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Saturday, November 14, 2015 | by Bassam Tawil

Originally published by Gatestone Institute under the title “Bankruptcy and Mud”. Republished with permission.

The pictures of an armed Israeli soldier who did not strike back when he was viciously attacked by Palestinian women and children, amazed many Arab bloggers. (Image grab from TOI YouTube video.)

Palestinian bloggers were amazed when Israelis protested the cruel slaughter of chickens in poultry-packing plants, and during epidemics. “If only we Arabs,” they wrote, “who kill people cruelly and wholesale, cared as much about people as the Jews care about animals.”

Civilian cameras often record events of startling cruelty carried out in Arab countries, in areas of conflict. We often hear Arabs privately saying, “The Zionists have never done to us what we do to ourselves.” This is usually said by Syrians, who have hated the Jews for generations, when they give their thanks for the medical treatment they receive in Israel. Despite the hatred fostered by Hamas, after the most recent military operation, many Gazans admitted that the IDF did in fact warn civilians before attacking terrorist targets protected by “human shields.”

The pictures of an armed Israeli soldier who did not strike back when he was viciously attacked by Palestinian women and children in Nebi Saleh, amazed many regional bloggers. “If such a thing had happened to us,” they wrote on Twitter accounts, “the soldier would have killed his attackers without hesitation.”

As a Palestinian, I know that such situations are produced by Palestinians whose ability to stage them is professional and I know the source of their income. They cynically exploit the Israeli political “left,” and enlist photographers to document the events for European-funded “Pallywood” media manipulation.

Every Palestinian youth knows that the weekly riots at the “traditional friction points” serve as social events, later used by Palestinians operatives for propaganda. Often, in the finest Hollywood tradition, parties are held after the “conflict action scenes.”

The festivities sometimes include sex and drugs with the blond, blue-eyed volunteers from abroad, to celebrate another successful encounter with the Israeli security forces.

The escalating Palestinian riot routine takes into consideration that risks are few, because of IDF restraint in dealing with “civilians,” as we saw in Nebi Saleh when the Israeli soldier who was attacked and bitten did not respond with gunfire to defend himself. Israel’s restraint only makes the slaughter, rape and expulsion of Muslims at the hands of Muslims seem all the more vicious.

Many of the bankrupt European countries hostile to Israel now find themselves faced with a massive influx of Middle Eastern and African refugees. They are the brothers and sisters of the hundreds of thousands of murdered Muslims and the millions of refugees in tents, with only Allah ( s.w.a.t) to pity and protect them. Many die in leaky boats, in a desperate attempt to reach the safe shores of Europe. Those who do make it safely, join the Muslims in the Islamic enclaves where they have been plotting against their hosts for years.

The West has waited far too long to wake up to the realization that the Palestinian problem is not the cause of regional events. Therefore, The West’s obsession with forcing a “solution” on Israel and the Palestinians will change nothing for the better, it will only expand the catastrophe to the doorstep of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the only islands of security and stability for Arabs, Christians and Jews in the Middle East.

In the shadow of the calamity of the refugees, we are slowly understanding that the issue of the return of the Palestinians to “Palestine,” which we hang on to so frantically, is an anachronistic, politically manipulated mirage. There is nothing to be done but settle the descendants of the original Palestinian refugees as part of the overall settlement of all the Middle Eastern refugees — if, that is, our Arab brothers ever succeed in extricating themselves from the swamp of the “Arab Spring.”

What is strange is that the Gulf States, particularly Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which fund Islamic terrorism and pay the salaries of the radical clerics who incite murder and destruction, are silent when it comes to accepting refugees into their countries. Saudi Arabia has hundreds of thousands of empty, air-conditioned tents at its disposal, used only during the hajj pilgrimage. They could help shelter the millions of Sunni Muslim Syrian and Iraqi refugees. But Saudi Arabia does not open its gates to them, not even to a small number.

Now, by accusing each other for our refusal, hesitation and rejection of every proposal that might bring the Israelis to the negotiating table, we have finally managed to put an end to the “problem of Palestine.” As our elders have said for years: “Falastin [‘Palestine’ in Arabic] begins with falas [bankruptcy] and ends with teen [mud].”

Bassam Tawil is a scholar based in the Middle East.