacre on October 7 neatly dovetail with this new Nazism. Abdel-Rahman Abu Arab, a member of the Fatah in Jenin, defined the morning of the massacre as a morning of joy, victory, and pride, and blessed the "heroic martyrs in Gaza." Abbas Zaki, a member of Fatah's Central Committee who had already admitted that "the goal is the end of Israel," praised Hamas for the attack and threatened to crush the skulls of all the Jews and Americans in the region. Jamal al-Huwail, a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council in the Palestinian Authority, promised a big surprise in the West Bank and hoped that the horrors in the Gaza border communities would be replicated there as well.
An official document from the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs again used the Hadith that incites to kill Jews "who hide behind stones and trees," and in some mosques, this recommendation was adopted. For example, in Nablus, an Imam praised Hitler; in a nearby town, swastikas were spray-painted along inscriptions glorifying Hamas military wing leader Muhammad Deif and not only there. What about Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas? He, in his usual manner, has tried to have it both ways: condemned, then retracted, then amended and then mumbled.
So please, we should not equivocate on what's at stake, lest we once again get wedded to a flawed misconception.
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