This article originally appeared on The Media Line.
Jerusalem was quiet on Wednesday, a day after Palestinian attackers killed three Israelis and wounded more than 12 others. Police said that in the late afternoon, a young Palestinian attempted to stab an Israeli policeman near the Old City, and the attacker was shot and killed. The Palestinian Ma’an News Agency reported he was 14 years old. In the West Bank town of Bethlehem, another young Palestinian was killed in a clash with Israeli soldiers.
The Rami Levy supermarket chain, which has branches in the West Bank, and which employs both Jews and Palestinians, announced it would stop selling knives in its stores, according to the Israel National News website.
In Jerusalem, Israel deployed hundreds of extra police and sent army units to major cities to beef up forces. Israel also sealed off several Palestinian neighborhoods and police checked Palestinian ID’s throughout the city.
Israeli officials went on the offensive against the Palestinian Authority, accusing it of systematic incitement against Israel.
“What sends young people out with butcher knives to attack Israelis?” Dore Gold, Director-General of Israel’s Foreign Ministry asked a news conference? “It emanates from incitement, particularly religious incitement. The incitement surrounds the false accusation that Israel seeks to change the status quo on the Temple Mount.”
Gold was referring to a Jerusalem site that Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary. Palestinian attackers, who have killed seven Israelis this month, have been fueled by rumors that Israel wants to change the status quo at the site, which allows Jews to visit but not to pray there.
“We said and I am repeating it now in the name of the Israeli government and Prime Minister,” Minister for Strategic Affairs Yuval Steinitz told the news conference. “We are committed to the status quo on the Temple Mount. We are defending the holy sites of religions in Jerusalem.”
Steinitz said that the young Palestinian attackers, using knives, have been inspired by Islamic State’s beheadings in Syria and Iraq.
He charged that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is behind the current wave of incitement, quoting statements by Abbas in September saying “We welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem,” and “They (Israelis) have no right to desecrate the al-Aqsa mosque with their filthy feet.”
Steinitz says that statements like these can be directly connected to the violent attacks.
“We hear again and again the slogan, “Itbah al-yahud”, “Kill the Jews, knife the Jews, death to the Jews in the name of Allah, in the name of defending Islam, in the name of defending the al-Aqsa mosque,” he said. “This is not new. It’s just a new way of terrorism and violence and this time it’s totally clear that the main approach here is a religious approach – defending Islam against the enemy of the mosques, against the Jews.”
For their part, Palestinian officials have complaints against the way that Israel has handled the current wave of violence. Palestinian officials say that in several cases, Palestinian attackers were killed after they had already been subdued and when they no longer posed a threat.
“The occupation has spread a culture of hate and racism that justifies all kinds of atrocities, including collective punishment and cold-blooded executions,” Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said in a statement. “It’s the Israeli government that has made clear to the Palestinian people, both in actions and statements that they refuse to end their belligerent occupation and will do everything possible to erode the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.”
Steinitz dismissed these claims as nonsense, and said that in some cases Palestinians have tried to attack a second time, even after they were lying on the ground.
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