America Yawns as Jews Die

With each passing day, it becomes a clear that Israel is experiencing a wave of terror unseen since the dark days of the second intifada over a decade ago. There have been stabbing incidents on the streets of Jerusalem and even now in other parts of the country. Snipers, gasoline bombs, and gangs armed with lethal rocks are assaulting Jews driving on the roads in the West Bank. But as the toll of casualties rises, the reaction from the U.S. government and the international media is cool, detached indifference. The best the State Department can do in reaction to the attacks is to issue a lukewarm denial that it will abandon Israel at the United Nations. Meanwhile, the New York Times publishes a feature on the possibility of a third intifada treating the number of casualties on both sides as equal even though one total is of the victims of terror and the other includes slain terrorists.

But as the Palestinians seem to be succumbing to a form of mass madness in which much of the population seems to be joining in a mass game of “kill the Jew,” onlookers would do well to ponder to what extent their lack of a response is responsible for the escalation of the violence.

Let’s concede that the prime responsibility for bloodshed by both Jews and Arabs in the past weeks belongs to the Palestinian leadership. Over the past year, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has been guilty of cynically attempting to feed Muslim paranoia about the fate of the mosques on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. The Israeli government has sought to preserve the current status quo on the sacred plateau and forbade Jewish prayer while also continuing to allow the Muslim Wakf to run the area even if that meant turning a blind eye to its massive vandalism with respect to ancient artifacts, especially those that illustrate the Jewish ties to the site. It is true that some Jews wish for Jewish prayer to be allowed in what is, after all, the holiest spot in Judaism, but they are not getting their way and their only activity is to ask more Jews to visit the Temple Mount, even as they are required to avoid prayer and subjected to abuse from Muslims.